Final Test for Unit I

Task 1. Provide the pronunciation of the following words:

Career [________], data [_____], goal [_____], various [_______], cohesion [_______], synopsis [________], thesis [_______], avid [____].

Task 2. Give the Russian for:

Proofreader ……… ghostwriting ……… concise………

Adept……………. . layout ……………. fiction……….

Skit………………. synopsis………….. freelance……..

to write the copy… occasional work…...

Task 3. Give the English for:

cостоять в штате …………………. основное требование……………

навести на мысль\ подать идею….. не замеченные ошибки…………

опытный специалист……………… придирчивый корректор……….

автор, тайно работающий на другое лицо, писатель-невидимка…….

Task 4. Give synonyms to:

Goal ______________________ demand ___________________

Responsible_________________ thorough __________________

A professional\expert___________ journal ____________________

Task 5. Form the negative:

Responsible _________________ known ____________________

Advantage __________________ appropriate ________________

Regular _____________________ personal ___________________

Task 6. Insert the necessary prepositions:

1. I’ve been told ____ many people that the main requirement _____ being an editor is a love ___ reading.

2. For about ten years I worked ____ the staff of the newspaper.

3. That meeting ______ a retired editor tipped me ____ to a future in editing.

4. I held various editor positions ______ the literary magazine.

5. Two years later I enrolled _____ Georgia State University and began working _____ a master’s degree _____ English.

6. I find that working as a freelance editor who can provide personalized service ____ all of my clients is what I prefer ____ any other career.

7. She edits medical textbooks and medical articles ____ such subjects as heart transplants, pain management, and anesthesiology.

UNIT II. Ways of Representing a Text

This Unit dwells on the techniques literary editors and critics use while working with other people’s texts. You will learn how to treat a text written by someone else for your own professional purpose and how to do it in a legitimate way.

The basic ways of representing a text are copying, paraphrase, and summarising.

Copying

Since most writers work very hard to get each word exactly right and in exactly the right order, there are no better words to use in discussing what the work is about than those of the literary work itself. Then, you could just rewrite the text word for word.

Copying texts was a common practice in medieval monasteries, but nowadays, when we have printing and photocopying, it would not seem to be very useful. Still, it’s a good exercise for teaching yourself accuracy and attention to detail, and you will probably discover things about the text you are copying that you would be unlikely to notice otherwise. Early in a course, particularly, copying could serve as a useful step in the direction of learning how to read and later to quote a passage, to illustrate or prove a point you are making. But copying is not, in itself, writing about literature.

2.1. Copy the following text. Be very attentive while writing. After you have rewritten the text count all the mistakes you it contains.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would be known as “Euro-English”.

In the first, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. this should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the second year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.

In the 3^rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be eksekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al will agre that the horrible mes of the silent “e”s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, people wil be resentiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. during ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of letters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen ve vil tak over ze world!

Paraphrase

If you look away from the text for a while and then try to write the same content in your own words, you are writing a paraphrase.

Paraphrase is your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form. Also, paraphrase is a legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because it is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage. The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

For example, let us try to paraphrase the first sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." We can start by making "It is a truth" a little less formal: It’s true, that, perhaps. Now "universally acknowledged": everybody acknowledges, or even everybody agrees. Now we may choose to drop the whole first clause to begin Everybody agrees that "a single man" – a bachelor – "in possession of a good fortune" – rich – "must be in want of a wife" – wants a wife. Or is it needs a wife? Okay, Everybody agrees that a rich man needs a wife.

You can see that the process of paraphrasing is something like that of translation: we are translating Austin’s nineteenth-century English prose into twentieth-century informal language. So, the process of paraphrasing enables us to test whether we really understand what we are reading. Certain elements of the text become clearer: we may see now that Austin’s sentence is meant to be ironic and humorous, and we now understand the two possible meanings of "in want of". Besides, we have learned how dependent a text is upon words. A paraphrase, no matter how precise, can render only an approximate equivalent of the meaning of a text – how good Austen’s sentence is, how flat our paraphrase is.

When paraphrasing, read the original passage several times until you understand its full meaning. Check the text of your paraphrase with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source and record the source (including the page) so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Consider another example:

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46–47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46–47).

Paraphrase is a useful tool when you write about other people’s work in other ways. In trying to explain or clarify a literary text for someone, to illustrate a point you are making, or to remind your readers of a passage you will at times want to paraphrase. Unlike an exact copy, a paraphrase, being written in your own words, adds something of yours to the text or passage – your emphasis, your perspective, your understanding. You have begun to interpret, explain, and clarify.

2.2. Paraphrase the following passages:

1. Jim Rose, chief executive of online auction house QXL Ricardo is still bidding up the company’s chances of breaking even by 2003 – despite a fall in the value of goods sold through its websites in the first three months of the year. He said the introduction of fees to use QXL’s services and slashing expenses had boosted the profit margins and cut losses over the quarter to $8.5 million. The company has $45 million in cash to take it through to break even. QXL is targeting its marketing effort on men aged 18 to 44 and is forging partnership with other online service providers such as Ebookers. The gavel came down on the shares at 4.4 from 5.4.

Andrew Johnson, The Daily Mirror

2. It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events that constitute a person’s biography, there is scarcely one – none, certainly, of anything like a similar importance – to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, the individual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution of affairs, and affording a definite point for observation. At his decease, there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddy – very small, as compared with the apparent magnitude of the ingurgitated object – and a bubble or two, ascending out of the black depth and bursting at the surface.

Nathahiel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

3. Here’s a Pop Quiz for auto aficionados. What upcoming car technology will have the most impact on teenage boys with a penchant for sneaking late-night joyrides in daddy’s Porch, on soccer Moms balancing a baby in one arm and a bag of groceries in the other, and on carjackers who prey on clumsy folks in empty shopping-mall parking lots? If you guessed keyless door locks and ignitions: bingo.

Ron Stodghill, Time

Summary

Paraphrase follows faithfully the outlines of the text. But if you stand back far enough from the text so as not to see its specific words or smaller details and put down briefly in your own words what you believe the work is about, you will have a summary.

A summary is restating someone else’s words in your words. The goal of summarizing material is to briefly pass along the ideas belonging to another.

How briefly? Well, you could be very brief, summarizing Hamlet, for example, in a single sentence: “A young man, seeking to revenge the murder of his father by his uncle, kills his uncle, but he himself and others die in the process.” Has too much been left out? What do you feel is essential to add? Let us try again. "In Denmark, many centuries ago, a young prince revenged the murder of his father, the king, by his uncle, who had usurped the throne, but the prince himself was killed as were others, and a well-led foreign army had no more trouble successfully invading the decayed and troubled state.” A group-mate might have written this summary: ”From the ghost of his murdered father a young prince learns that his uncle, who has married the prince’s mother, much to the young man’s shame and disgust, is the father’s murderer, and he plots revenge, feigning madness, acting erratically – even to insulting the woman he loves – and, though gaining his revenge, causes the suicide of his beloved and the deaths of others and, finally, of himself ”.

The last two, though accurate enough, sound like two different plays. To summarise means to select and emphasise and so to interpret: that is, not to replicate the text in miniature, as a reduced photograph might replicate the original, but while reducing it to change the angle of vision and even the filter, to represent the essentials as the reader sees them. When you write a summary you should try to be as objective as possible, nevertheless, your summary will never reflect the literary text alone but also your own understanding and attitudes.

Summaries benefit the reader because they offer a concise, general version of the original information. For a busy reader, summaries provide quick overviews of material maintaining the integrity of the original document without distorting the original views, ideas, attitudes, or their importance in the original. The process of summarizing someone else’s material enables you to better understand that material. Finally, summaries allow you to introduce knowledge within a research context: you can summarize someone’s argument in order to analyze or critique it. Summary is more economical than quotation because a summary allows the writer more control over the argument.

There are many different kinds of summaries, and they vary according to the degree to which you interpret or analyze the source. Some are pages long, others just one or two sentences. However, for all types of summary, the writer is responsible for generally stating, in his or her own words, the main information or argument of another writer.

The three most often used types of summaries are restatement (précis), descriptive and analytical summary.

Restatement or Précis

A précis is a shortening, in your own words, of a text of written work. You are to describe as accurately and briefly as possible the substance or ideas contained in a text. Here you take the point-of-view of the original writer. A précis gives the main assertion (controlling idea) of the original and should be quite short: six to eight sentences at the longest, regardless of the original’s length. No concrete examples or details (quotes or paraphrases from the original) are used here.

One of the first difficulties to overcome in writing a précis is getting the facts straight. You should make no statements unsupported by the text. Make sure that all you say about the text is factually correct.

Another difficulty is putting the material into your own words. To do so, read the work carefully at least three times, put the work aside, then begin writing. This will force you to use your own words without the temptation of borrowing directly from the original.

Selecting the most effective details is also a difficulty. Work to pick out those details that are of greatest significance. Some details are more important than others, and you must chose details according to the scale of importance.

Do not make any conclusions about the original, its audience, or anything relating to the text. Your job is to provide your reader an accurate, but brief, map of the original and what you think about the writing or the topic of the text is not relevant here.

Descriptive Summary

Should give all the information contained in the restatement, but it must go beyond it. The article being summarized becomes an object that you observe and then convey to the reader. Again, you are providing your reader a map of the original, but with a bit more detail than the précis.

A descriptive summary should give your reader an effective and accurate map of the original. It should be proportional to the author’s intentions and should let the reader know what kind of evidence the original presents. This explanatory material, still in your own words, may be inserted between the sentences of the précis, describing the material used by the writer to make the point discussed by the précis.

Still no direct examples or paraphrases from the essay within the summary.

Analytical Summary

With the analytical summary, the writer takes a more active role than in the other types of summary.

Writing an analytical summary, give all the information contained in a descriptive summary, but go beyond it. This summary requires the thematic structure of a central idea, a thesis statement, and support of this thesis using the material of the original. This summary will be an essay discussing the original.

Analytical Summary should give a clear indication of the audience and purpose of the document being analytically summarized. One or two quotations from the document being analytically summarized can be appropriate here.

A judgment should be made concerning the document being analytically summarized. The writer might speculate on the implications (to the audience of your choosing) of the document being analytically summarized.

The analytical summary must still provide the reader of the summary with a clear and effective understanding of the message contained in the original.

Organizing Your Analytical Summary

Introduction

The introduction should contain the name of the work being summarized, the author, and the general situation surrounding the text. The introduction is the best place to include the thesis around which the remainder of the analytical summary will be built.

Body

The body should build on and directly support the thesis. Present the main ideas as they occur in the essay and demonstrate how that material supports the contention of the thesis. Follow closely the work you are summarizing and use an occasional word, phrase, or passage from the original to give your reader a ‘taste’ of the original.

Conclusion

The conclusion should look back to both the body of your essay and the introduction, possibly explaining how your interpretation/analysis of the original is important in a broader context. This broader context needs a direct relationship to the summary’s thesis.

Summary Conventions

1. Summaries can range in length from two sentences to several pages. In any case, use complete sentences to describe an author’s general points to your reader. Don’t quote extensively. If you quote, use quotation marks and document the quotation. If you fail to document the quotation, even one word that the author used, you are plagiarizing material (presenting another person’s information as if it were your own).

2. Use the author’s last name as a tag to introduce information: "Smith argues that population growth and environmental degradation are causally related."

3. Use the present tense (often called the historical present tense) to summarize the author’s argument.

A good summary is a form of criticism, and learning – largely by practice – how to summarise is an essential part of a journalist’s profession. Although you will seldom be called upon merely to summarise a work, a good deal of writing requires that at some point or other you do summarise – a whole work, a line, or a passage. But be ware: a summary is not a do-it-yourself critical-essay-passage. A mere summary, no matter how accurate, will seldom satisfy the demand for a critical essay. Furthermore, summary is not the answer to any questions you may be asked about a text nor the evidence and conclusion for any topic you may be asked to write about.

2.3. Read the following passage and choose the best restatement summary for it:

In 1860, Santa Ana, some general brought chewing gum from Mexico to the United States. People liked it very much. It was easy to make. They made it in their homes. At first people used the gum from different trees. Then for many years they made chewing gum from “chicle”, the juice of the gum (or “sapodilla”) tree, which grows in places with warm climate like Mexico or Central America. First they took the juice, then heat it to clean it, then added sugar, colour and flavour. When the juice cools it becomes hard. You can cut it into pieces or balls. Then you can cover it with candy. Around 1950 people started to use a different juice called “sorbitol”. It became very popular because it’s better for people’s teeth than sugar. Today gum is still a favourite snack in the USA.

a) Chewing gum is a favourite snack all over the world. Though its history began in the 19th century it is still very popular. They used the juice of a tropical tree to produce that gum.

b) The history of chewing gum goes back to the 19th century to Mexico. The process of chewing gum production is very complicated and requires much time and attention. Chewing gum is quite popular with people.

c) Chewing gum was first introduced in the USA in the 19th century. They use the juice of the gum tree adding some sweet and flavour to produce the gum. It is still a very popular snack.

2.4. Read the article about nuclear power and its possible dangers and match the statements that follow with the correct paragraph number to make the summary of the article. What type of summary have you got?

Nuclear Power

1. For the pupils at Thurso High School the visit to the nearby Dounreay atomic energy plant in Scotland was simply part of their course. But to 18-year-old Sharon Coghill it was much more. Nine years ago Sharon, who lives 12 miles from the station, discovered she had leukaemia. She believes that the proximity of her home to Dounreay may be a contributory factor to her cancer. There is no medical evidence to support her claim – indeed, two independent inquiries have failed to find any connection whatsoever.

2. But five years ago a government committee found that in the area surrounding some, but not all, nuclear power stations, levels of childhood leukaemia were higher than expected. Today, as then, no one is any closer to establishing why this is so. But Sharon says, “I feel that there is no way we can dismiss the idea of a link and I would like to see more investigation.”

3. At present around 15% of the energy we use comes from nuclear power. The Government will probably want that figure to increase to about 20% in the future because gas, coal and oil supplies are dwindling fast – the world’s oil supplies may well run out within 100 years. And burning oil and coal releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere creating the greenhouse effect.

4. Only 1% of the radiation received by most people is the result of discharges from the nuclear power industry. We get five times that from television sets, air travel and watches with luminous dials. 11% comes from medical sources like X-rays, and 87% from environmental sources like naturally radioactive rocks and gases.

5. But the question that most people still want to be answered – whether they live five or 500 miles from a nuclear power station – is: are they really safe?

6. There have been leaks from various nuclear installations – including cities dealing with highly radioactive matter – and whether or not these are dangerous is a point of bitter controversy.

7. Parents of children suffering from leukaemia are convinced of their case. Two years ago, Susan D’Arcy’s daughter, Gemma, who is now five, was diagnosed as suffering from leukaemia. They live near Sellafield, a nuclear reprocessing plant near Cumbria, and Susan believes the plant to be a contributory cause of the cancer. She has joined the 28-strong group of parents trying to sue British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) that runs the plant for compensation. Twelve of their children have leukaemia and six have died of the illness. The case is likely to take between two and three years to come to court.

8. BNFL remains adamant that the parents have no cause for complaint. “A number of possible causes, including viruses, are being investigated and BNFL and the nuclear industry in general are providing financial aid for this work, ”says their spokesman.

9. So what is the answer? The Central Electricity General Board (CEGB) says that nuclear power is essential in supplying our energy needs. But the environmental group Friends of the Earth regards nuclear power as a totally unnecessary and extremely expensive way of dealing with the greenhouse effect – with untold safety problems. It says the solution is to reduce demand by applying more efficient technology.

10. As the argument rages the stakes get higher, with more radioactive waste being produced all the time. Only the generations to come will know who was right. The question is: will they thank us for our decisions?

Lindsay Nicholson

a) A group of parents are trying to sue BNFL

b) Child leukaemia is higher than expected in areas near some nuclear plants.

c) Only the next generation will know who is right.

d) There have been leaks from power plants but the danger is controversial.

e) The CEGB and Friends of the Earth disagree about nuclear power.

f) BNFL doesn’t accept any liability.

g) An 18-year-old girl believes she has leukaemia because she lives near a nuclear plant.

h) People are asking if nuclear stations are safe.

i) The government is increasing the use of nuclear power for important reasons.

j) Only 1% of the radiation most people receive comes from the nuclear industry.

2.5. Write three summaries of different type for the following text:

At a Border Station

One man was going to france on a business trip. He went to the booking-ofice to book a seat for the morning train to paris. The next morning the man arrived at the station and got into a train. The train ran to the schedule and some hours later stopped at a french border station.

The man together with other passengers, who were going abroad went out as he had to register his ticket and passport Then he filled in a declaration and gave it to the customs official.

Some minutes later the customs official allowed the passengers to take their seats in the train and said that he would inspect their luggage.

The man went into his compartment, opened his suitcases, took many boxes of cigarettes out of them and wanted to put all of them into his pockets. but There were too many boxes. When all his pockets full were, he turned to another passenger, who was sitting at the window in the same compartment.

‘Will you please take some of these boxes and put them into your pockets? he asked.

‘Why don’t you leave them in your suitcases?’

‘Because I don’t want to pay duty on them.’

‘All right,’ said the passenger, ‘give them to me. But I must tell you that i shall not return them to you/’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am a French customs official.’

2.6. Write a descriptive summary for the text:

The British Artist Who is a Bigger Name Abroad than at Home