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Here are my categories. Check your answers against mine.
Skill: writing, public speaking Feeling: happy, jealous, greedy, lonely Aspect: weather patterns, funding for cancer research Value: fairness, honesty, justice, freedom Trait: positivity, greed, jealousy Issue: crime, drought, cancer, drug abuse Symbol: the bald eagle, the American flag, the Star-Spangled Banner Talent: singing, dancing, performing
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As you remember from earlier posts, when you write a research paper or a formal essay, you always need a thesis and a plan of attack. Plans of attack (and many other tasks related to paraphrasing) ask you to group, rephrase, or simplify your ideas into just a few words. Some people find this to be a little tricky, so I wanted to offer you a way to practice. Below, you will find a series of bolded words and italicized words. Italicized words are specific examples or illustrations. Bolded words are the categories. I want you to match examples with the correct category. There will be multiple examples for each category.
Skill, Feeling, Aspect, Value, Trait, Issue, Symbol, Talent Singing, Happy, Positivity, Jealous, Greedy, Greed, The Bald Eagle, Lonely, The American Flag, Fairness, The Star-Spangled Banner, Honesty, Justice, Dancing, Writing, Public Speaking, Cancer, Freedom, Crime, Performing, Drought, Jealousy, Funding for Cancer Research, Weather Patterns, Drug Abuse When you have your groups, you can share them in the comment box or check back Friday for my answers. September 9, 2014
Dear Ms Jackson, Thank you so much for your entertain___ letter. I'm always impress___ by your full life and wonderful wit. I hope you aren't disappoint___ that it has taken me so long to write you back. Life has been overwhelm___, but it hasn't been excit___. To give you an example of what I mean, I'd like to tell you a story about something that happened last weekend. As you know I am interest___ in public health so I've starting volunteering at a local community clinic. Overall, I enjoy the work, but last weekend I felt so frustrat___. Occasionally the paid staff will leave a little paperwork for volunteers to file or scan, but last weekend, it looked like they hadn't filed anything. It was astonish___! There were papers everywhere. Still, I felt the need to be thorough, so I stayed until the work was complet___. I finally went home a full three hours later than I intended. At home, I was exasperat___ and exhaust___. I decided to write an email to the supervisor describing the problem. She wrote me back quickly and said that she was surpris___ to hear that. She apologized and guaranteed me that it wouldn't happen again. She said a disorganiz___ office was embarrass___ so she would implement some new workplace standards on Monday. So, as you can see, my life has been busy. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to relax soon. Please let me know what you've been up to because I'm always entertain___ by what you have to say. Yours Truly, Marybell Add the adjectives to each of the sentences. Be sure to put them in the correct order.
As you look over your writing from last week, you should check for the four problems described here. They are the most common adjective problems for ESL learners.
If your sentence looks like....A machine is in a parking lot. Then you... ...aren't using adjectives. Did you forget to add description? Many people do! You can see my sample sentence does not describe anyone or anything in detail. If your sentence looks like...A big machine is in a little parking lot. Then you......have boring adjectives. New. Great. Nice. Bad. Sad. These are adjectives, but they are used a little too often! It is more effective to replace them with synonyms. If your sentence looks like...A Chinese, huge, yellow machine is in a square, tiny parking lot. Then you......have mixed up adjectives. Believe it or not, lists of adjectives have an order they typically follow. Unfortunately, this order is rarely discussed because most native speakers have developed it as an inborn sense. Observe native speakers and try to categorize the order they use. If your sentence looks like...An interested yellow machine is in a tiny parking lot. Then you......are a little confused about when to use -ing and -ed adjectives. Confused and confusing are used slightly differently. But when should you use each one? In general, -ing endings are used for situations that impact how you feel while -ed endings are used to explain your feeling.  Get ready to write! Please take about 15 minutes to describe this photo. Remember to use adjectives. Add as much detail as you can.
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AuthorEast Bay ESL is an English language school for learners in the San Francisco East Bay. Archives
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