Lecture One Paragraph Writing

Computer Sciences
Teacher Bellebcir
Introduction
When it comes to writing paragraphs most of students say that it is an easy
task,but it is not the case.
1. Structure of Paragraphs
Topic Sentence
What is the topic sentence? The topic sentence is the first sentence in a
paragraph.
What does it do? It introduces the main idea of the paragraph.
How do I write one? Summarize the main idea of your paragraph. Make
clear what your paragraph will be about.
Example: Canada is one of the best countries in the world to live in. First, Canada
has an excellent health care system. All Canadians have access to medical services
at a reasonable price. Second, Canada has a high standard of education. Students are
taught by well‐trained teachers and are encouraged to continue studying at
university. Finally, Canada's cities are clean and efficiently managed. Canadian
cities have many parks and lots of space for people to live. As a result, Canada is a
desirable place to live.
Supporting Details
What are supporting sentences? They come after the topic sentence,
making up the body of a paragraph.
What do they do? They give details to develop and support the main idea of
the paragraph.
How do I write them? You should give supporting facts, details, and
examples.
Example: Canada is one of the best countries in the world to live in. First, Canada
has an excellent health care system. All Canadians have access to medical services
at a reasonable price. Second, Canada has a high standard of education. Students are
taught by well‐trained teachers and are encouraged to continue studying at
university. Finally, Canada's cities are clean and efficiently managed. Canadian
cities have many parks and lots of space for people to live. As a result, Canada is a
desirable place to live.
Closing Sentence
What is the closing sentence? The closing sentence is the last sentence in a
paragraph.
What does it do? It restates the main idea of your paragraph.
How do I write one? Restate the main idea of the paragraph using different
words.
Example: Canada is one of the best countries in the world to live in. First, Canada
has an excellent health care system. All Canadians have access to medical services
at a reasonable price. Second, Canada has a high standard of education. Students are
taught by well‐trained teachers and are encouraged to continue studying at
university. Finally, Canada's cities are clean and efficiently managed. Canadian
cities have many parks and lots of space for people to live. As a result, Canada is a
desirable place to live.
Practice
Alexander the Great was a successful ruler because his actions created
long lasting effects on cultures that continue to the present day. One
example of his legacy was the creation of a Hellenistic society. Hellenism
was the combination of Greek, Persian, and Egyptian cultures. During this
remarkable time period, people were encouraged to pursue a formal
education and produce many different kinds of art. New forms of math,
science, and design made a great impact on society. If this new way of life
 had not been as successful as it was, Alexander’s legacy would not be as
memorable and groundbreaking. Because he conquered many countries
and blended together many different cultures, Alexander the Great is widely
recognized for his achievements and credited with being one of the greatest
rulers in history.
2.Pargraph Unity and Coherence
Paragraphs should have both coherence and unity. A paragraph with unity
develops a single idea thoroughly and links it to the rest of the paper. Paragraph
coherence is achieved when sentences are ordered in a logical manner and when
clear transitions link sentences.
Paragraph unity:
 Develop a paragraph around a major idea. Express this idea in the topic
sentence. Make the relationship between the main idea of the paragraph and
the thesis of the paper clear. Don’t assume that the reader will “get it.” Spell
it out for him/her.
 Support the main idea of the paragraph with details.
Create separate paragraphs for those details that explore your topic from
different perspectives.
 Eliminate sentences that do not support the main idea. Alternately, you
may revise the main idea to include those sentences.
Look at the following examples from a paper that has the thesis: “Despite the
amount of foreign aid pouring in, social conditions in Zeeland remain bleak
because the aid is used for military purposes.”
Example 1 (without unity)
Robert Bee wrote, “The Zeeland massacre illustrates the need for greater
control and vigilance.” This is related to the thesis. Some 20,000 people
disappeared from the villages. Financial mishandling can lead to great
misfortune. Corruption in the government was exposed repeatedly to no avail.
 A police force, under orders to eliminate suspected terrorists, grabbed political
dissidents and their families.
Example 2 (unified)
The pogrom of May 3, 1987 exemplifies how foreign aid funds were
appropriated for repressive rather than social development purposes. On that
day, some 20,000 people were abducted from villages in the countryside,
charged as traitors and summarily executed. Then governor-for-life Zeely
Zeelafsun had recently used $5 billion in aid to create a standing paramilitary
police force. Without some restrictive control over the aid, human rights
organizations were unable to prevent the buildup and unleashing of this
disaster. Robert Bee, the director of the Development as Freedom Foundation
wrote, “The Zeeland massacre illustrates the need for greater control and
vigilance.”
Analysis In the first paragraph it is hard to tell what the topic sentence is, let
alone how all the sentences belong together. The reader is not informed who
Robert Bee is. The words “related to” in the second sentence don’t give the reader
any sense of what the relationship is. The second paragraph provides a tight topic
sentence that links the main idea of the paragraph to the central argument of the
paper. It eliminates details that do not fall under the topic and adds details that are
relevant to the reader’s understanding of the events and their relation to foreign
aid.
Paragraph coherence:
Decide on an order for your sentences that will best develop the paragraph’s main
idea. Your supporting sentences are raw materials. They will not make sense to a
reader unless they are put in order.
Examples (transitions in bold):
Chronological sequence
Topic sentence: Our journey was filled with misfortune and luck.
 After the car broke, we had to walk several miles.
Having eaten little for lunch, we were soon wearied.
While we wanted to continue toward town, we had to rest.
It was at that moment that a trucker offered us a ride.
Cohesion
It refers to the how well structured the sentences in q paragraph. It is as important as
coherence
 Lecture Two: Definite and Indefinite Articles
By:Miss.Bellebcir

The English language uses articles to identify nouns. Articles act much like adjectives. Articles
clarify whether a noun is specific or general, singular or plural. An article appears before the
noun it accompanies.

There are two types of articles

 Definite article: the
 Indefinite article: a, a.

General rules
 Place the article before the noun.
e.g., the house the cat a dog a book

 Place the article before the adjective when the noun is modified by an
adjective.e.g., the purple house the black cat a white dog an open
book < Correct
the house purple or a dog white < Incorrect

 Do not add an article when the noun has a possessive pronoun (my, his, her, our, their)
or ademonstrative pronoun (this, that).
e.g., my house her book that house this book < Correct
the my house or the this book < Incorrect
Is the noun general? If the noun is general, use “a” or “an.”

 A and an are indefinite articles and are used to indicate a single item.
o Take a pencil. (Take one pencil.)
o I won a hundred dollars. (I won one hundred dollars.)
 Do not use a or an with a plural noun.
o Incorrect: “They talked about a good restaurants.”
o Correct, Unspecific reference: “They talked about a good restaurant to visit.”
o Correct, Specific reference: “The talked about the good Italian restaurant on
Main Street.”
 Use a as an unspecific reference before a consonant.
o He likes to read a book. (She likes to read any book, not a specific one.)
o That was a funny story. (That was one of many funny stories.)
 Use a when the word following it starts with a consonant sound.
o a book, a hospital, a leg, a one-inch pipe, a youth
 Use an as an unspecific reference before a vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u).
o an apple, an opera, an eagle, an idea, an SOS (the s here is an es sound)
 Words that begin with u or h can have either a vowel or a consonant sound. Make
the choice based on the sound of the first word after the article, even if that word is
not the noun.
 o a union, a uniform (use a when the u sounds like the y in you)
o an unbelievable event, an umbrella, a unique umbrella
o an honor, an hour, an honest person
o a hotel, a history book, a historian
o an historian, an historic event (NOTE: words like historic can take either a or
an)

Is the noun specific? If the noun is specific, use “the.”

 Use the as a specific reference to a common noun or something that is one of a kind.
o Give me the book on the table. (identifies a specific book)
o The sun rose at seven o'clock. (identifies something that is one of a kind)
 Use a or an to introduce a noun the first time it is mentioned, and then the is used
afterwards whenever the noun is mentioned.
I bought a sandwich for lunch. I shared the sandwich with my friend
Most proper nouns do not use an article. However, some do.

 A proper noun names unique person, place, or thing (New York City, Walt Disney,
The United States of America)
o Correct: “I went to New York City.”
o Incorrect: “I went to the New York City.”
 An exception is the proper nouns with “of” as part of the name:
o the Fourth of July
o the University of Virginia
o the United States of America
o the President of Mexico
o the Statue of Liberty
 Plural proper nouns use the:
o the Chicago Bulls
o the Johnsons
o the Blue Ridge Mountains
 A proper noun that names a group (a collective noun) also uses the:
o the Commonwealth of Virginia
o the United Arab Emirates
o the Society of Friends
 Some geographical features use the:
o the Gobi Desert
o the Atlantic Ocean
o the Pyramids
o the Amazon
 But other geographical features do not use the:
o Lake Superior
o Albemarle County
o Route 29
o Mount Vesuvius
o
 Lecture Three: An Initiation to Graphs and Charts

Computer Sciences Miss. Bellebcir

single line graph multiple line graph paired bar chart

percentage bar chart pie chart stacked bar chart

single bar chart diagram population chart

flow chart bar graph bubble diagram

The Figures that are between your hands are kinds of graphs and charts that represent

information and data visually instead of words and numbers.

Graphs and Their Uses

 Bar graphs convert the information in a chart into separate bars or columns. Some

graphs list numbers along one edge and list places, dates, people, or things (individual

categories) along another edge. Always try to determine the relationship between the

columns in a graph or chart.

 Line Graphs convert data into points on a grid. These points are then connected to

show a relationship among the items, dates, and times, for example. Notice the slopes

of the lines connecting the points. These lines show increases and decreases. The sharper

the slope upward, the greater the increase. The sharper the slope downward, the greater

the decrease. Line graphs can show trends, or changes, in data over a period of time.

 Circle graph, or pie chart, shows the relationship between the whole circle (100%)

and the various slices that represent portions of that 100%. The larger the slice, the

higher the percentage.

 A scatter plot is a graph representing a set of data and showing a relationship or

connection between the two quantities given. The graph is typically placed in one part

of a coordinate plane (the upper right quarter, called Quadrant I). When the data is

placed on the scatter plot, usually a relationship can be seen. If the points appear to form

a line, a linear relationship is suggested. If the line goes up to the right, that is, one

quantity increases as another increases, then the relationship is called a positive correlation.
 Lecture Four: Phrases Used to Describe Graphs

Computer Sciences By : Miss Bellebcir

Whether you are going to present your data visually or you are going to explain

a chart, there are certain sentences you need to use:

For introducing visuals, you can use

 Explaining diagrams

 Sales rose slightly in the final quarter.

 Profits fell a little last year.

 Demand increased gently

 Turnover decreased steadily

 Turnover dropped suddenly

 Turnover decreased quickly.

 Demand increased rapidly.

 Profits fell dramatically.

 At the beginning of this year sales stagnated.

 In the middle of August profits slumped.

 At the end of last year demand peaked.

 In the first quarter of 2008 sales plummeted.

 In the second quarter of 2007 sales flattened out.

 In the third quarter of 2007 sales leveled off.

 In the last quarter of 2007 sales remained steady.

For explaining diagrams, you can use

 Sales rose slightly in the final quarter.

 Profits fell a little last year.

 Demand increased gently

 Turnover decreased steadily

 Turnover dropped suddenly

 Turnover decreased quickly.

 Demand increased rapidly.

 Profits fell dramatically.

 At the beginning of this year sales stagnated.

 In the middle of August profits slumped.

 At the end of last year demand peaked.

 In the first quarter of 2008 sales plummeted.

 In the second quarter of 2007 sales flattened out.

 In the third quarter of 2007 sales leveled off.

 In the last quarter of 2007 sales remained steady

Useful phrases for presentations

Signalling a start:

- Right, ladies and gentlemen. Shall we begin?

- OK, I'd like to begin by ...

- Right then, everybody ...

- Greetings:
 - Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

- I'd like to welcome you all on behalf of NKS.

- I'd like to say how happy I am to be here today.

Introducing yourself:

- My name is Richard Delmas.

- I'm the Marketing Manager here.

- I'd like to introduce myself. My name is ...

- Let me introduce myself. My name is ...

Introducing people:

- I'd like to introduce Mr Peters from Datacom.

- May I introduce ...

- Let me introduce ...

The objective of your presentation:

- My objective this afternoon is to inform you...

- I'm here today to give you...

- My purpose today is to introduce you to...

- My aim this morning is to...

The length of time your presentation will take:

- My presentation will last twenty-five minutes.

- I will talk for fifteen minutes.

Structuring:

- My presentation is split into three key areas.

- Firstly ... Secondly ... Thirdly ...

- To begin with ... After this ... Finally ...

Saying when your audience may ask questions:

- There will be time for questions at the end...

- Please feel free to interrupt me as I go along.

Introducing topics:

- I want to look at ...

- I'd like to review ...

- I want to discuss ...

- I'm going to analyse ...

- I want to cover ...

- I'd like to talk about ...

Moving on:

- Let's now move on to ...

- I'd like to go on to ...

- This brings me to ...

- I now want to ...

Looking back:

- Let's look back for a moment ...

- To go back to ...
 - As I said before ...

Adding:

- In addition ...

- I might add that ...

- Furthermore ...

- Moreover ...

Dealing with interruptions:

- Perhaps I could return to that point later on?

- If I might just finish?

- If you'd allow me to continue?

Summarising and concluding

- To sum up then, ...

- To summarise my main points ...

- I'd like to conclude by reminding you that ...

- Let me end by ...

- I'd like to finish ...

- In conclusion, may I remind you ...

- Finally, ...

Asking for questions:

- You no doubt have many questions ...

- If there are any questions ...

- I'm sure you have many questions ...

Playing for time:

- That's an interesting question.

- I'm glad you asked that question.

- You've raised an important

point there.

- That's a difficult question.

Closing question time:

- Perhaps on that note we could end?

- I'm afraid that's all we have time for.

Thanking:

- I'd like to thank you all on behalf of Company X.

- I'd like to thank you all for your participation.

Choose one of the projects
Project 1
In a video of your own production, present orally a chart of your
choice
Project 2
Choose any topic in computer sciences to talk about. The video of
your topic should not exceed ten minutes. In case the topic is long,
then you will add five minutes