WEBVTT 00:01.260 --> 00:08.910 OK so now let's have a discussion about something that's very very important when it comes to writing. 00:08.930 --> 00:14.670 There are some basic foundational elements that you have to follow. 00:15.410 --> 00:22.700 And in this lecture we're going to talk about the foundations of a good paragraph which are made of 00:22.700 --> 00:25.590 unity order coherence and completeness. 00:25.760 --> 00:31.610 These are these are the foundations of creating a very good paragraph. 00:31.610 --> 00:42.170 I think a lot of times students from other countries sometimes you guys don't understand the foundations 00:42.170 --> 00:49.850 of writing in the American way or in the British way or in the Australian way and is not to say that 00:49.850 --> 00:57.020 the American British or Australian ways are correct but those are those are the standards that you are 00:57.020 --> 00:58.630 being judged against. 00:59.060 --> 01:03.970 You're being judged on an American standard or a British Standard. 01:04.190 --> 01:13.460 So you have to make sure that you write your paragraphs under the under those sets of rules right. 01:13.460 --> 01:21.500 So if you're from France or you're from Brazil or China there may be different rules for paragraph writing 01:21.500 --> 01:23.270 in your language. 01:23.270 --> 01:31.850 And if I were trying to write Chinese I would have to write according to those paragraph writing standards. 01:31.850 --> 01:39.800 So in this lecture I'm going to try to explain to you these foundations because many times when I see 01:39.800 --> 01:49.040 students writing essays and I look at their paragraphs the paragraph the paragraph writing is sometimes 01:49.040 --> 01:54.540 just flat out bad because the foundations are not being followed. 01:54.860 --> 02:01.070 And I've always said students that have a strong foundation and strong base are always going to get 02:01.070 --> 02:07.550 very very good scores because they are their base is very strong and that means everything else they're 02:07.550 --> 02:11.720 adding onto it is also going to be very well-written. 02:11.720 --> 02:20.900 All right so let's get started and move into this. 02:21.180 --> 02:23.770 You guys already know what a paragraph is. 02:23.790 --> 02:32.370 Of course it's a series of sentences that are all grouped together around one central topic one topic 02:33.080 --> 02:36.530 right one central topic not five topics. 02:36.570 --> 02:44.400 So when you guys make a big big mistake in your topic sentences by putting in the central topic or two 02:44.400 --> 02:50.400 or three central topics so you put in the central topic and the details and your topic sentence a paragraph 02:50.400 --> 02:59.700 is about one central topic and then you have other sentences that follow directly from that central 02:59.700 --> 03:05.120 topic and that explain that central topic cry. 03:05.460 --> 03:14.060 The four basic elements of a good paragraph are unity order coherence and completeness. 03:14.370 --> 03:22.350 If you have a good paragraph that has these four elements you are going to look very good in the eyes 03:22.350 --> 03:25.060 of a greater right. 03:25.320 --> 03:28.140 So what is Unity. 03:28.350 --> 03:31.950 Unity is where you start with a topic sentence. 03:31.950 --> 03:35.300 All the other sentences support that topic. 03:35.700 --> 03:38.170 They point back to that topic. 03:38.310 --> 03:41.600 Everything is unified around that topic. 03:41.880 --> 03:48.810 Very often when I'm reading writing by students and I'm reading a specific paragraph the paragraph will 03:48.810 --> 03:56.160 start off going down the middle of the road like if you're driving a car and the car is going down the 03:56.160 --> 04:03.750 middle of the road and then suddenly the student turned right and just drives completely off the road 04:04.410 --> 04:07.490 and you've just lost all unity. 04:08.540 --> 04:11.820 All right here's an example of bad unity. 04:12.270 --> 04:13.770 Look at these sentences here. 04:13.770 --> 04:18.690 My favorite day of the week is Monday because that is when we have sport class. 04:18.840 --> 04:27.360 I love how we learn new things in history class right now that may seem funny to you but this is the 04:27.360 --> 04:31.770 kind of stuff that I see and what graders see a lot of times and many students don't realize they're 04:31.770 --> 04:33.960 doing that right. 04:34.020 --> 04:40.270 This topic sentence is about it being his favorite day because of sport class. 04:40.290 --> 04:42.160 That's the central topic. 04:42.300 --> 04:45.420 That means everything must flow from that topic. 04:45.420 --> 04:48.210 You can't talk about other classes. 04:48.210 --> 04:50.210 You can't talk about history class. 04:50.320 --> 04:50.870 Not. 04:50.910 --> 04:56.450 That's not what the central controlling idea is. 04:56.490 --> 04:59.420 Now we have this paragraph which is now corrected. 04:59.430 --> 05:04.230 It has relevance because everything is about sport classes. 05:04.230 --> 05:09.250 Everything is related to that one simple one central theme. 05:09.250 --> 05:12.530 Right we now have very good units here. 05:13.320 --> 05:18.860 Our next basic foundational element of a good paragraph deals with order. 05:18.930 --> 05:23.420 This basically deals with you know you have different types of order. 05:23.790 --> 05:33.750 You know quite a lot of chronology Sard chronology going from most to least important and also logic 05:34.260 --> 05:37.410 you know going in the correct logical order. 05:37.740 --> 05:45.330 One recipe for really scoring low is to have one organized confusing paragraphs because our order is 05:45.330 --> 05:46.980 bad right. 05:47.010 --> 05:54.370 Order allows you to flow from one idea to the next idea which is very very important. 05:54.480 --> 06:00.220 One thing that I want you to do this is a little exercise for you if you can use. 06:00.240 --> 06:05.910 You should be if you can and I know you can't so stop stop the tape. 06:05.910 --> 06:12.180 Now if you were watching this recording stop the tape now take a look at these 12 sentences. 06:12.180 --> 06:18.960 Go grab a piece of paper and then try to put these sentences in the correct order. 06:19.080 --> 06:25.190 You'll be amazed at how many times I read paragraphs as just as bad order. 06:25.770 --> 06:28.480 And so if you can just stop it. 06:28.650 --> 06:35.010 And then when we go to the next slide you can see if you were able to put these into the correct order. 06:35.370 --> 06:37.070 OK. 06:37.110 --> 06:39.300 So I'm about to go to the next slide. 06:39.300 --> 06:44.580 So I'm assuming that you have stopped it and try to put these in order. 06:44.590 --> 06:46.920 You can see how it came out. 06:46.920 --> 06:51.000 Now we have these sentences in the correct order right. 06:51.030 --> 06:57.090 This is how it should flow from beginning to end. 06:57.190 --> 06:57.510 Right. 06:57.510 --> 07:02.660 Understanding order and sequencing is very very important. 07:02.730 --> 07:05.700 And again many times as cultural right. 07:05.700 --> 07:06.990 Understand that. 07:07.590 --> 07:15.030 But you just have to make sure you have the sequence in order things according to the culture that you're 07:15.030 --> 07:23.910 doing the exam for and you're doing this for a British English Australian Now Australia also a way of 07:23.940 --> 07:29.000 ordering that I was talk about coherence. 07:29.420 --> 07:35.810 Coherence is very important and you see U.S. then very specifically mentioned in the grading rubrics 07:36.410 --> 07:44.480 and I'm going to do what on one to talk about coherence briefly here and then I'm also going to do a 07:44.480 --> 07:45.960 separate lecture. 07:46.070 --> 07:48.240 There's only about coherence 07:50.830 --> 07:51.070 here. 07:51.070 --> 07:58.300 We're going to talk about just two primary types of coherence with transition words and also using consistent 07:58.300 --> 08:00.700 verb tenses and point of view. 08:02.590 --> 08:09.980 All right so we know what the transition is a transition is where you have words that are connected 08:09.980 --> 08:12.800 together or phrases that are connected together. 08:12.950 --> 08:18.980 Transitions act like signposts that really points you to the next stage of where the conversation is 08:18.980 --> 08:21.830 moving in the paragraph. 08:22.010 --> 08:23.370 Here is an eye here. 08:23.600 --> 08:26.790 Here verb tenses used incorrectly. 08:26.800 --> 08:32.240 All right we have our first two sentences in the past our last two sentences in the present. 08:32.390 --> 08:36.170 Please don't do that is very easy to make this mistake. 08:36.530 --> 08:40.400 So you have to be mindful and be aware of what you're doing. 08:40.400 --> 08:43.640 Here we have that same paragraph with everything in the past. 08:43.640 --> 08:48.440 This is how you want to be able to write to be able to build your coherence. 08:48.440 --> 08:54.110 Here we have our point of view point of view with consistency. 08:54.200 --> 08:56.030 Our point of view is consistent. 08:56.100 --> 08:58.820 Actually this isn't really about verb tenses. 08:58.820 --> 09:04.580 This is really about point of view consistency in terms of the title headings should be just point of 09:04.580 --> 09:09.030 view consistency is the point of view. 09:09.320 --> 09:11.740 You can see in the first sentence is his. 09:11.750 --> 09:13.130 He he is. 09:13.130 --> 09:14.720 But then we switch to. 09:14.740 --> 09:17.060 I and my right. 09:17.210 --> 09:21.250 You have to keep your point of view consistent. 09:21.260 --> 09:25.090 Finally we have completeness for a complete paragraph. 09:25.100 --> 09:29.180 You need enough information to support the main idea. 09:29.330 --> 09:35.460 Completeness deals with topic sentences or supporting sentences in your concluding sentence. 09:35.540 --> 09:45.920 Write a really good paragraph has excellent completeness so the concept here is strongly written paragraphs 09:46.100 --> 09:47.030 strongly. 09:47.030 --> 09:52.190 S T R O N G L Y S T R O N G L Y. 09:52.190 --> 10:00.580 Strongly written paragraphs will include all four elements described. 10:00.720 --> 10:08.220 Good luck and writing your essay and if you have any questions please let me know and I will be happy 10:08.280 --> 10:10.920 to help you out in any way I can. 10:10.920 --> 10:11.720 Thank you very much.