University Writing Course John Morley – Peter Doyle – Ian Pople

ISBN 978-1-84679-366-0
Published by Express Publishing

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© John Morley – Peter Doyle – Ian Pople, 2007

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First published 2007

Third impression 2010

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ISBN: 978-1-84679-366-0

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank colleagues at the University of Manchester for their
suggestions and input into these materials, in particular: Pat Campbell and Bill
Guariento for piloting some of the early versions of this material.

Thanks to all the staff at Express Publishing who have contributed their skills to
producing this book. Thanks for their support and patience are due in particular
to: Megan Lawton (Editor in Chief), Julie Baker Todd (senior editor), Steve Blake
(editorial assistant), Richard White (senior production controller), the Express
design team, and Tony Mason, David Smith and Timothy Forster.

We would also like to acknowledge all those who have allowed us to use
material in this publication. A full list may be found in the bibliography on
page 109.
 Contents

Preface ................................................................................................................ 4

1 Organising Information and Giving Examples .................................................. 5

2 Classifying and Listing ....................................................................................... 13

3 Giving Definitions .............................................................................................. 21

4 Cause & Effect and Problems & Solutions ........................................................ 29

5 Comparing and Contrasting .............................................................................. 37

6 Writing about the Past ....................................................................................... 43

7 Describing Graphs and Trends .......................................................................... 53

8 Writing Introductions and Conclusions ............................................................ 65

9 Discussing Issues and Results ........................................................................... 73

10 Describing Processes and Methods .................................................................. 81

11 Referring to Sources ........................................................................................... 89

12 Being Critical and Evaluating ............................................................................ 97

Appendices: The Academic Writing Process .................................................. 103

Punctuation ................................................................................ 104

The Use of the Article ................................................................ 105

Commonly Confused Words ..................................................... 106

British/US Spelling ..................................................................... 107

Notes on Sentence Structure ..................................................... 108

Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 109

Sources According to Units ............................................................................... 110

Suggested Answers Section ............................................................................... 111

3
 Preface

This book has been written for current and prospective students of English speaking
universities whose first language is not English. It is aimed at the large group of students,
undergraduate and postgraduate, whose level in English may be at or around level 6 in IELTS or
560 (PBT) in TOEFL, and who still need to further refine and improve their academic writing.
Adopting a general English for academic purposes approach, the units cover a broad range of
key functional and textual areas. Each unit includes a range of authentic sample texts, controlled
and less controlled writing exercises, and a reference list of useful phrases. The materials have
been developed over a period of 10 years at the University of Manchester by authors with a total
of over 40 years experience of teaching academic writing in a University environment.

John Morley
Peter Doyle
Ian Pople

4
 Organising Information and Giving Examples
1
I. ORGANISING INFORMATION

The basic units of organisation in a written text are paragraphs. A paragraph normally contains
several sentences which are all concerned with one main idea (or topic). In a well-written
paragraph, the main idea (or topic) is expressed in a topic sentence, which is usually (but not
always) the first sentence. The other sentences in the paragraph develop the main idea in some way.
The whole paragraph should be coherent and easy to follow.

1 Introductory exercise on paragraph development

In the text below identify the topic sentence and reorder the sentences to form the original
paragraph.

a Finally, as the traditional means of communicating knowledge internationally, journals

are accepted and recognised by scholars and researchers. They define what is important,
maintain standards and also help to create an invisible college of those concerned with
a topic.

b They use technologies which are available to virtually every nation and to most academic
institutions, regardless of age or level of development.

c Through a well-established international infrastructure of library acquisition, new

journals can reach concerned scholarly audiences fairly efficiently.

d Journals have significant advantages as a means of international scholarly communication.

They are relatively inexpensive.

2 Focus on paragraph development

The above paragraph has a typical structure that can be identified in many paragraphs: the topic
sentence introduces the new idea, topic, argument or piece of information into the main text. This
is then either explained further or supported by subsequent sentences. This structure can be
represented like this:

Topic Sentence
(new idea, expressed in general terms)
Explanatory or Supporting Information (may include):
explanation
and/or past research
" illustrations/examples
" quotations
" statistics
" specific aspects

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It is important for the unity of a paragraph that the explanatory or supporting information should
directly relate to the topic sentence and that only one main idea should be discussed. A new main
idea should be treated in a separate paragraph. It is also important that the explanatory or
supporting information should not repeat the general idea expressed in the topic sentence.

3 Exercises on paragraph development

The sentences in the boxes below (i-iv) are not in order. First, identify the topic sentence
and then put the remaining sentences in order.

(i)
a Britain lost most of its Empire after World War II, but even as the sun was setting
on the Empire, the United States was simultaneously rising as a political, economic
and military superpower. Thus the spread of English has continued without a
break.

b The widespread use of English and its current position as the world language is not
accidental, nor it is attributable to any intrinsic linguistic superiority of English as a
language.

c Wherever the British acquired colonies, they brought English with them as the
language of administration.

d It began with the establishment of the British Empire in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
(ii)
a Historically, this is because new foods and new ways of processing and cooking
foods have arisen since the separation of the two nations.

b The many differences in the terminology of transportation result from the fact that
the railroad (British: railway) and motor industries developed after the separation
of the United States and Great Britain.

c The vagaries* of fashion have caused divergence in the vocabulary of clothing.

d Three broad semantic areas in which British-American lexical differences are

especially noticeable are food, clothing and transportation.
* = unexpected, unpredictable changes
(iii)
a When a college student says that a certain book is great, it is more than likely that
the statement has nothing to do with the value of the book judged as a work of art
but simply means that he or she thoroughly enjoyed it.

b By extension of meaning is meant the widening of a word’s signification until it

covers much more than the idea originally conveyed.

c A box of candy or a chair may be lovely, and anything from a ball game to the
weather may be great.

d The word lovely, for example, means primarily worthy to be loved, and great means
large in size, the opposite of small. But today lovely and great have no such
meanings.

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(iv) a Cycling alters the anatomical position of the spine (to a flexed position),
particularly the thoracic spine, and exposes the anterior portion of the vertebral
column to higher compression.

b Among cyclists, however, the most potentially serious of these disorders might be
increased thoracic curvature.

c Children may become interested in competitive sport at an early age.

d Early involvement (prior to maturity) in competitive sports often exposes

individuals to types of stress that may affect their growth, producing a disruption
of the normal growth pattern (Frost, 1979; Watkins, 1999).

4 Exercise on dividing a text into paragraphs

In the following text the paragraph divisions are not indicated. Identify the topic sentence(s)
and divide the text into paragraphs. There are three paragraphs in the original text.

Weather conditions in Saudi Arabia vary almost as much as the terrain. In the mountains that
fringe the peninsula on the west, south and southeast, annual rainfall is about 50 centimetres
and there are often torrential downpours and destructive flash floods; yet parts of the Rub’ al-
Khali may receive no rain for as long as 10 years. Over much of central, northern and
5 northeastern Arabia, average annual rainfall is 5 to 15 centimetres and highly variable from year
to year. Temperature and humidity ranges are equally disparate. In the interior the air is dry,
while on the coasts, summer humidity is excessive, particularly at night. In summer,
temperatures in some areas may reach 50° C (122° F) in the shade, but in spring, the days are
balmy and the nights are clear. In winter, temperatures drop below freezing in the central and
10 northern regions, and snow sometimes falls in the mountains, the northern plateau and even in
the capital Riyadh. There are also strong winds, such as the prevailing northwest winds along
the eastern coast – the winds called the shamal – which frequently whip up dust and
sandstorms. The climate of the peninsula, nevertheless, is largely characterised by aridity and
heat. As a result, the vegetation, wildlife and domesticated animals of the peninsula share one
15 distinctive feature: a high degree of adaptation to the special demands of life in the desert. The
ability of men to adapt and survive in this harsh environment has had important effects on the
history of the peninsula and Saudi Arabia.

IRAQ
JORDAN IRAN

KUWAIT

Buraydah BAHRAIN

Medina QATAR

EGYPT U.A.E.

Jiddah Mecca

ΟΜΑΝ
SUDAN

Figure 1.1. Map of Saudi

YEMEN
ERITREA Arabia and surrounding areas

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II. GIVING EXAMPLES
5 Pre-reading
(i) ñ Why do writers give examples in their texts?
ñ In what position in a paragraph would you normally expect to find examples?
(ii) ñ Do you know any words in English whose meanings have changed with time?
ñ How have they changed?

6 Reading for main points

Read the extract below and note two ways in which the meaning of a word can change and
give one example of each.

(1) It has been observed that in their sense development, words often pursue certain well-
marked tendencies. Among the more common of these are extension of meaning and narrowing
of meaning. By extension of meaning is meant the widening of a word's signification until it
covers much more than the idea originally conveyed. The tendency is sometimes called
5 generalisation. The word lovely, for example, means primarily worthy to be loved, and great
means large in size, the opposite of small. But today lovely and great have no such meaning. A
box of candy or a chair may be lovely, and anything from a ball game to the weather may be
great. When a college student says that a certain book is great, it is more than likely that the
statement has nothing to do with the value of the book judged as a work of art, but simply means
10 that he or she thoroughly enjoyed it. In everyday use these words have come to express only
enthusiastic approval of a rather vague sort. Another illustration is the word dean. It has, of
course, its proper meanings, such as the head of the chapter in a cathedral church or the head
of the faculty in a college. But it has come to be used as a designation for the senior or foremost
person of any group or class, so that we may speak of the dean of American critics, or, indeed,
15 of sportswriters.

(2) The opposite tendency is for a word gradually to acquire a more restricted sense, or to be
chiefly used in one special connection. A classic example of this practice is the word doctor.
There are doctors (i.e., learned men) in theology, law and many other fields beside medicine,
but nowadays when we send for the doctor we mean a member of only one profession. In some
20 of the preceding paragraphs, especially thοse in which were presented examples of old words
with new meanings, will be found a number of similar instances. The verb to park as applied to
automobiles and the war word tank are cases in point. The use of a word in a restricted sense
does not preclude its use also in other meanings. Often the restricted sense of a word belongs
to a special or class vocabulary. An enlargement means to a photographer a large print made
25 from a small negative, and in educational circles a senior is a member of the graduating class.
Consequently, it sometimes happens that the same word will acquire different restricted
meanings for different people. The word gas is an inclusive term for the chemist, but it calls up
a more restricted idea in the kitchen. Narrowing of meaning may be confined to one locality
under the influence of local conditions. Nickel in America means a coin, and for a number of
30 years the word prohibition in this country generally suggested the prohibition of alcohol. In the
same way the terms democrat and republican seldom have their broader significance to an
American but rather imply adherence to one or the other of the two chief political parties in the
United States.

8
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7 Guided summary
Below is a short summary of the text. However, a number of important words and phrases
have been removed. Can you complete the summary by filling in the gaps?

With time, there is a tendency for some words to 1) ........................................... their meaning and
for 2) .................................... to acquire a more restricted meaning. An 3) .................................. of
the former is the word 4) ....................................., which originally meant large in size but can now
mean 5) ........................................... . The word doctor is a good example of the latter. Originally
meaning 6) ............................ man, nowadays it is usually 7) ......................... to refer to a medical
practitioner.

8 Language focus
ñ Read through the text again and underline any language used to introduce examples.
ñ What other words or phrases can be used to give examples?

9 Reading for detail

Now re-read the text and complete the table below.

Paragraph 1
Extension of meaning
Example 1: Word lovely New meaning vague approval
Example 2: Word ……………… New meaning ……………………..
Example 3: Word ……………… New meaning ……………………..

Paragraph 2
Narrowing of meaning
Example 1: Word ……………… New meaning …………………….
Example 2: Word ……………… New meaning ……………………
Example 3: Word ……………… New meaning ……………………
Narrowing of meaning (special vocabulary)
Example 1: Word ……………… New meaning …………………….
Example 2: Word ……………… New meaning ..……………………
Example 3: Word ……………… New meaning ……………………..
Narrowing of meaning (local vocabulary)
Example 1: Word ……………… New meaning …………………..
Example 2: Word ………………. New meaning …………………..
Example 3: Word ……………….. New meaning …………………..
Example 4: Word ……………….. New meaning ………………….

How are the examples of special and local vocabulary introduced?

9
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10 Language for giving examples

Examples as the main information in a sentence

For example,
the word doctor used to mean a learned man.
For instance,

A good
A classic
A well-known example of this is the word doctor.
A typical
Another

are
Examples of extension of meaning lovely and great.
include

The following are examples of extension of meaning: lovely and great.

example
The word lovely is a good of extension of meaning.
illustration

Extension of meaning can be illustrated by the words lovely and great.

illustrates this point.

The word doctor
shows this point clearly.

is a case in point.
The word doctor is a good example of this.
serves as a good illustration of this.

Words such as lovely and great serve as good examples.

is exemplified
This is shown by the words lovely and great.
is illustrated

Examples as additional information in a sentence

Pavlov found that if some other stimulus, for example the ringing of a bell, preceded the food, the
dog would start salivating.
A number of well-known diseases can result at least in part from stress, including arthritis, asthma,
migraine, headaches and ulcers.
In Paris, Gassendi kept in close contact with many other prominent scholars such as Kepler, Galileo,
Hobbes and Descartes.
such as copper, iron ore, oil, coal and aluminium, have
The prices of resources,
like declined in real terms over the past 20 years.

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11 Sentence constructions using for example and such as
ñ What kind of grammatical structures follow for example and such as?
ñ Is there any difference between them?
(i) Rewrite the sentences (a-f) below so that they include the examples which are given
on the right. Use such as and make whatever changes you feel are necessary.
Example: The desire to avoid stress may also lead people to avoid potentially beneficial
changes to their lives, such as job changes and promotions.
(ii) Rewrite the examples on the right as complete sentences using for example. Expand
on the information which is given.
Example: For example, they may avoid changing jobs or fail to pursue promotion
opportunities.

Sentences Examples

a The desire to avoid stress may also lead people to avoid i job changes, promotions
potentially beneficial changes to their lives.

b Giving people the correct information can encourage ii cutting down on smoking
them to adopt health promoting behaviour. cutting down on drinking

c People are more likely to pay attention to certain bodily iii aches, pains
sensations when they are under stress.

d The focus of medical care in our society has been shifting iv poor eating habits,
towards changing many of our unhealthy behaviours smoking, failure to
rather than simply curing the resulting diseases. exercise

e For some people, being called upon to give a talk in front v a pounding heart and a dry
of a class is a highly stressful stimulus that will mouth
immediately produce symptoms of an alarm reaction.

f Young people begin smoking for a variety of reasons. vi peer pressure and the role
modelling of parents

12 Writing Tasks
(i) Choose one or more of the points below and write a paragraph, adding examples to
support the point(s).
ñ Clothing for traditional weddings varies from culture to culture.
ñ Differences in men's and women's speech may be partly based on social factors.
ñ What is described as preventative medicine may cover a number of different practices.
ñ Smoking has many disadvantages. Some of them concern personal hygiene and
appearance whereas more serious disadvantages relate to health.
(ii) Write one or two paragraphs illustrating a fact, theory or argument within your own
subject area.

11
 Classifying and Listing
2
1 Pre-reading
ñ What is a mineral?
ñ Do you know which minerals are found in the body?
ñ Do you know which minerals are good for the body and which are not?

2 Reading
Read the text below and note how trace minerals are classified.

(1) Scientists first started to analyse the chemicals in the body at the beginning of the twentieth
century. However, their equipment was not sensitive enough to accurately measure all the
chemicals they found. Therefore, when scientists detected a particular mineral in the body but
could not find enough to measure, they called it a ‘trace’ mineral. Thus the official definition of
5 a trace mineral is one that makes up less than 0.01% (1/10,000th part) of the total body weight.

(2) The trace minerals group comprises over fifty chemical elements. It is divided into three
categories on the basis of how useful the minerals are to the body. The first category is
‘essential’ trace minerals, which are necessary in a person’s diet for that person to be fully
healthy. These minerals include nine known to be vital for full health: zinc, copper, selenium,
10 chromium, manganese, molybdenum, iodine, fluoride and cobalt, in that order.

(3) The second category of trace minerals are ‘toxic’ trace minerals. These are minerals that
cause toxicity problems when there is too much of any of them in the body because, for example,
there is too much of them in the environment. The particular elements in this category may
change from time to time, and include three of the minerals in the first category (arsenic,
15 cadmium and lead) that the body actually needs in very small quantities. However, they become
toxic when they are present in the body above certain levels. Other such minerals are mercury
and tin.

(4) The third class of non-essential trace minerals is everything else. These are all the other
minerals that are present in the body but not essential in the diet and not thought to have any
20 particular purpose. Thus these minerals do not cause any concern over toxicity or deficiency.

3 Guided summary
Below is a short summary of the text you have just read. Complete the summary by filling
in the gaps.

The official definition of a trace mineral is that it 1) ................................... up less than 0.01% of
the 2) .......................... body weight. One way of 3) ............................. trace minerals is according
to how 4) ............................. they are to the body. Although some of these minerals belong to more
than 5) .................... category, most minerals can be placed into one of three 6) ......................... .
These are 7) ........................ , 8) ........................ and 9) .......................... .

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4 Sentence construction
Look at the following sentence:

On the basis of | how harmful they are to the body, trace minerals may be divided
|
According to | into essential, toxic and non-essential.

Now make up similar sentences from the columns in the box below:

a GNP per capita the education system deciduous and evergreen trees

b their physical appearance animals the primary sector, the secondary

sector and the tertiary sector

c age of study countries Negroids, Caucasians and Mongoloids

d whether they eat plants, human beings low-income countries, middle-income

other animals or both countries and high-income countries

e whether or not they shed rocks herbivores, carnivores and omnivores

their leaves seasonally

f origin broad-leaved trees igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and

metamorphic rocks

5 Sentence level gap-fill exercise

a) Use these words/phrases to fill in the gaps in the following sentences.
may be divided into on the basis of such as including

i A number of the developing countries 1) ........................................... energy exporters,

2) ................................ the OPEC countries, and energy importers, 3) ................................
some other ‘middle income’ countries.

ii The costs of children 4) ................................ direct costs, 5) ............................................ the

expenditure on the baby and mother around the time of birth, and indirect costs
6) ...................................................... the earnings lost by mothers who take time out of paid
employment, and who may return to work part-time and at lower rates of pay.

iii 7) ................................ their age and a test performance, any new children can then be given
a test score which reflects their performance relative to the national average.

b) Use the following words/phrases to fill in the gaps in the following sentences.
third group comprises divided into main groups
on the basis of second category further sub-divided into tiny

i Medical teachers in Britain can be classified into three 1) .............................................. : a

2) ................................ minority who are trained in educational theory and methods and who
often are not medically qualified themselves, a 3) ....................................... consisting of staff
holding official ‘teaching’ appointments but without formal teacher training, and a
4) ................................ of NHS doctors who teach, and which 5) ................................ most
NHS doctors.

ii 6) .......................... their legal status, private companies may be 7) .......................... limited

and unlimited companies and private limited companies can be 8) .......................... those
14 limited by shares and those limited by guarantee.
 2
6 Text restructuring
See if you can reorder the information in the text below into two logical and coherent
paragraphs. Give reasons for your ordering.

Figure 2.1. A barred spiral galaxy

a Regular galaxies were divided into ellipticals and spirals.

b His scheme, published in 1936, is based on an examination of photographs taken by Mt

Wilson’s 1.5 and 4.5 meter telescopes.

c Other schemes have been developed, but Hubble’s basic classification is still the most
widely used.

d Edwin Hubble’s effort to classify the ‘extragalactic nebulae’, as he called galaxies, was
a lifelong pursuit.

e Hubble divided galaxies into two broad types: regulars, which show rotational
symmetry about a central nucleus, and irregulars which lack this symmetry, and thus
were not included in this sequence.

f As his collection of photographs grew, he modified the scheme but kept its essential
features.

g Two branches of spirals – one with a bar across the nucleus – were classified according
to the size of the nuclear region and the openness of the arms.

Figure 2.2. A spiral galaxy

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7 Language for classifying

General classifications

Xi and Xii.
X may be divided into sub-groups.
three main
classes.

on the basis of
according to
X may be classified Y into Xi and Xii.
depending on
in terms of

On the basis of Y, X may be divided into Xi and Xii.

X may be sub-divided according to whether or not there is Y.

Xi may be further divided into Xi(a) and Xi(b).

group
Within the classified as X, there are four variations:
zone

Within each sub-class, there are a number of variations of ...

is made up of
X consists of Xi and Xii.
comprises

Specific classifications

according to whether …
In the U.S. system, X is graded
on the basis of …

divided
Smith X’s into two broad types: Xi’s and Xii’s.
grouped

Later researchers sub-divided the two categories into according to the extent of …
Xi and Xii and Yi and Yii on the basis of …

Thomas and Nelson (1996) describe four basic types of validity: logical, content,
criterion and construct.

8 Vocabulary
a) The following words are used for classifying. You have read or used some of them
already.
ñ Decide what part of speech they are, e.g. noun, adjective, or verb.
ñ Decide which of them are formal and can be used in academic writing and which are
informal and should not be used in academic writing,
e.g. pigeonhole – noun and verb – informal
a category d classify g pigeonhole j set
b class e distinguish h place k sort out
c system f grouping i separate l stereotype

16
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b) Choose from the following words to fill the gaps.
category classify distinguish stereotype system

i Music reviewers love to 1) ................................ performers, but Jocelyn Pook has a distinct
personality all of her own.
ii Many biographies fall into the 2) ................................ which might be described as scholarly
but not academic. They are written by professional writers for an educated reader rather than
for the smaller market of academic specialists in a particular subject.
iii The Education Minister urged schools not to 3) ................................ pupils from certain racial
groups as troublemakers.

c) Use the following words to fill the gaps in the sentences.

a set of distinction grouping selected distinguish

i A preliminary 1) ................................ may be based on the 2) ................................ between

water soluble and water insoluble soils.
ii Naturopathic remedies tend to be derived from the natural world and are 3) .........................
and administered according to 4) ................................ basic principles.
iii South Africa's conservation efforts have received a great deal of publicity and it has been
difficult to 5) ................................ myth from reality.

9 Listing

When writers classify, they may well need to list their classifications. They will often use words such
as: categories, classes and groupings.
Some other words are – advantages, aspects, causes, consequences, criticisms, effects, elements,
examples, factors, features, objectives, points, reasons, stages, trends and varieties.

a) Now use three of the following five words to fill the gaps in these sentences.
advantages consequences elements features objectives
i US currency has traditionally had a number of 1) ................................ that deter
counterfeiters. One is the cotton and linen paper, which has a distinctive feel. Another is the
ink on the notes which is manufactured according to secret formulas.
ii Extreme fatigue may result in several 2) ................................: firstly, people may limit their
exercise to stop pain and discomfort; secondly, there will a lessening in social interaction;
thirdly, quality of life will lessen; and, finally, mental depression may increase.
iii Animals gather in herds because it gives them three 3) ................................: information
about the presence of potential rivals, the assistance of other males in collective defence of
the herd; and a reduced likelihood of any particular herd being chosen for attack.

b) Look at sentences i, ii and iii in a) again. What other words and phrases in the sentences
are used for listing?
c) Now use three of the following five words to fill in the gaps in these sentences.
causes consequences elements objectives stages
i Scientists studying two big craters on Earth have found two particular 1) ......................: one
was created by the impact of a comet while the other was the result of the impact of an
asteroid.
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ii Jazz is often characterised as having three key 2) ................................: first, ‘swing’ – it
makes you want to tap your feet; second, ‘improvisation’ – the players often invent the
melodies as they go; third, ‘individual voices’ – the major musicians in jazz history, for
example, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane, had their own style and sound.
iii Stopping smoking is increasingly described as a process with three distinct 3) ...................:
smokers become motivated to change, they decide to change, and finally, they manage to
change.

d) Look at sentences i, ii and iii in b) again. What words and phrases in the sentences are used
for listing?

10 Language for Listing

a Numbering

1 Exact numbers with countable nouns:

advantages:
X has three/five functions:
aspects:

2 Inexact numbers with countable nouns:

advantages:
X has several/some/a number of/many functions:
aspects:

Note that a countable noun is followed by a colon (:) if/when a list follows.

b Sequencing

Numbering can be followed by sequence words:

ñ firstly, secondly, etc.

ñ lastly, finally, etc.
ñ one, next, then, also, another, too, further, etc.

c Other types of sequencing

1 Grammatical parallelism
Note the use of the same verb forms here.
There are two advantages to be derived from X: it enables Y and it makes Z possible.
2 Lexical repetition
Note the repeated vocabulary here.
The following are some of the principal internal economies of scale: economies in the
factors of production, economies in administration, marketing economies and other
economies of large scale.

18
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11 a) Now rewrite the following passage using some of the listing strategies you have just
looked at. In your rewriting use the word ‘functions’.

Political parties in the Western political system have ideologies and political programmes. They
also articulate the interests of society and try to influence ruling bodies. They try to make
citizens more politically active. They recruit candidates and form governments.

b) Now rewrite the following passage, adapted from the newspaper, USA Today, so that it
uses the words ‘risk’ and ‘factors’.

If parents want to reduce the chances that their teenagers will use drugs, alcohol or tobacco,
they should keep three rules in mind: Do not let teenagers get too stressed, make sure they stay
busy and do not give them too much spending money.

12 Writing Tasks
a) Write a short text describing the main types and functions of food. The outline below
might help you:

Functions of Food

Work/Heat Maintenance Food Accessories Roughage

Function: provision of Function: repair and Function: protection Function: dilution of
body warmth/energy growth other concentrated
food types
Minerals Vitamins
Fats Carbohydrate Animal Vegetable
Fibre
Proteins Proteins

Starches Sugars

b) Write a short text classifying one of the following:

ñ the different types of schools in your country;
ñ the different kinds of television programmes in your country;
ñ the different types of music in your country;
ñ the different forms of communication that we use.

19