Writing a Paragraph - Smrt Live Class with Shaun #1

alright hey everybody welcome to the first smart live class I'm very excited to be here I'm Sean I'm going to be your teacher for today for the next 45 minutes or so we've got I'm sure you guys have have already noticed you've got Lane who's there friendly moderator there to help you guys out during the stream if you guys have questions about anything that I'm talking about if you miss something you need me to to repeat it or anything at all just put it in the in the chat and we'll do our best to answer all of your questions or as many as we can and let's get let's get started I thought because it was our first class because so many students have trouble with or have challenges with writing academic writing that that's where we would start today okay so I thought that we would start with some basics on of academic writing therefore we're going to start with really the basics of paragraph writing okay so if anybody is already a student of smart I'm going to tell you where you can go and if you're not then don't worry about it because we're going to share some documents and exercises with you as we go okay so let's let's get started alright here we go all right so if you are a student of smart we're going to be in English 125 today okay and we're going to start with writing 1 1 writing a paragraph ok I'll just show you that so that you can direct yourself to that lesson and then I'm going to put something else on my screen ok again if you're not a student and smart don't worry about it you'll have lots to do and say today ok all right so let's start with this okay writing a paragraph really any good essay any good writing assignment is really dependent on the ability to write a strong paragraph so I wanted to keep it simple today and look at that how do you write a strong paragraph okay so let's start with the most obvious question is a simple one what is a paragraph okay what is a paragraph a paragraph is a group of sentences that share one idea it's not just a bunch of sentences together but it's really important that these sentences have one unifying idea that kind of really keeps them related and connected okay so this is what we're going to look at today is paragraphs paragraphs structure and how to write a strong one okay and again if at any time you guys have questions throw them into the into the chat and we'll get to you okay so most paragraphs the basic paragraph has the same basic structure as every other paragraph okay a three-part structure and I'm sure some of you have have seen this before the basic paragraph structure is topic sentence supporting sentences concluding sentence okay basically every paragraph that you see every paragraph that you write is going to have this same three-part sequence and I thought we would start by focusing on the topic sentence really every paragraph starts with the topic sentence every strong paragraph stems from a strong topic sentence okay so what is the topic sentence is the question the topic sentence usually but not always is going to be the first or second sentence in a paragraph okay it's important to keep in mind though that what we're looking at today is writing and not reading now sometimes in a class if if you're doing a reading exercise and you're looking for the main idea of a paragraph it could be really anywhere because an experienced writer can put the main idea or the topic sentence anywhere in the paragraph that they want but for students I usually advise them to put the topic sentence in the first one or two sentences of the paragraph okay so let's talk about what the topic sentence is all right the topic sentence presents the main idea of the paragraph and it controls the focus in the direction of the paragraph okay so everything else in the paragraph all of the other sentences stem from the main idea that is put in in the topic sentence so that's why it's really important to be able to have a strong one okay so I can't overestimate the importance of a strong topic sentence which brings me to kind of my first question for you guys okay and I'm I'm actually going to remove myself from the screen for a moment so that you can take 30 seconds to maybe a minute and just look at these four sentences and decide which of them do you think would make a strong topic sentence for a paragraph okay as you look through it again feel free to toss your answer into the chat and and then we'll discuss it together okay so I'm going to remove myself from the screen take 30 seconds to a minute look at each one and and decide which of these do you think would make a strong topic sentence for a paragraph okay go ahead you you all right I love that music happy music okay so really the only the only thing I wanted you guys to do is is look at the four sentences and decide which do you think makes a strong topic sentence okay so let's look at them together number one it says Canada shares a border with the United States okay in this case let me let me go over here Canada shares a border with the United States now this is not a strong topic sentence now let me tell you why this is a very common mistake that students make writing a topic sentence like this the problem with this topic sentence is that it is too narrow okay so when I say it's too narrow it means it's it's too specific now in this case Canada shares a border with the United States that is a fact okay so a key thing to remember when it comes to topic sentences in paragraph writing is a topic sentence should never be a fact because the main idea of the topic sentence it the topic sentence has to contain something that you're supporting sentences will develop okay now if you have a fact as the main idea there's really nothing there for the supporting sentences to add to it so that's why you can't have it too narrow no facts at the topic sentence as I said here it needs an idea some some kind of feeling some kind of opinion or something like that that you can expand on and develop and we'll talk more about how to develop that a little bit later okay so number one not a good topic sentence is too narrow how about number two studying is difficult alright now some of you may agree with this sentence but again this is not a great topic sentence either and this is a mistake for the opposite reason as the first one in this case the sentence is too broad now what I mean by that is that it's it's too big of an idea to really be dealt with in a single paragraph there's it's not specific enough so a good topic sentence has to be somewhere between being too narrow and too broad you want it to be specific but not too specific that it's a fact so it's a very delicate kind of balance that you have to hit there with a good topic sentence now in this case how can you make it more specific you have to ask things like what and who so studying is difficult studying what for example or difficult for whom who find studying difficult okay so again number two not a good topic sentence but a very again a common mistake that students make in their writing so let's look at number three hopefully we'll will do better with that one so Y values are disappearing so this is also not a very good topic sentence that I'm it has been kind of a trick question actually I think I'm trying to trick you a little bit why traditional values are disappearing is not a good topic sentence because it's just an incomplete sentence it's grammatically incomplete so not only do you need your idea to be not too broad or too narrow but you have to make sure that your sentence is grammatically correct and in this case this is what we call a sentence fragment which again we'll deal with in another lesson more specifically but the problem here is that you've got a question word at the beginning of this of this clause there you've got a your subject and your verb but the subject and verb are not inverted so this is not a question because you see there's a period there too so it looks like a question but it's it's not quite as actually what we call a noun clause grammatically incomplete and therefore not a good topic sentence yeah right all right so I am kind of tricking you as people are kind of noticing in the in the chat over there so let's look at number four I would like to discuss in this paragraph the growing concern about air pollution in my city now this one's open I mean it looks better right than the other ones but it's still problematic it's still not a good topic sentence and here's why what you don't want to do in academic writing you don't want to announce your topic and you don't want to announce your intentions so little phrases like I would like to discuss you don't want to start a sentence with that don't announce what you're going to talk about and don't refer to yourself as well words like I or me or my typically in academic writing you want to avoid that kind of stuff okay also in this paragraph try not to refer to the actual paragraph or essay itself right now it's important to remember that different things for different situations so if you have a presentation to give in class this type of sentence would be fine right if you're if you're speaking in front of a group of people or in a classroom or something like that and you say today I would like to discuss air pollution in my city that's fine but for writing it's it's not great okay so yes I kind of try to trick you all of these four sentences are very common problems that students have with with topic sentences so the question is what is a good topic sentence a good topic sentence clearly introduces the topic of the paragraph and it makes a point about the topic as we said so it has to have some kind of idea in there okay and it has to make a statement that's not too broad and not too narrow so it's right in the middle as we said also you want a good topic sentence to to give the reader an idea of the type of paragraph that they're going to read is it going to be opinion or description or narration is it going to tell a story is it going to explain cause affect the reader should get an idea of that from your topic sentence okay so let's look at some good ones okay so how do we how do we fix them how do we make them better number one Canada shares a border with the United States so that's a fact it's too narrow how do we expand it and make it more interesting well here's my revised version here okay Canadian culture has been heavily influenced by its relationship and proximity to the United States a little fancy because I should move to the side here a little bit alright but in this case it now has an idea that can be developed and explained a little bit a little bit more okay so that's definitely an improvement on the first one how about the second one studying is difficult as we said this is too broad there's not enough information in here to really focus it for the paragraph so how do you fix it I said studying two languages at once can be very challenging now you're getting a little bit more specific about what it is you're studying and therefore you've got a clearer idea of of what you can write about in the paragraph okay what about the second one or the third one rather why traditional values are disappearing well problems like this that it's kind of an easy fix because you just have to make it a complete sentence okay so there are several reasons why traditional values are disappearing just keep it simple put a there are three reasons at the beginning and now you've got a complete sentence and you're and you're fine okay obviously this paragraph will be about causes and effects and how about one more and then I'm going to get you guys to do do some work here okay so I would like to discuss in this paragraph the growing concern about air pollution we said don't announce your topic just get on with it make your point in your paragraph and you've got this air pollution as a growing concern in my country actually I showed us this city there that's my that's my little mistake there but that's fine okay so now you're no longer announcing your topic it's a little bit more focused and it's a better topic sentence so again this is the beginning of being able to write a good a good paragraph or multiple paragraphs in a longer composition like an essay or something like that okay so with that I would like you guys to do some work now with me or for me I should say okay so if Lane moderator could please put the link to the exercise in the in the chat so that everybody can can get it I'm putting a or lane is going to put a link in here for everybody to to follow in the chat and it will bring you to to this exercise here or again if you are already in smart you can just go to writing one one and go right into the exercise up here and that will take you to the exercise as well so it's it's the same we have we have it in the chat we're good to go yeah okay so when you open it up you won't be able to type on this copy on what you see so you've got to go into file and make a copy okay make a copy so that you can write your answers on there just like that and then you'll own it and you can you can write whatever you want on on that copy this one is this one's mine okay so when you open it up you'll see probably about ten sentences and all of them are topic sentences some of them are strong and some of them are weak could be could be better could be improved upon alright so your job now and again I'm going to remove myself from the screen and put on some more that happy music to help you work I would like you to look at each of these sentences and now that we've discussed the strong and the weak topic sentences I'd like you to go through and just identify which of these are good topic sentences and which of them are weak or need improvement and why okay so number letter A we'll start with that one we'll do one together okay communication is important now while this is true a lot similar to the the studying is difficult it's too it's too broad of a sentence there's too much to say about communication in one paragraph so you have to get more specific so I would say this one simply is just too broad and that's all you have to do right now just go through if it's weak tell me why and if it's strong you can just put correct or put a happy face or a unicorn or whatever you like next to it to indicate that it's that it's good okay and again while you're doing that feel free to put your answers in the chat and Layne will put some of your answers up here on the screen and then we'll discuss them together as a big group okay so get to work on that take two or three minutes and go through and and identify the strong and the weak topic sentences and then we'll go over it together you all right everybody let's let's go over some of these together all right I see some of your answers have been put into the document here let's let's talk about them together eh we already did okay be one of my most wonderful childhood memories now we got an answering there from Marisa but it looks like it might be number four number one I'm not I'm not sure but that's okay thanks Marisa for the answer if you said as definitely it's a weak topic sentence you are definitely correct I would say B the problem with this one is that it is incomplete okay so I'm going to put that well I'm going to remove that and here I say incomplete all right one of my most wonderful childhood memories this is just a subject with a prepositional phrase next to it and it's an incomplete sentence okay so that's not not a good topic sentence all right what about see this paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate Justin Davis gave us an answer thank you Justin by the end you're correct it says announcing the topic you're absolutely right good you don't want to announce your topic or intentions don't even put an exclamation point there awesome okay what about D also I should say guys while I'm going through these if you have any questions about why or anything that I'm saying again pop them in the end of the chat and I will try to answer as many of your questions as I can so D parents do not need to spend money in order to show they love their children so Claudia says it's good blue guitar I think it's a fact most appropriate sentence is D so Marissa I think that means you like you like D and I think I think you're right then Claudia you're right - I wish I wish this was a fact blue guitar 77 but unfortunately it's not you could you could argue with it some people could say that spending money is a good way of showing your children you love them I I certainly disagree with that statement but in this case I'm going to say this is a good topic sentence lots to discuss in this paragraph I think it's a strong statement let's do a couple more hair e3 reasons to study a language abroad Muhammad says it's good in the supporting sentences we will discuss them now it's a good this is a good topic three reasons to study a language abroad definitely a lot to to discuss and you could put the three reasons in the top in the in the paragraph but it's not a good topic sentence because it's incomplete alright he is incomplete and I think it's incomplete because there's no there's no verb there right it's missing a verb three reasons to study a language abroad good topic but there's no verb in every sentence needs a verb in order to be complete so we're going to have to fix that one up all right and we've got a few more no answers here but that's that's okay we'll just go over them quickly F a difficult experience while traveling taught me the importance of family now in this case this is a good topic sentence it's good because it has a clear topic difficult experience there's your topic there and then taught me the importance of family that's an idea that you can explore and I know by reading that sentence that you're going to be telling me a story a narrative therefore it's a it's a good sin it's a good topic sentence any answers for G nothing for G okay technology is changing so fast in this case I would say ooh too broad because technology is changing so fast I mean it is true but it's still such a broad question topic that you really wouldn't be able to write very well about that in one paragraph there's so much technology out there and changing so fast is is is just not specific enough okay so you want to narrow that down a little bit H my daughter was born in the summer of 2010 all right I think we don't have any answers coming in for that one so I'll give it to you I would say that that is too narrow okay it's a it's a fact my daughter was born in the summer of 2010 it's kind of like you have to ask so what right tell me something about the experience or what else can you write about in the paragraph there's really nothing to to say there okay what about I I would like to discuss how poverty affects education okay and again Justin Davis he's Justin Davis who's really good at a that's identifying when you're announcing the topic because you were right again Justin thanks for that I you're correct that I would like to discuss is really not appropriate for academic writing so you would have to change that okay and I see we've got one here coming in from Claudie I think that one came in just a little bit too late I'm just going to take that one out because we've discussed that h's is - now there's I know there's a bit of a time delay here how about Jay the last one in some ways friends can be more important than family now I'm going to give you the answer for this one I think this one's good okay it's not a fact you could argue against this and you could definitely write a pretty a pretty good paragraph on this on this topic kind of an opinion based paragraph giving reasons how friends can be more important than family okay so how we doing okay we're good for time now I'm going to put you guys to work again now this is the maybe the hard part now that we've looked at all of these sentences and decided which ones are weak and which ones are strong now I'd like you guys to take we'll say five minutes to do as much as you can I would like you to fix the topic sentences that are weak and rewrite them with the top extensions that you think is now strong enough to be used to develop a good paragraph so number or letter a communication is important you have to rewrite that sentence so it's not too broad so how can you fix it so I'll give you an example for a I would say communication is important for a marriage to work okay communication is important for a marriage to work now it's a little bit more specific it's talking about communication in a marriage between a husband and wife and why that would be important for the marriage to to last and to be successful okay so that's the freebie I'm giving you the answer for a that means I would like you to do b c e g h and i okay now do as many as you can I'll give you five minutes I'll turn the happy music back on and make myself disappear from the screen as you go feel free to throw your new amazing topic sentences into the chat and we'll put them up here on the on the screen and then I'll comment on them and we'll look at them together okay alright guys get to work fix those topic sentences up and I'll be back member you all right everybody I'm back I see some answers in there this is good let's let's try to go over some of this stuff time as time is flying by here so letter A I given an answer and it looks like Mohammed added another answer there too cool thanks thanks Muhammad this communication is important for us to prevent from misunderstanding that happened among us I think that's that's pretty good it's definitely an improvement on the first one because it's more specific I would just change something there now what you're saying just the grammar is a little bit off and I say communication is important for us to prevent and I think I actually saw somebody mentioned it in the in the chat I would just say to prevent misunderstandings just keep it kind of simple like that communication is important for us to prevent misunderstandings and there you go that's that's a great that's a great topic sentence so thanks Mohammed for that now it looks like be another one from Justin Davis he took the incomplete sentence and fixed it up and he says summer vacation was one of my most wonderful childhood memories nailed it yeah that's awesome then now you've got a complete sentence there with a subject and a verb it's got an idea it's going to be a narrative you can give lots of details and everything it's great ok did I get anything for C C is this paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate now when it comes to fixing these types of sentences you just really have to remove the the part that announces the the topic right so I'm did we get anything from that no okay I'll just give an answer here I would say something like the increasing divorce rate as many effects on society something like that there the increasing divorce rate has many effects on society keep it simple but again now you've got you still have a complete sentence you've got an idea in there and it's a little bit more focused too if you just say this paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate we don't know if you're talking about the causes of it the effects of it or anything like that so now it's it's much clearer and more focused all right what about II three reasons to study a language abroad coming in from Mohammed I think yeah good yeah so maybe he took my advice from from earlier and kept it simple and again nailed it there he said there are three reasons why you should study a language abroad I would just change that one that G to an S there right three reasons I hear a sentence coming in let me see so the one from from Gerald may be coming in as says teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education where's which ones that hmm this question it's just always this a good one oh I see okay so is this a good topic sentence teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education yes I think that's a great topic sentence and lots and lots to write about in the paragraph so yeah - Gerald there I would say definitely that is a good topic sentence all right what about G do we get anything for G technology is changing so fast again it's too broad what could you say about technology changing so fast how about I'll just copy this put it down here whoops technology is changing so fast that what could you say the older generation has trouble keeping up with advancements yeah sorry to the any any older people watching but technology is changing so fast that the older generation has trouble keeping up with advancements now you've just got something a little bit more specific H anything come in for H no um okay my daughter was born in the summer of 2010 I would again say something meaningful about it say to give some kind of idea about it so how about my daughter's my daughter's birth was the best day of my life we'll keep it simple okay my daughter's birth was the best day of my life and then I coming in from Justin oh yeah sorry he said that it was announcing the topic I would like to discuss poverty how poverty affects education again keep this one simple and say there are many ways how poverty affects education just like that okay and now you've got some strong topic sentences alright so that basically wraps it up 45 minutes has just flown by and I want to thank everybody for for joining will continue on with more academic writing next week and we're going to try to get a schedule out soon too so people can know what what lessons are coming up and I would also appreciate it if anybody has questions or comments or anything relating to writing or grammar or anything like that you can put it in the chat or put it in the comments from this video and we'll take a look at them and try to answer some of your questions in the next in the next lesson alright so once again thanks for thanks for tuning in and I guess we'll see you we'll see you next time on the live class alright see you later you you you you you you you

Channel: Smrt English

Views: 219,284

Rating: 4.8685446 out of 5

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Id: Sa28_Rsl6oY

Length: 49min 50sec (2990 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2016