西安交通大学研究生英语写作writing styles.ppt

Chapter 5
Types of writing
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The purpose when you write
Describing a person, place, or thing
Telling a story or recounting an incident
Reporting information
Providing instructions or explaining a process
Arguing a position or proving a point
Analyzing something --- a text, a theory, an attidude, or an event
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Keys in determining the type of writing
Topic (subject)
Purpose (why you are writing)
Style (how you should write)
Tone (your attitude toward your subject – supportive, condemning, objective, etc.)
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Main types of writing
Description
Narration
Exposition
Argumentation
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Description
--- Painting a picture in words of a person, place, object, or scene.
Principles:
A descriptive essay has one, clear dominant impression.
A descriptive essay can be objective or subjective.
It is important to use specific and concrete details.
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Description
Conventions:
A descriptive essay relies on concrete, sensory detail municate its point.
A descriptive essay must carefully select details to support the dominant impression.
Description very often relies on emotion to convey its point.
Unless the description is objective, you must be sure that the dominant impression conveys an attitude.
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Types of description
Objective and Subjective
Description of a person, place, object, or scene
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Objective and Subjective
Objective description focuses on facts, statistics, observable details.
Objective description avoids emotion, sensationalism, or subjective interpretation:
[Example]
UN aid officials report that the drought has exacerbated(恶化, 增剧,) the famine. Farms and cattle ranches(停止,终止) have failed. Food production has virtually ceased. The death rate in refugee camps has increased 20% to 150 per day. Orphans have left the camps to beg for food from convoy(护送) drivers bringing supplies from the coast.
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Objective and Subjective
Subjective description is personal. It reflects the th