 Assalamu alaikum, welcome to a virtual university and welcome to your English lesson. In today's lesson and the following couple of lessons, you will learn the principles of writing. If you have noticed in the past couple of lessons, we were looking at grammar, how to write sentences, how to avoid writing incorrect sentences and last time we looked at punctuation. Now all this was in preparation for learning to write. Now writing is also an important skill. If you can read English, you must also learn to write English and to write effective sentences, effective paragraphs and later on the principles that you learn now will help you to write longer essays, longer papers. Writing is not easy, especially in a foreign language. Writing is in fact a process. It is done in a series of steps, in a series of stages and it is a skill that comes with great effort, hard work and practice. But if you want to learn to write, you can. Now it is your motivation, how motivated you are that will make you write. If you are not interested in writing, you will find it very difficult. But the first thing of concern in writing is content. That is what you have to say, your ideas, your thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, some students are so self-conscious about the rules and about making mistakes that they do not focus on what they want to say. I am not saying that rules are not important. Rules do matter, but not at the beginning stage. And students in Pakistan have a fear of English, especially writing. And that is why they, because they have never learned to write, they resort to learning model essays and answers to questions by heart. It is your attitude that is very crucial, that is very important. It is your attitude that will determine how much effort you will put in learning to write. You learn to write, it does not come of itself, it is something that you practice. Now we will begin with the paragraph. A paragraph is a series of sentences about one main thought or idea or point. The paragraph is like the sentence in that it must concern itself with one thought. Now some ideas can be adequately treated in a single sentence. Others require fuller treatment, which is afforded by a series of sentences, that is the paragraph or a group of paragraphs. And sometimes you elaborate your thought in a number of chapters, in a number of sections and sometimes even in a book and a paragraph. Typically it starts with a point and the rest of the paragraph provides details to support and develop that point. Now if you remember your earlier reading lessons, this is very much like your reading lessons. You remember that in your reading lessons we looked at paragraphs and we said that every paragraph has one main idea and supporting ideas and you were asked to look for the main idea and look for the supporting ideas. It is the same thing in writing. Your goal in writing a paragraph should be number one to make a point, number two to support that point and number three you arrange that material, the main point and the supporting points in an orderly arrangement. We will talk about this in greater length next time and number four your goal should be to write error free sentences. Now let us take the first point. It is best to state the point in the first sentence. The sentence that expresses the main idea or the main point of a paragraph is called the topic sentence. The topic sentence is a general statement and the other sentences provide support for the general statement. If you recall at the beginning of the course you had a lesson or two on identifying the topic sentence and its supporting details. Now number two to support the point you need to provide specific reasons, examples and other details that explain and develop the point. You have to take that point further and how will you take it further? You will take it further by giving reasons, by giving examples and other such details. Number three, you can organize the support in a paragraph in two ways. You can use a listing order or a time order. In a listing order you use words like first of all, secondly, next, in addition, etc. And in time order you use words like first, next, finally. Now if you remember your earlier lessons we had plenty of practice in these things. And number four, if you use correct spelling and follow grammar, punctuation and usage rules your sentences will be clear and well written. Now look at the following two passages. Notice how the topic sentence which is underlined is supported by the sentences that follow. The first passage is written by a student, the second by a famous English writer. Now you notice how in both these passages the writer makes a point at the beginning and then goes on to support that point with specific evidence. And that is what we are going to concentrate in this lesson. In this lesson you will see samples and I shall give you practice in writing the topic sentence and the evidence. And at times I shall give you the conclusion and you will write the evidence. Now I will read out the first passage. My neighbors, the new family that has moved in next doors is quite a noisy family. Ever since they arrived we have not had peace and quiet for a day. The young daughter is the loudest person I have ever known. She pops out her head every half hour from her bedroom window and screams for the old man who works for them. Cries of Babaji, Babaji resound in the area. Babaji is a word in Urdu and Punjabi which is used for an old man. Cries of Babaji, Babaji resound in the area. And the whole neighborhood can hear what she wants Babaji to fetch her from the market. As for the other children they are no better. Screaming and shouting at the top of their voices, they play hide and seek late into the night and their dogs barking loudly join them in their spot. As if this is not enough just when the neighborhood is about to turn in for the night loud stereo music blares from their house shaking and rattling everyone's nerves. I think we need to call a meeting of the other neighbors and do something about this. Now I hope you noticed that this passage began with the sentence, the new family that has moved in next doors is quite a noisy family. The first sentence makes it quite clear that it is a noisy family. This is what the reader expects that what is going to come up now after this sentence will elaborate on that noisy family. And you notice that it begins with the next sentence tells you that they have not had peace and quiet. And then the evidence of it being a noisy family is provided by the writer. First the writer he or she talks about their daughter what is it that the daughter does that makes it a noisy family. And then you are given evidence of the cries that she comes up with right. And the next thing is the other children what is it that the other children do and you are told that the other children are no better. And you get evidence of what the other children do what do they do you are provided evidence that they play hide and see they scream and they shout and they do it late in the night. The next evidence is that it is their dogs who are equally noisy. So you can imagine I mean you can build up a picture in your mind. And then the writer goes on to tell you something more about the noisy part and that is that there is music loud stereo music when just when everybody is thinking of going to bed and you are told how loud it is that the neighborhood it shatters their nerves. And the last concluding sentence in the concluding sentence the writer says that it just shows how desperate the writer is about the noisy bit and they want to do something about it. Let us look at the next the second passage. This is written by a famous writer of English I will read it out and you notice the kind of evidence that the writer provides. On the day after the burial of a celebrated man his friends and enemies apply themselves to the work of writing his biography. These school fellows relate in the newspapers his boyish pranks. Another man recalls his recalls exactly and word for word the conversation he had with him 20 years ago. The lawyer who manages the affairs of the deceased draws up a list of the different officers he has filled his titles, dates and figures and reveals to the matter of fact readers how the money left has been invested and how the fortune has been made. The grand nephews and second cousins publish an account of his acts, they publish an account of his acts of humanity and catalogue and the catalogue of his domestic virtues. Now this is by a famous writer Tain who writes in the history of English literature. This passage is taken from there. Now notice again in this passage the first sentence tells you that the passage is about a person who a celebrated man and when he dies what is it his friends and enemies do. They start applying themselves to writing his biography. Now this is not a biography but this is written in a humorous way and you can notice that the man is writing with a smirk on his face. He talks about the school fellows, he talks about one man, he talks about his lawyer, he talks about his grand nephews and grand nieces. Now what does he say? Now every sentence after the first sentence elaborates what is said in the first one. Notice in the second sentence he talks about his school fellows, the school fellows with whom he studied and they relate his boyish pranks. Then he gives you more evidence about this writing of the biography actually no biography is being written but he tells you how people your friends and others keep talking about the person who is died a celebrated man. The other man he recalls and notice the sarcasm word for word the conversation he had twenty years ago with him. Then you are told what is lawyer who manages his affairs. What does the lawyer do? The lawyer draws up a list of all the offices that this man held, the titles that he gained, the dates and the figures this is what goes in a biography. In a biography you are given all these details and the lawyer and in this way the lawyer reveals to the readers how the money this celebrated man left to his children, how it was invested and how the fortune was made. And then you are further told what the grand nephews and the second cousins that is his even his distant relatives they all publish an account of his acts of humanity actually nobody does that but it is the way they talk about the departed person of all his acts of humanity of what a great man he was and what great virtues he possessed. So, that is elaborating the qualities of the deceased of the dead man. Now, shall we go back to the first sentence? Notice the first sentence was on the day after the burial of a celebrated man his friends and enemies apply themselves to the work of writing his biography. And what you get afterwards he is elaborating in the different ways in which his school fellows, his colleagues, his friends, his acquaintances how they elaborate and tell you more about this man. Now, these two were samples of topic sentences and how the writers provide evidence. Now, some writers like to start with an idea and then collect evidence to support it. Evidence what is evidence? Evidence is supporting material, it could be in the form of statistics, it could be in the form of examples, it could be in the form of comparisons, contrasts, causes, effects and even expert opinion. Now, in the two paragraphs that you saw on your screen and I read them out for you you must have noticed that the evidence both paragraphs give you evidence. In the first one you are given examples of the noisy family, examples of the kind of activities they indulge in which make it a noisy family. And in the second one you are given instances of how friends and relatives talk about the diseased person and in that way they are writing his biography. Now, that is one way of writing, some writers like to start with an idea and then they go on to elaborate. Other writers like to start with facts, they like to start with facts on a topic and then they form their ideas from those facts and then there is the third type, the third type of a writer. These writers like to work with ideas and evidence at the same time. These writers they shape their ideas as new facts turn up and they collect new evidence as they find fresh ideas. Now, let us have some practice. You will see a number of sentences, arrange the ideas and the evidence that you find over there in a logical order. The most general should come first, I will read it out. The first shelf was crammed with copies of the daily newspapers, the Pakistan Times, the news, the dawn and the nation. To the left of the papers he had piled copies of the Herald, Shee, the Friday Times and Mac. On the middle shelf he had a set of the great Urdu and Punjabi classics and a vast collection of science fiction novels and detective stories. On the top shelf he had numerous volumes on cooking, gardening and travel. His library testified to the breadth of his reading habits. You will notice that passage contains five sentences. Look at the passage and arrange the ideas. Which sentence out of those five sentences should come first? Because you are asked to arrange them in a logical order and the most general coming first. If you go through the text you will find that the last sentence, the last sentence, his library testified to the breadth of his reading habits. That is a general sentence and that is the topic, that is the main idea. And later on you have to provide evidence that you find in that passage to support the idea. I have given you the clue, it is number five. His library testified to the breadth of his reading habits. That would be sentence number one. Alright, let us look at the passage again. Now you are asked to write this in logical order. So how will you begin? You can either, if you notice carefully, you would notice that the first sentence has the word the first shelf and then the next one has to the left. It begins with the word to the left. The third sentence says on the middle shelf and the fourth one is on the top shelf. So it is entirely up to you how you arrange the sentences. A logical order, it could be you begin from the top then you go to the bottom or you begin from the top then you go to the middle and then you go to the bottom or you can begin from the left and move on to the right. So these are different ways of arranging things in a logical order. Let us look at another passage for practice sake so that you get to know how to arrange things in an orderly manner. I will read out the passage for you. Mathematics has never been easy for me. Now that I am in college, I am having trouble getting through even in business math. I never could solve the mysteries of x's and y's, signs and cosines. In primary school, I had serious trouble learning the simplest arithmetic. In high school, I barely passed in algebra and trigonometry. My father threatened to take me out of school if I did not learn to add correctly. Now how many sentences, six sentences and which is the topic sentence, it is the first one. Mathematics has never been easy for me. That is the main idea and notice if you look at that passage again, you will notice that all the other sentences that follow it keep adding on, keep giving you evidence that mathematics was not easy for the writer. Notice how the passage is organized. After the first sentence, all the other sentences keep giving you evidence of what is stated earlier in the first sentence. You notice that he, the writer begins with college and then he goes back to high primary school and high school and even to his early childhood. This is the way the material has been organized. Now, what happened in college? He says now the time in college, we know that the writer at the time is in college. He says he is having trouble now and then he says he could never solve mysteries. He gives you evidence, x's and y's, signs and cosines. Then he takes you back because he said earlier has never been easy for me. It is not easy in college now and then he tells you that it was not easy when he was in primary school. There, he had problem learning the simplest arithmetic. Then he talks about high school, more evidence and he says he barely passed algebra and trigonometry. Then he rounds off the passage by saying that when he was in school, his father threatened to take him out if he did not learn to add correctly. In that passage, the first idea was that mathematics has never been easy for the writer and the writer provides you evidence. Now, you had enough practice. You have looked at two passages, seen how they have been, seen how the idea, the main idea is given and then you get a lot of evidence to support the main idea. Now another practice for you, a practice exercise. Here you are given short passages which are evidence. You have to select the most appropriate conclusion, the conclusion that you might infer from the evidence that is before you. A number of conclusions are given you. You have to choose the one which is the most appropriate from the evidence that is there and the evidence is my four year old Suzuki has 80,000 miles on it. It needs a new battery, the alignment of the front wheels is out, the shock absorbers are weak and the upholstery is frayed, right. Now you have three choices to conclude that evidence. Would you go on to say after that evidence that Japanese cars gave good service for 80,000 miles then they break down, would that be a good conclusion? Number two, it is time for me to get a new Suzuki, would that be a good appropriate conclusion to the evidence given you or would number three, my four year old Suzuki needs some minor repairs. Now out of these, which one would you choose? Read the passage again, notice the evidence that is being provided you. You cannot choose number one, that is not what the passage says. Would you choose number three? You could, but I would go for number two, it is time for me to get a new Suzuki. Now if you remember the two passages that I read out to you earlier, both those passages had good conclusions. The first one, the conclusion in the first passage was that we need to call a meeting of the neighbors to sort this problem. Now you have plenty of evidence over here about the Suzuki. Now which one would be out of those three choices, which one would be the appropriate conclusion? Number one or number two or number three, shall we look at another one, another passage? Here evidence is given you and you have to choose the most appropriate conclusion. The evidence is the rainfall in Dhaka was 88.6 inches in 1960, 86.2 inches in 1961, 84.2 inches in 1962, 81.2 in 1963, 80.1 inches in 1964 and 75.1 inches in 1965. Now in this you have evidence of rainfall, you have to choose the most appropriate conclusion. Number one is that Dhaka rainfall declined steadily between 1960 and 1965, that is conclusion number one. Conclusion number two is that Dhaka rainfall eventually returned to normal. Number three, Dhaka rainfall was 74.1 inches in 1967. Out of those three, well I hope you know that these are just figures cooked up, they are not true figures. Which one of the three would be the most appropriate conclusion? Choose one for yourselves. If you look carefully, the evidence is that gradually the rainfall was declining. If you choose number one, Dhaka rainfall declined steadily between 1960 and 1965, that would be a good conclusion. There is no evidence to say that the rainfall eventually returned to normal and number three that Dhaka rainfall was 74.1 in 1967, no there is no evidence. So your conclusion must be based on the evidence that is given, let us look at another passage. Here you identify the evidence that does not support the conclusion, place the number of the irrelevant evidence in the blank that is given there. And if you find that all the evidence is irrelevant, leave the blank empty. The conclusion is the trees in the backyard provide shade all day, that is the conclusion. Over here you are asked to examine the evidence. The evidence is number one, four neem trees to the front of the south side protected the yard from the morning sun. Number two, a row of towering eucalyptus trees on the west side protect the yard from the evening sun. Number three, two great rubber trees further back on the south side caught the dude an early afternoon rays. Number four, between the trees were low growing rose bushes, hibiscus and jasmine bushes. You have got four sentences as evidence. Which one of them does not support the conclusion? Look at the sentences again, read them carefully. The conclusion is the trees in the backyard provide shade all day. Look at the four sentences. Number one is about trees, trees to the front of the south side. They protect the yard from the morning sun. Number two is about a row of eucalyptus trees, which are on the west side and they protect the place from the evening sun. And then sentence number three is about rubber trees, which are again on the back side on the south side. And they protect the place from the afternoon and the noon rays. Sentence number four, the evidence which is in number four is about between the trees were low growing rose bushes, hibiscus and jasmine bushes. Now is this evidence? Now this evidence does not support the conclusion, right? Now so far we have looked at passages. The first two were about the topic sentence, the main idea and supporting evidence. Then you had exercises where the evidence was given and you were asked to formulate a conclusion. And another one you had where the conclusion was given and you had to choose a statement which did not support the conclusion. This was practice for you to write. If you remember at the beginning of the lesson I said that writing takes time. It is a process which takes place in certain steps. Now there are five steps in writing. The first one is brainstorming. The second is making a brief outline. The third step is writing the first draft. The fourth step is revising and the last one is proof reading. Let us look at the first step. The first step involves brainstorming. What is brainstorming? By brainstorming I mean that you jot down points or ideas and their details as they come to your mind. Just write them down without putting them in any special order. Try to accumulate as many details as you can think of. That is one way of doing it. The other way is a lot of people prefer doing it this way. They cluster, that is you put your ideas down in groups and this is another strategy. You begin by stating your subject in the center of a blank sheet of paper then as ideas come into your mind you put them in boxes or in circles around the subject or the main topic and you will notice in the, remember the first passage that I read out to you about my neighbors and on your screen you can see how the ideas were clustered, were put in clusters. In the center it says noisy neighbors and then you have got daughter shouts Babaji, you have got children play hide and seek, then the idea came that dogs bark loudly and you have got it there. Then the idea that loud music and then the kinds of music that is played stereo and TV and there is the conclusion something needs to be done. But this is one way, one way is to just jot down the points as they come into your head. The other is making little clusters, this is what is known as brain storming. All the ideas that come into your mind you jot them down and you write your paragraph. Now I would like you to write something and the instructor will see what you write. I would like you to write a passage, a paragraph on family relationships, family relationships and whatever you write in that passage, whatever you write in that passage you must provide the main idea and give evidence that supports the main idea. So write a passage, a paragraph, a short paragraph of not more than 4 to 5 sentences on the same pattern as you have seen the passage on my neighbors. Write a paragraph on family relationships, main idea and then give supporting evidence. And with that we come to the end of today's lesson and in today's lesson you learnt about paragraph writing, making the main point and providing supporting evidence. In the coming lessons we you are going to learn a few more principles and techniques of writing passages, till then Allah Hafiz see you next time.