 Welcome to virtual university and welcome to your English class. If you look at the title of today's lesson, it is ways of organizing texts. And we are going to talk about how to write about time and how to write about process. In today's lesson and in the next few lessons, we shall examine the main body of the essay. We shall examine the main body of the essay in great detail and give you practice. First, in using common ways of organizing texts, organizing texts as a whole. And then you will be provided with plenty of examples of different types of texts which will help you to see the principles on which these texts have been organized, on which these texts have been based. Now learning to write in English is not as difficult as it seems. Of course, no one expects you to write like a Shakespeare or D. H. Lawrence, right? Especially in a language which is not your own. You are not aiming at writing great literature. Your need is to write clear, accurate English which has a central idea and other related information and which gets your meaning across to your readers. Now, here I would like to add a note of warning. Writing is a complex activity and it cannot easily be broken down into a series of skills and sub-skills for teaching. Now, no writing course will ever teach you everything you need to know in order to become a competent writer. But there is no reason why you cannot learn all there is to know about effective writing. In the last couple of lessons, we have been looking at introductions and conclusions of essays. Good introductions and conclusions, they hold up the ideas and keep the evidence in order. If you take away either the introduction or the conclusion and you will notice that the whole structure of your essay will fall. But introductions and conclusions do not make up the whole essay of whatever composition that you are writing. The introduction and the conclusion, they only give directions and a sense of finale or a sense of finality. And between these two ends of an essay, we use a system. The body of the essay is written according to a system or a pattern. Now, let me repeat what I said. In the past couple of lessons, you have learnt how to write introductions and you have learnt how to write conclusions. And between the introduction and the conclusion, there is a whole body, the main body of the essay. If you take away the introduction and you take away the conclusion, the body will lack something. Now, we have had practice in writing introductions and writing conclusions. In today's lesson, we are going to talk about how to write the main body of the essay. And that is done according to a system or a pattern. There are ways of writing the main body of the essay. And once you choose a pattern for yourself, you must stick to it. But it is also possible to combine a number of patterns in one essay. Now, for the sake of recall, let us look at the structure of an essay. You have the introduction, which is made up of the thesis statement and the general statement. And then you have a number of paragraphs. It all depends on your topic, your purpose of writing. You can have two paragraphs, you can have three paragraphs, you can have five paragraphs. You can even have more than five paragraphs. There is no limit. It all depends on the topic you are writing and the purpose of your writing. Now, if you will look at your screen, you will see the body, the structure of the essay. Again, you have your introduction, your conclusion and then the rest of the body, the main body. And today we are going to concentrate on the writing of the main body of the essay. Now, there are three main patterns for organizing the body of the essay. There are other patterns as well, but we shall only concentrate on those that are most commonly used. And these are, if you examine writings of people, you will find that three types are most commonly used. One is what is called linear relationship, right? And then spatial relationships. And number three, classification. These three are the most common. There are others as well, but in your course, we are going to concentrate on three only. Now, when we talk about linear relationships and they are of four types. They describe time, chronology, chronological descriptions, descriptions of processes. And then you have processes in cyclic consequence and you have cause and effect. So, let me make this clear. Linear writing is of four types. Number one that describes time, events taking place in time, which is called chronological writing. Then we have writing which describes process in linear sequence. And we have descriptions of process in cyclic sequence. And number four, we have writings which deal with cause and effect. Second major type is the spatial relationships which describe things in space, right? And we talk about classifications and definitions and others, right? And the third one is comparison and contrast. We look at the first one, chronological or events based in time. This is one of the most often used patterns to reorganize the body of an essay. This arrangement begins with what happens first and ends with what happens last. This type of organization is very common in fiction writing, which is, as you know, straight narration. This type of writing, this type of organization is also used in autobiographical essays when you are writing about somebody's life story or your own life story. This pattern of writing is used in process themes and in history reports. Historians frequently use this pattern of organization. But whether or not you are a historian, you will occasionally want to describe a sequence of events in your writing. And chronological sequences can be written in different ways. We normally think of time as moving forward in a straight line. And a chronological sequence follows this view of time. This is what they say, a linear relationship, linear meaning coming in a straight line. Now, for practice sake, you will see a text on your screen, read it and complete the diagram which is given at the end. And notice the phrases or words that show chronological order, chronological meaning, time. There are some words or figures in that passage which show you the sequence in which the events took place. As long ago as 1779, John Frear, an English country gentleman, discovered at Suffolk several bones from extinct animals associated with stone age flint tools. He published his findings in 1800. Frear's report was not appreciated for another 60 years. But now Frear is known as the founder of prehistoric archaeology. This passage is taken from the journal New Scientist published from London. You have four boxes given at the end. One of them is filled. Which words or figures show the chronological order in that passage? The first one is as long ago as. And you have the figure 1779. That is a phrase plus the figure showing you a certain period in time. And the time is 1779. And you can fill the first box with the letters 1779, the figure 1779. And you go through the text and you will find that the next time that is mentioned is in 1800. That is already done for you. And the following one would be another 60 years. So 1800 plus 60 years would be 1860. And then the last sentence, you have a word over there which again is related with time. And you can fill the fourth box with that word. And that word would be now. So you have time moving from 1779 to 1800 to 1860 to now. And the phrases were as long ago as in 1800, another 60 years and finally the word now. Now that passage was arranged in chronological order in a manner which showed how events took place. Now we will look at ways of writing chronologically. In our daily lives we see time as moving in one direction only and that is moving forward. What goes past us we see as history because it appears to us that we are moving forward into the future. Now there is nothing that we can do to change our relationship to time. However, when we write we can play around with time as we wish. And we can move the writing forwards and backwards in time according to our purpose in writing. I hope you have understood my point. Let me rephrase it for you. Actually in real life we think we are moving forward in time, right? But when you write, in writing you can play around with time. You can begin from the past, move on to the future, then go back to the present, then move forward. That is something that you can do in writing, right? Now for the sake of practice there is a passage in front of you on the screen. Read it and see which information or which sentence is not... There is something in that passage which is not in an acceptable order. The whole thing is in a chronological order but there is one sentence that disrupts that chronological order. Quickly go through the passage, the sentences are numbered for you and you can spot the sentence, the information that is not in an acceptable order. You are familiar with this passage because this is from the history of computers which you had earlier on in your reading sessions. Now look closely, the first sentence begins with in 1930, right? And then we move on, the next period in time is 1944 which is in sentence number 3. You move further down the passage and you come to sentence number 4 or 5 where it says another important advancement in computers came in 1947, fine? And the last sentence, number 6, in 1946, now that there is the anomaly, there is what is wrong. Sentence number 6 should not be the last sentence, in fact it should be in the place of sentence number 5. So what is marked as number 5 should actually be the last sentence. I hope you have understood what I meant by writing in chronological order. Let us look at another example. This example that you just now saw, the sample, this was of writing in chronological order. Now you will see another form of writing. It is also in chronological order but in a different way. It is the story of a Kashmiri immigrant, a Kashmiri immigrant's story. In 1947, Ahmad Reen Bhatt, a poverty-stricken 20-year-old farm worker, left Kashmir for Pakistan. What the future held in store for him, he did not know. However, he did know that it could not be any worse than the past. He had grown up during the cruel rule of the Dogras in Kashmir and had known what it was to be hungry and jobless. He had watched his mother die of tuberculosis a month before. His father had died a year after Ahmadine was born. There was nothing now to keep him in Kashmir. And so, on a cold March morning, he got into a bus bound for Rawalpindi. In years to come, he would remember this moment. Now, if you look at that passage, you will notice that the passage is talking about time. It starts with 1947. Then it goes back into the past rather than starting in the past and ending with 1947. Now, this use of unexpected time sequence. This was an unexpected use of time sequence. It allows the writer to show the relationships between events which are more strongly. It allows the writer to show the relationships between events in a more stronger fashion. And it enables him to make the text more dramatic. Now, if the texts were in the expected sequence, had this text been written in the expected sequence, what verb tense would you expect to find used? Because the writer is going back to 1946-47. So he should have used the past simple. But you find that the writer keeps moving. He uses two kinds of tenses. Which of the tenses are used in the text? Is it present, present perfect, past, past perfect? If you look at the text again, you will notice the writer uses the simple past and the past perfect. Now, the writer of this passage, he develops an unexpected sequence because he wants to highlight the fact that Ahmadine but was forced to leave Kashmir for Pakistan. The way his leaving is highlighted, it captures the reader's attention and makes the reader want to find out why he was leaving and why he was poverty stricken. In general, writers use unexpected chronological sequences when they want to emphasize something other than time. Did you get the meaning? Why is the writer using an unexpected chronological sequence? Writers do such things because they want to emphasize. They want to emphasize something other than time. So, the moral of the story is in order to emphasize even if you are writing in the chronological mode even if you are using the chronological order, you, the writer has the liberty to use an unexpected time sequence. Now we shall look at another version of the same story. And you compare the two versions and see which one is more interesting. Is the one that is very, very logical, is that interesting or the one that you had just now where the writer used an unexpected time sequence. See for yourself which one is more interesting. Amitadeen Bhatt was a bright but poverty stricken 20-year-old farm worker who grew up during the Dogra rule in Kashmir. He knew what it was to be hungry and jobless. His father had died in 1928. He had watched his mother die of tuberculosis in February 1947. There was nothing to keep him in Kashmir. So, on a cold March morning in 1947, he got into a bus bound for Rabalpindi. In years to come, he would remember this moment. Now, I am sure it was the one, the passage where the time sequence was used in an unexpected manner. That was more interesting. What you have looked at is time-based sequence. Now, there are many time-based sequences which you have studied and you are familiar with. Example, if you remember sometime earlier, we talked about making carrot pudding. The life, the life cycle of a butterfly. The life of a famous movie star or a politician or a sports person. Now, we will look at another linear pattern of organization which is known as process writing or using the process order of organization. A process like a chronological sequence, it involves linear relationships, linear meaning again in one line, one thing coming after another. Now, again, like chronological writing, we think of time, we think of processes as moving forward in a logical step-by-step process. A process is usually presented as a flow diagram. Look at this flow diagram. It is about mending a punctured football. You've all played football and you've often had a football that is punctured. If you look carefully, it describes the process of mending a punctured football. And notice, the description is step-by-step. First, take the bladder out of its cover. Next, inflate it a little. Then dip it into a tub of water. Press to find out the hole in the tube. Then you mark the spot with a marker, the spot where the hole is. Then you let out the air and you dry the bladder. And then you rub the marked place and a piece of rubber with sandpaper. Then you apply a rubber solution to both the marked place in the tube and the rubber piece. And you let them dry. And then you place the rubber piece onto the bladder and you press the tube very hard and you have mended the puncture in the football tube. Now if you noticed, it was a step-by-step process. One step coming after the other, all arranged in a logical order. You do the same when you are cooking. You first follow the first instructions, then you follow the next one, then the next, then the next. Right? Now, another passage for practice. You convert the following process as a flow diagram by filling in the boxes. Here you have the whole thing in text form. It is written. You can convert this into a diagram, a series of boxes and you fill them out. Again, the passage is familiar to you. It is taken from computers and you had plenty of practice in your reading sessions. It is steps in problem solving. You read it yourself. I shall not read it out for you. Look at the passage. Look at the words that give you the clue or the clues. The first one is, next the programmer must construct an algorithm. A flow chart or a block bra. Then you have, this is followed by, that is the next step. This is followed by, key punch the program. And then it gives you the alternative as well. And then it says that the program must be tested. This is followed by the next step, which is print out. And you have the words, the last step. That is a clue for you that this is the last step in problem solving. And the last step is to add the data to the program and run the program. We have this, you can write this text in, you can convert it into a flow chart. First, define the program. This is followed, the next step is formulate an algorithm or a flow chart. An algorithm flow chart. The third step is translate the algorithm into a computer program. Followed by step number four, which is key punch the program and key it in at a terminal. And the fourth one is, the fifth one is test the program, correct the bugs. And the last one is add data and run the program. Now, when you write up a process in a text, it will normally be in natural time order. That is, starting at the beginning of the process and continuing step by step to the end. As in the example that you have just seen. Now we shall look at ways of writing a process description. One way of writing up a process is to produce one sentence for each step in the process. One sentence for each step in the process. Now, in the last paragraph that you looked at, the last passage, which was steps in problem solving, you would easily have a text of six sentences. However, such a text would be very boring as every sentence would state one step and every sentence would have the same shape as the others. Now, how do you rectify such a situation? One solution is to put several steps into one sentence and you can mark the steps to make them clear for the reader. When you are writing, you must not always, you must ask yourself this question. Am I getting this information across? That is one question. You must also ask yourself, am I getting the information across in a clear, interesting form? Now, let me repeat what I have said for the sake of clarity. Writing, process writing can be very boring if you write one step in one sentence. That means all your sentences, if there are five or six steps, you will have five or six sentences and each sentence will be shaped like the other and it would make very boring reading. Now, the thing is that you should, as a writer, you should keep asking yourself, am I, whatever I am writing, is it, is the information going across in a clear and interesting manner? Now, to help you answer these questions, you must keep in mind a few principles of communication and what are those principles of communication? They are, number one, make everything clear to your reader or your listener. In our case, since we are dealing with writing, make everything clear to your reader. Number two, your reader does not need to be told everything. Don't assume that he is a fool. You assume that he has knowledge of the world. So, number one, make everything clear to your reader. Number two, you don't have to tell your reader everything. Now, to check whether you have been successful in conveying information about a process, your choice of transition words will be important. Words that convey a sequence such as then, next, after this, they make the sequence in a process very clear. They make the sequence in which the events or the shapes that are taking place in a process, how they occur, they make it very clear. Now, on your screens you will see a table and that table gives you some sequencing words that are to be used when describing a process. I know you will yawn when you look at those words. You will say, well, we are familiar with these words. We've been looking at them since day one. But because they are important, because they are used in writing, that is why I am showing you those words again. In the beginning you have words like first, firstly to begin with initially. And in the middle steps you have secondly, thirdly, next, then subsequently, after this, before this, at the same time. And at the end you use words like lastly, finally, at the end. Now, these sequences are usually placed at the beginning or near the beginning of a sentence. These transition markers are usually placed at the beginning or near the beginning of a sentence. Words showing only sequence work as signal or signposts for the reader. Now, if they give advance warning, if they give advance warning of the relationships being used, it is up to the writer to decide which sequencer, which sequencing word to use to make each step of the process clear. That is one way. Or the writer may decide that sequences are not needed because the process is described in natural time order. And the reader's knowledge of the world will make the sequence clear to him or her. Now, you will see a text that departs from the usual order or sequence. This I have done deliberately to highlight a certain feature or stage of the process. Here the writer does not follow the usual pattern. He uses no sequences till the fourth sentence when he specifically uses the sequencer words before and first. You should notice that the writer does this to highlight the storage stage of the process. The passage is about solar heating. Number one, the first sentence. The scientists have worked on solar heating. Number two, one such attempt was made in 1949 when a house was designed which was heated by using the energy from the sun. In this house, energy from the sun was absorbed by a large area of blackened metal sheets which were covered by double plates of glass. Air circulating behind the metal sheets carried away the heat. Before the heat could be blown around the house, it was first stored in large tanks containing globbers salt, a given volume of which can hold eight and a half times more heat than water. Now if you look at that paragraph, that paragraph has four sentences. And the writer does not use a sequencer or a transition word in sentence one, two, three, till he comes to the last sentence. And over there he uses two words. Before the heat could be blown around the house, it was first stored in large tanks. So as I said earlier, it is entirely up to the writer at which point he wants to use the sequencer words. And he uses them at a point where he wants to lay emphasis. Right. Now what kind of grammar is used in process description? When writing a text about a process, usually the present simple tense of the passive voice is often used. Now this is especially true in objective scientific descriptions. In scientific descriptions, who does the action, that is the agent, is not considered important enough to be mentioned? Or where there is not a specific agent or order or doer, sorry. Right. In objective scientific descriptions, the doer is usually not emphasized. Also, when a description of a process is given, it is usually assumed that the process will be the same. No matter who does it. And it is the passive voice which is usually used as it allows the choice of not mentioning the agent of the action. But even here, sometimes for the sake of clarity, an agent has to be stated. Now remember, what is important in writing is clarity. Even in objective scientific writings, you are required at times for the sake of clarity to mention the doer of the action. Now we shall work at a number of sentences where you will have to state if there is an agent or not in that sentence. Practice. Another practice session. You have a number of sentences. Sentence number A. Rice is harvested out in the fields. In that sentence, is there an agent? Is the person doing the action of harvesting mentioned? No. In that sentence, there is no agent. So that sentence is without an agent. B. Sentence B. Higher laborers load the rice onto bullock carts. Higher laborers load the rice onto bullock carts. Now in that sentence, is there an agent? Or is there no agent? There is one. There is an agent. The agent is mentioned. The doer of the action is mentioned. And the doer is, here, hired laborers. Sentence C. The cart drivers bring the rice to the factory. The cart drivers bring the rice to the factory. Now is there an agent in that sentence? Or is there no agent? There is an agent and the agent is drivers. Take sentence D. The laborers put the rice into the threshers. The laborers put the rice into the threshers. Again, see if there is an agent mentioned. And you will notice that there is an agent. And the agent is laborers. Sentence E. The rice is threshed by machines. The rice is threshed by machines. Is there an agent? No. There is no agent in that sentence. That sentence does not say who the doer of the action is. Sentence F. These machines are regularly maintained. These machines are regularly maintained. Now in that sentence, is there an agent mentioned? Or is that sentence without an agent? And if you look carefully, you will see that no agent is mentioned. So out of those six sentences, only three had agents mentioned over there. Now in today's lesson, we looked at the main body of the essay, how that is organized, and we looked at different patterns of organization. We looked at chronological order, how writing can be organized according to time, according to a sequence, one event taking place after another. And we even looked at samples of writing where an unexpected sequence of time was followed. And we learned that that was for the sake of emphasis. Writers can break the rule and they need not write in a chronological order. They can move backwards and forwards. And the next pattern that we looked at was writing for a process. And over there, you noticed that it was a step by step pattern of writing. One step followed another. Sometimes we even looked at a sample where we saw that the writer uses, right at the end, in the last sentence, he uses words to show. He combines a number of steps in one sentence. And the third thing that we looked at was cyclic, which we are going to look at next time. But the third thing that we looked at today was the use of the agent, the tense, how when writing processes writers usually write in the passive, in the passive voice, because it saves them the trouble of mentioning who the doer of the action is. And you looked at different samples. You looked at sentences in which there were no agents. And with that, we come to the end of today's lesson. Next time we shall follow cyclic writing. We will continue with patterns of writing. How writing is organized according to different patterns. Next time, inshallah, we shall look at spatial and cyclic forms of writing. Till then, Allah Hafiz. See you next time.