1

Nito Albertino Pedro

Noe Oliveira

Taurai Benade

Zito Januario Analikumba

Writing skills
Degree in English Teaching

University Rovuma

Montepuez

2020
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Nito Albertino Pedro

Noe Oliveira

Taurai Benade

Zito Januario Analikumba

Writing skills

Degree in English Teaching

Evaluation work, oriented by Department of
Letters and Social Sciences in Language and
Communication, in Study Skills, year 1,
taught by:

dr: Carlos Davide

University Rovuma

Montepuez

2020
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Índice
1.0 Introduction........................................................................................................................4
1.1 Writing a summary of a shot text.......................................................................................5
1.2 What is a written summary?...............................................................................................5
1.3 Examples of Summaries.....................................................................................................5
1.4 Steps in Composing a Summary........................................................................................6
1.5 Characteristics of a Summary.............................................................................................6
2.0 A Checklist for Evaluating Summaries..............................................................................7
2.1 On the Summary App Summly..........................................................................................7
2.2 The Lighter Side of Summaries..........................................................................................8
2.3 Style in academic writing...................................................................................................8
2.4 Planning and writing essays of different types...................................................................9
3.0 What to do..........................................................................................................................9
3.1 What is an essay?.............................................................................................................10
3.2 Why write an essay?.........................................................................................................10
3.3. How to research, plan and write an essay - a 10-step process.........................................10
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................12
Reference................................................................................................................................13
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1.0 Introduction
The present work, we are going to talk about the writing skills, our main aims of this work is to
discover the methods how to write a summary of a shot text, writing and laying out a written
assignment in a formal academic style, planning and writing essays of different types, because
when we have ability of skills it will help us to know how to write without difficulties. That’s
why is very important to know writing skills.

In order to write an essay, letter, report we should have abilities of writing.

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1.1 Writing a summary of a shot text

1.2 What is a written summary?

A summary, also known as an abstract, précis, or synopsis, is a shortened version of a text that
highlights its key points. The word "summary" comes from the Latin, "sum."

1.3 Examples of Summaries

"'Miss Brill' is the story of an old woman told brilliantly and realistically, balancing thoughts and
emotions that sustain her late solitary life amidst all the bustle of modern life. Miss Brill is a
regular visitor on Sundays to the Jardins Publiques (the Public Gardens) of a small French
suburb where she sits and watches all sorts of people come and go. She listens to the band
playing, loves to watch people and guess what keeps them going, and enjoys contemplating the
world as a great stage upon which actors perform. She finds herself to be another actor among
the so many she sees, or at least herself as 'part of the performance after all.' One Sunday Miss
Brill puts on her fur and goes to the Public Gardens as usual. The evening ends with her sudden
realization that she is old and lonely, a realization brought to her by a conversation she overhears
between a boy and a girl, presumably lovers, who comment on her unwelcome presence in their
vicinity. Miss Brill is sad and depressed as she returns home, not stopping by as usual to buy her
Sunday delicacy, a slice of honey-cake. She retires to her dark room, puts the fur back into the
box and imagines that she has heard something cry." -K. Narayana Chandran.

"One way of discovering the overall pattern of a piece of writing is to summarize it in your own
words. The act of summarizing is much like stating the plot of a play. For instance, if you were
asked to summarize the story of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' you might say:

It's the story of a young prince of Denmark who discovers that his uncle and his mother have
killed his father, the former king. He plots to get revenge, but in his obsession with revenge he
drives his sweetheart to madness and suicide, kills her innocent father, and in the final scene
poisons and is poisoned by her brother in a duel, causes his mother's death, and kills the guilty
king, his uncle.
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This summary contains a number of dramatic elements: a cast of characters (the prince; his
uncle, mother, and father; his sweetheart; her father, and so on), a scene (Elsinore Castle in
Denmark), instruments (poisons, swords), and actions (discovery, dueling, killing)." -Richard E.
Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike.

1.4 Steps in Composing a Summary

The primary purpose of a summary is to "give an accurate, objective representation of what

the work says." As a general rule, "you should not include your own ideas or interpretations."
-Paul Clee and Violeta Cleet

"Summarizing condenses in your own words the main points in a passage:

1. Reread the passage, jotting down a few keywords.

2. State the main point in your own words and be objective. Don't mix your reactions with
the summary.
3. Check your summary against the original, making sure that you use quotation
marks around any exact phrases that you borrow." -Randall Vander Mey, et al.

1.5 Characteristics of a Summary

"The purpose of a summary is to give a reader a condensed and objective account of the main
ideas and features of a text. Usually, a summary has between one and three paragraphs or 100 to
300 words, depending on the length and complexity of the original essay and the intended
audience and purpose. Typically, a summary will do the following:

 Cite the author and title of the text. In some cases, the place of publication or the
context for the essay may also be included.
 Indicate the main ideas of the text. Accurately representing the main ideas (while
omitting the less important details) is the major goal of the summary.
 Use direct quotation of keywords, phrases, or sentences. Quote the text directly for a
few key ideas; paraphrase the other important ideas (that is, express the ideas in your own
words).
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 Include author tags. ("According to Ehrenreich" or "as Ehrenreich explains") to remind

the reader that you are summarizing the author and the text, not giving your own ideas.
 Avoid summarizing specific examples or data unless they help illustrate the thesis or
main idea of the text.
 Report the main ideas as objectively as possible. Do not include your reactions; save
them for your response. -(Stephen Reid,  The Prentice Hall Guide for Writers, 2003)

2.0 A Checklist for Evaluating Summaries

"Good summaries must be fair, balanced, accurate, and complete. This checklist of questions will
help you evaluate drafts of a summary:

 Is the summary economical and precise?

 Is the summary neutral in its representation of the original author's ideas, omitting the
writer's own opinions?
 Does the summary reflect the proportionate coverage given various points in the original
text?
 Are the original author's ideas expressed in the summary writer's own words?
 Does the summary use attributive tags (such as 'Weston argues') to remind readers whose
ideas are being presented?
 Does the summary quote sparingly (usually only key ideas or phrases that cannot be said
precisely except in the original author's own words)?
 Will the summary stand alone as a unified and coherent piece of writing?
 Is the original source cited so that readers can locate it?" -John C. Bean

2.1 On the Summary App Summly

"Upon hearing, in March of [2013], reports that a 17-year-old schoolboy had sold a piece of
software to Yahoo! for $30 million, you might well have entertained a few preconceived notions
about what sort of child this must be...The app [that then 15-year-old Nick] D'Aloisio designed,
Summly, compresses long pieces of text into a few representative sentences. When he released an
early iteration, tech observers realized that an app that could deliver brief, accurate summaries
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would be hugely valuable in a world where we read everything—from news stories to corporate
reports on our phones, on the go There are two ways of doing natural language processing:
statistical or semantic,' D'Aloisio explains. A semantic system attempts to figure out the actual
meaning of a text and translate it succinctly. A statistical system the type D'Aloisio used for
Summly doesn't bother with that; it keeps phrases and sentences intact and figures out how to
pick a few that best encapsulate the entire work. 'It ranks and classifies each sentence, or phrase,
as a candidate for inclusion in the summary.

It's very mathematical. It looks at frequencies and distributions, but not at what the words mean."
-Seth Stevenson.

2.2 The Lighter Side of Summaries

"Here are some famous works of literature that could easily have been summarized in a few
words:

 'MobyDick:' Don't mess around with large whales, because they symbolize nature and
will kill you.
 'A Tale of Two Cities:' French people are crazy.
 Every poem ever written: Poets are extremely sensitive.

Think of all the valuable hours we would save if authors got right to the point this way. We'd all
have more time for more important activities, such as reading newspaper columns." -Dave Barry.

"To summarize: It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso
facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: Anyone who is capable of getting
themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the
summary of the summary: people are a problem." -Douglas Adams.

2.3 Style in academic writing

There can be little doubt that a central goal of first-year composition is to teach academic
writing; this commitment is visible in our professional literature and in the mission statements of
countless first-year writing programs. We promise to help students make the transition to college
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writing and succeed in their other classes because that is the purpose for which first-year
composition courses were created, and it’s the reason our courses continue to be required in
almost every American college and university. But teachers who embrace this mission find that it
sits awkwardly with our commitment to teaching style. First, we recognize that many academic
genres allow limited room for stylistic play. Is style an important enough feature of academic
writing to deserve a place in our overcrowded curriculum? Second, we know that style varies
across the curriculum: the styles preferred by mathematicians may be quite different from those
preferred by historians or social workers or chemists. If we integrate style instruction into a
general education course designed for students who are headed toward dozens of different
majors, which style do we teach? Even if we could know the whole range of academic styles, we
could hardly teach all of them in fifteen weeks. Is there a generic, teachable “academic writing
style”? Is it the plain style? In the paragraphs that follow, I challenge two widespread
assumptions about academic writing that have obscured our view of its style(s): the notion that
academic writing is impersonal and formulaic (essentially style-free) and the notion that the only
characteristics of academic style worth teaching are clarity and conciseness. I suggest that a
central insight of Writing across the Curriculum—that academic discourse practices vary—
provides a guiding principle for style pedagogy: at the heart of the enterprise is analysis of
stylistic variation, with attention to the rhetorical choice-making that accounts for it and with
opportunities for imitation, experimentation, and play.

2.4 Planning and writing essays of different types.

Essay writing is an important skill for tertiary students. Academic essays can attract a
considerable proportion of assessment marks in most degree programs. Therefore, students may
require a firm grounding in academic essay writing skills at the start of their first year to assist
them to succeed in their university studies.

3.0 What to do
Click on the links to see an explanation.

Most lecturers expect students to:

Write objectively

Write clearly
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Use the technical vocabulary of your subject area

Use Standard English

Use correct English

Use non-discriminatory language

3.1 What is an essay?

An essay (one of the most common types of assignment at university) is a piece of academic
writing generally between 500 and 5000 words long. The word ‘essay’ originally meant a first
attempt or practice, which perhaps suggests some kind of provisional exploration. Essays are an
intellectual exploration of a topic, involving looking at different arguments and evidence and
developing the writer’s perspective.
An essay is more ‘discursive’ than, say, a report – i.e. the points are developed in more depth
and the language may be a little less concise. Typically, it will consist of a number of paragraphs
that are not separated by subheadings or broken up by bullet points (unlike in a report). However,
some lecturers may allow or encourage subdivisions and headings, as this can help both the
writer and the reader with the structure of the content. In that case, an essay may begin to look
more like the preferred format of some journal articles.
Please note that different courses and programmes at the Plymouth University have different
expectations and assessment criteria regarding the content and structure of essays. Always
consult your course handbook and/or the module leader if you are unsure about any points of
style or presentation of your essay. Writing essays

3.2 Why write an essay?

The purpose of writing an academic essay is to provide written evidence of your ability to
research a topic, weigh arguments, organize your thoughts, express these thoughts in a logical,
coherent and critical manner, and reach conclusions which follow from the evidence and the
arguments you put forward. There will be a constraint on the number of words you can use so,
inevitably, you need to be selective about content.

3.3. How to research, plan and write an essay - a 10-step process

Writing an essay, no matter what the topic, is a complex process; it requires a lot of practice, and
unfortunately no formula can guarantee good written work. There is no right or wrong way of
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approaching an essay; however there are certain tasks that should help you produce a good piece
of work.

Step 1: Interpret the question and identify the key topics The first crucial step is to interpret the
question; essays questions use specific terms and which reveal how the question might be
answered. Question analysis is a crucial part of the essay writing process; the most common
reason why students fail assignments is because they do not read or analyze the question
correctly.

One method of question analysis is the ‘T.A.P. model’. First identify the Topic - what the main
theme is; then the Action(s), i.e. what you have got to do; and finally the Parameters– the scope
or confines of the task. It is worth spending a bit of time on this, making sure you are clear on
what is being asked of you. If are still not clear, contact your tutor BEFORE you start work on
the assignment.
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Conclusion
Getting this point we conclude our work after the writing skill search, we discovered that the
writing is a good skill because we can be able to improve methods of writing and discover how
we can write an essay, an academic writing style, and we can also know how to write a
summary, why to write an essay and how planning and writing essays on different types.
Beyond it, also we saw the different forms of writing that they can help us to write same
document or essay.
writing style is suitable. It is also used when the write up is addressed to some respectable person
or institution.
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Reference

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Richard E. Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike, Rhetoric: Discovery and Change.
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Paul Clee and Violeta Clee, American Dreams, 1999.

Randall Vander Mey, et al., The College Writer, Houghton, 2007

Stephen Reid,  The Prentice Hall Guide for Writers, 2003

John C. Bean, Virginia Chappell, and Alice M. Gillam  Reading Rhetorically. Pearson
Education, 2004

Seth Stevenson, "How Teen Nick D'Aloisio Has Changed the Way We Read." Wall Street
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Dave Barry, Bad Habits: A 100% Fact-Free Book. Doubleday, 1985

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