Business English Writing Jason Downs Week 3, September 18, 2015

Can you come up with a better translation?

Avoiding common Chinglish grammar issues  “wish” and “welcome”  Use of the Past Tense to describe feelings, emotions, or states in the past  Overuse of “delicious”, “meet/met”, and “foreign/foreigner”  “How to….”  “What does this mean…”  “haven’t” and “needn’t”  LOTS of pronunciation issues…..

Pronunciation Issues  “S” vs. “TH”  “V” vs. “W”  “N” vs. “L”  “usually”  “hamburger”  “Africa”  “America” vs. “American”

Writing Responses to the Homework Reading Material  1-2 short paragraphs – you don’t have to write a lot for this! Save most of your writing time at home for the writing assignments (which will begin this week)  What did you think of the text? Did you enjoy reading it? How did it make you feel?  Is there anything that really caught your eye, or anything with which you agree/disagree?

Share your responses with your partner  Read over your partner’s response to the homework reading assignment.  Make any edits or suggestions as needed and provide feedback on their writing.

Proper citation of others’ work  There are two main ways you can cite a source within a text: Parenthetical references Footnotes

Parenthetical References  (NOTE: you can also find this information on page of the textbook)  After the quotation, put the author’s name in parentheses, followed by the page number (if it is an internet source or doesn’t have pages, you don’t need the page number).  EXAMPLE: “Studying every day will cause your English to dramatically improve” (Downs 43).

Bibliography / Works Cited  If you use parenthetical references, you must include a bibliography at the end of the document, where you include the full information of the sources you cited.  FORMAT: Authors’ names. “Article Title in Quotes”/Book Title in Italics. (Place of Publication: Publisher, publication date or date you visited the website) page # or internet address.  EXAMPLE: Downs, Jason. Becoming a Better English Student. (Nanjing: Nanjing Agricultural University Press, 2013) pg. 43.

…OR, you can use footnotes EXAMPLE: Blah blah blah blah “Studying every day will cause your English to dramatically improve.” 1 1 Downs, Jason. Becoming a Better English Student. (Nanjing: Nanjing Agricultural University Press, 2013) pg. 43.  (You don’t need a bibliography if you include all of the information in your footnote, but you can still have it if you want.)

Notes:  There is not one universal format to use; there are in fact many different systems in use, such as MLA, Chicago, Harvard, etc. For example, in your textbook, they put a comma (,) instead of a period (.) after the author’s name. This is fine, you can use whatever system you want as long as you use it consistently throughout your writing.  The website has a nice summary of MLA style, which is probably the most common method in the U.S., although it is slightly different from what we learned in class.  You can also go to that website to see how to cite electronic sources, such as websites.

Writing Assignment #1  Write an article about the current business or economic situation in China. Please use sources such as newspaper articles as sources to provide information for your article.  Do not use personal pronouns such as “I” or “We”.  Cite at least THREE sources  Approximately one typed page in length including bibliography (if you use 12-pt font, 1.5 line spacing) – you don’t have to type it, but it is strongly recommended

Homework  Complete Writing Assignment #1 (Week 3)  Read & study textbook ch. 3 (pg )  Read text on class website for Week 4 – “I Tried Blue Apron's Meal Delivery Service and Here's How It Went” - and write your response to the text