Non-fiction

is a narrative prose or an informative text dealing with or offering opinions or conjectures about facts. Non-fiction deals with an actual or real-life subject. Including information that the author knows to be untrue within any of these works is usually regarded as dishonest. Non-fiction can make false assertions, and it often does, but still this assertions claim to describe reality, so they are accepted. Even though if a works truths are disproven or not held by everybody, they are part of the non-fiction genre.

FACTUAL WORKS Information about the natural or social world. Factual information. Timeless verb construction. Generic noun construction. Technical vocabulary Classificatory and definitional material. Compare/contrast, problem/solution, cause/effect, or similar text structures. Repetitions of the topical theme. Graphical elements such as diagrams, photographs, etc.

SUBJECTIVE WORKS Personal preferences or belief. Trust, faith, or personal values Subjective analysis of objective. Conclusions with varying degrees of certainty.

Almanacs Autobiographies, Biographies Blueprints Book reports Creative (narrative) non-fiction Diagrams Diaries Dictionaries Documentaries Encyclopedias Essays Guides Handbooks Histories Journals Journalistic reports Letters

Criticisms Memoirs Natural histories Persuasive texts Philosophy compositions Photographs Political issues Religious works Research papers Science books Self help books Statutes Technical documentations Textbooks Travel books True crime stories User manuals

BASED ON FACTS, DATES,

PLACES. LANGUAGE IS SIMPLE & CLEAR. WORD USAGE IS CONCISE. UNITY OF TENSE, PRONOUNS. PROVISION OF INFORMATION.

IMAGINATION RUNS FREE. ELABORATED AND

POMPOUS WORDS. WORD CHOICE, LONG PHRASES THAT REPLACE SHORT WORDS. OPEN IDEAS. READERS INTERPRET AND INFER.

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To increase knowledge, new ideas. To understand a certain perspective or analysis of the world. To convey ideas effectively and esthetically. Reading and writing that adults do is nonfiction. 96% of the World Wide Web sites contain non-fiction information. To build background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. In general, to increase reading skills.

FIRST READING Type of text. Theme, topic, subject, authors purpose. Author. Audience. SECOND READING Characteristics. Language, vocabulary, tone, symbolic language, specific topics, places or people, quotations, illustrations, examples. Thesis statement, supporting details, arguments. Reliability. Relevance.

THIRD READING General reading. Outline. Summary. (paraphrases, examples, quotations).

PRE ACTIVITY Think about 3 situations in which you have been selfish. Write down them in different pieces of paper (without names) and then give it back to the teacher. The teacher will mix and give back 3 of the paper to each person. Then, every person will read the situation, tell if they agree or disagree with that situation and explain why.

WHILE ACTIVITIES Skim the text and answer the questions. What type of text is it? Is the text an essay, article, speech, letter, interview? What is the theme/topic/subject? What is the writer's or speaker's intention? Does he want to argue, convince, discuss, educate, entertain, inform, instruct, persuade, prove? Who is speaking? What is the speaker's background? To whom is the person speaking? What is the reader's background?

CHAPTER 5. ISNT EVERYONE SELFISH?

The clash between egoism and altruism lies in their conflicting answers to these questions. Egoism holds that man is an end in himself; altruism holds that man is a means to the ends of others. Egoism holds that, morally, the beneficiary of an action should be the person who acts; altruism holds that, morally, the beneficiary of an action should be someone other than the person who acts. To be selfish is to be motivated by concern for ones selfinterest. This requires that one consider what constitutes ones self-interest and how to achieve itwhat values and goals to pursue, what principles and policies to adopt. If a man were not concerned with this question, he could not be said objectively to be concerned with or to desire his self-interest []. Selfishness entails: (a) a hierarchy of values set by the standard of ones self-interest, and (b) the refusal to sacrifice a higher value to a lower one or to a nonvalue.

A genuinely selfish man knows that only reason can determine what is, in fact, to his self-interest, that to pursue contradictions or attempt to act in defiance of the facts of reality is self-destructiveand self-destruction is not to his self-interest. To think, [] to choose his goals in the full context of his knowledge, his values and his life, [] to exist as a productive being, [] and to seek the life proper to his nature, is to mans self-interest []. Because a genuinely selfish man chooses his goals by the guidance of reason [] other men may often benefit from his actions. But the benefit of other men is not his primary purpose or goal; his own benefit is his primary purpose and the conscious goal directing his actions. To make this principle fully clear, let us consider an extreme example of an action which, in fact, is selfish, but which conventionally might be called self-sacrificial: a mans willingness to die to save the life of the woman he loves. In what way would such a man be the beneficiary of his action? []

POST ACTIVITIES Read the text for the second time. This time focus on these questions. What are the characteristics of the text? Language, specific vocabulary, sentence structure; tone, style; imagery, symbolic language, rhetorical figures; references to specific topics, places or people; quotations, the way they are used. Find key words and write a thesis statement for each paragraph. How reliable is the text? Is the text of current interest or out-dated? Is the topic relevant? Is the text clear/direct? Are the arguments reliable or unreliable? Why? Were you convinced by the text? Why/Why not?

POST ACTIVITY Divide the class in two groups and debate. One group stands for altruism, the other for egoism. Each group should defend their positions using own examples, quotations from the essay, etc.