Post 9: Film review

Dear All,

we've agreed with you in class that for the next time you are going to write a film review for the film of your choice.

Here is what you should do for the next time:

1. Choose a trailer of a film you will be reviewing: https://m.imdb.com/trailers/ alternatively find a trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmsActuTrailers/videos?app=desktop
2. Watch it
3, Prepare your review: the length of your review should be about 250-300 words
4. Publish it in your blog and share the link in the thread below

I'm sharing with you a template you should use to write your review

Post-8: A new Task: to be added (27.03.2019)

Dear All,

For the next week you should do the following:

1. I'll read and comment on your works in the next day or 2, then you should look through my comments and revise your draft.

2. Read a draft prepared by one of your peers and share your comment about it with her/him. In your comment try to answer the following questions:

-Is it interesting?
-Is it logical?
-Are the arguments well developed?
-Are external resources used for support? And if yes, are they formatted correctly? You can check this by using the information about reference formatting I've shared with you https://acwr17827.blogspot.com/
-Any problems with vocabulary or grammar use?

3. I'll share a new task with you later today (27.03.19) so that you can get ready with it by the next time

Post-7: Formatting your Reference Lists

Dear All,

This post explains to you how to make references to the resources, such as journal articles, books, websites and more in your writing. As you probably know and as we are going to discuss today during the class, there are 2 kinds of references you should provide in your writing. 

The first kind of references is made in the text you are composing, and thus they are called in-text. They include the following information:

The author's or authors' last name(s) followed by the page number(s):

e.g., In his book "Crafting critical writing", the author Troy Hicks discusses different features of writing across media and genres (Troy, 4)

In the end of your work, you should have a full list of references that has information about all the resources you have used in your work. It is alphabetical and must contain the following  details: 

The author's name or authors' last name(s), year of publication, NAME of the journal/book/website, more specific details

There are several common referencing styles, which include the following:
-MLA designed by the Modern Language Association
-APA designed by the American Psychological Association 
-Turabian https://www.thoughtco.com/turabian-style-guide-with-examples-1857607
- and many more

And here is a short reference list I've prepared for you as an example. It contains a list of books on different aspects of Academic Writing:

1.  Baron, N. Alphabet to Email. Routledge, 2001.

    2. Godfrey, J. How to Use your reading in your Essays. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

    3. King, S. On Writing. A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2001.

    4. OWL at Purdue (https://owl.purdue.edu/). Accessed: 26.03.2019.
    5. Research and Citation (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html). Accessed: 25.03.2019.

    Here is another example of a Complete Reference List that you can access at https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-works-cited-pages.html

The differences between them are in the kind of details provided and how they are formatted. For the purposes of this class, we are going to use the MLA referencing style. You can access the manual detailing different features  of this style by following the link below:

https://www.library.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/mla_style_revised.pdf

In the beginning, it could be difficult for you to remember how to format your references correctly, so I think it is a good idea for you to have some practice making references correctly in your course papers and essays. Here is an exercise for you to complete: 

Go to Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/ and complete the following tasks:

I am interested in researching writing, so this is the query I formulated on Google scholar:

Task 1: Choose 1 work in Russian (and 1 in English if you have it) from your reference list for your course paper and prepare one in-text and one complete reference

Task 2: Prepare a full reference list for your course paper. As far as I know, it should contain 5 works, so your task is to prepare it, publish it in your own blog and share the link to it in the thread below.

Task 3: Look through one of the Reference Lists prepared by your peers and check whether it is formatted correctly. Let your peer know if there is some problem with the prepared list. It could be that some information is missing, the order of details is not quite correct or there is some other problem.

I'm sure that completing this task will help you remember better how to format your references correctly.                

Good luck! 

Post-6: A new essay draft

Do you remember that a lesson 2 weeks ago if I am not mistaken during which I asked you to choose a number of topics for your future essays: here is the link to it for your convenience:

https://acwr17827.blogspot.com/2019/03/post-4-topics-for-your-future-works.html

So, for the next time, you should prepare a draft of your essay on one of the topics from your list.

Here are the steps you should follow:

1. Decide what arguments you will discuss
2. Decide what supporting evidence you need to make your essay persuasive:
- statistics
- opinions taken from the discussion of this topic with your peers and/or family members
3. Decide what type of essay you are going to write:

For-and-Against
Opinion
Solutions to problems

4. Draft your essay and publish your draft in your blog a day before the next class (26.03.2019)

Post-5: A jig-saw Task

Dear All,

I hope you are doing fine and will enjoy doing these tasks tomorrow in class.

Here is what I'm asking you to do:

1. Go to the website of the newspaper The Guardian and find a short news story in the section Culture at https://www.theguardian.com/uk/culture. It should be devoted to the discussion of some topic of interest to you.

2. Prepare the article summary 150-70 words long and explain in 1 sentence what got you interested in it.

3. Divide into pairs and work together with your peer. You should do the following:

- group A: Choose 5-6 words from the articles you have worked which you think are important to the text and useful for you to remember. For each word find a definition and make your own examples with these words. Publish them in the thread.

- group B: Find 3 connected stories to the news story you have chosen at step 1. For each connected story, post the web address and one-sentence description of the story.

- group C: Read one of the articles your peers have chosen at step 1 and ask them 3 questions about it:
a) to clarify smth in it for yourself: smth that you did not understand or would like to learn more about
b) to find out why your peer got interested in the article and what s/he learned from it s/he did not know
c) a "Wild Card" question: ask a question of your choice about the article

Post -4: Topics for your future works

Dear All,

I'd like to share with you two resources, which both list a variety of engaging (I hope) topics for discussion and expressing your opinions about them in your works. What I am inviting you to do is look through them and choose 4-5 you personally will be interested in discussing. 

Here you are:25 Creative Prompts: https://patch.com/pennsylvania/peters/25-creative-college-essay-prompts100 Inspirational Essay Topics: https://myassignmenthelp.com/blog/response-essay-topics/

in the thread below let us know what you have chosen and possibly explain what made you interested in these topics.

Post 3: Plastic surgery popularity

Dear All.


I was not quite sure the topic for today's discussion will fascinate everybody but still decided to discuss your attitudes to plastic surgery
In the thread below publish the information about the attitude to it among one of the following groups listed below using the information you'll have researched. You need to choose which Statistics Agencies from those listed in the Wikipedia article at  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_and_international_statistical_services
to study. You need to research one of the following groups of people: 
a) people from Russia
Decide among yourselves who is going to research the information on the attitudes to plastic surgery given by which agency and for what group of people from the list above, study it and then publish a summary with the results of your small investigation which has to cover the following questions:
A. Decide information from which agencies you'd like to investigate
And here is a task for you for our lesson on March 13

Choose one of the following:
a) breast enlargement
b) hair implant
c) rhinoplasty: it's about the nose
d) varicose vein removal
e) facelift
f) tummy tuck


Run a search on the internet to find out which of these are the most popular among young people of your age and the generation of your parents? Do you know what resources to use to find this information?


Next, respond to the following question: if you had the problems like those mentioned above, would you have surgery?


a) young people
b) people from one of the European countries
c) people from the USA
d) men
e) women

Check what kind of information is available
How much you can trust this information? Why? How do you know?