Wordsmith.org's Word-A-Day

Argentina in the News

Daily Hangman

Hangman

Monday, May 18, 2009

Job Hunt in English Part I

English is an essential career booster in Argentina. A casual glimpse at job descriptions online demand some level of English.

To kick off our series on Job Hunt English, we provide you the essential vocabulary below:

human resources manager
someone who employs people for a firm, also known as a personnel manager

deadlines
the dates or times when certain tasks must be completed

to work on your own initiative
to make decisions about your work without having to wait for someone else to help you

to multi-task
to do more than one piece of work at a time

a proven track record
evidence you've been successful in the past in your area of work

***

Do you need English for your job or want to improve your career? Hire your personal English Coach today!

In Buenos Aires, contact Professor Winn directly for your own English classes at: 1160 461 342 or mrenglish101 (at) gmail.com. Translations (Es/Fr/Pt >En) via email may also be sent to the gmail account for prompt evaluation. Buy your English-language texts here!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Writing effective introductions and conclusions

A good essay presents the reader with a logical, clear and detailed argument. The main strands and structure of this argument should be established clearly in the introduction.

The conclusion of an essay should then bring these strands together, and reiterate the most important parts in order to convince the reader of the main argument. This does not mean the argument should come to a simplistic solution-type conclusion, but rather that whatever has been explored, once the evidence has been weighed/the text analyzed/the situation assessed, should be clearly stated so that the reader of the essay has a clear understanding of the subject.

This means that introductions and conclusions need to be clearly written: they are probably the sections of the essay which will need the most tweaking and re-drafting in the re-writing process.

A good introduction should:

  • indicate that you understand the question and how you are interpreting it
  • establish what you will be arguing and how
  • begin to define the key terms of the essay
  • locate your argument in a critical debate/historical context
***
Hire your personal English Coach today to improve your essay writing!

Please enjoy an Argentine news story translated from Spanish to English.
Courtesy: Buenos Aires Translator

In Buenos Aires, contact Professor Winn directly for your own English classes at: 1160 461 342 or mrenglish101 (at) gmail.com. Translations (Es/Fr/Pt >En) via email may also be sent to the gmail account for prompt evaluation. Buy your English-language texts here!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Essay planning - developing an argument

Present an Argument

All essays need to present an argument, whether it is to do with assessing or analysing a particular text, situation or event, comparing factors, or coming to a conclusion about a specific issue or theory. When planning how you are going to answer a particular essay question, you should bear in mind the need to come up with an argument to demonstrate that you can think critically: no essay requires you simply to describe a situation.

Planning

Everyone plans in different ways; you will be planning your essay all the way through the research process, and most probably throughout the writing process as well. You may find it helpful to keep a record of your thinking process either writing a list of how your main ideas connect, producing a spider diagram, or writing your main ideas for paragraphs on post-it notes which you can then move around when thinking about the most helpful structure for your essay.

You may find that you need to start doing the research first to work out what the different sections of the essay will be. The important thing is to give yourself the space and time to think through and explain an argument - so once you have decided what material you need to cover you need to make a decision about how you will analyze this material.

***
Hire your personal English Coach today!

In Buenos Aires, contact Professor Winn directly for your own English classes at: 1160 461 342 or mrenglish101 (at) gmail.com. Translations (Es/Fr/Pt >En) via email may also be sent to the gmail account for prompt evaluation. Buy your English-language texts here!