DXJAKD2
Academic skills course
Blanka Pojslová
Lesson 8

Task 7: Model summary
•The Washlet is an expensive luxury lavatory that is popular in crowded Japanese homes, with a
range of special features. Its maker, the Toto company, is hoping to expand sales in the West, but
different regulations about toilet design and electrical fittings make this a challenging goal.

Task 2 – 4: Model paraphrase
•A Spanish study examined potential subsidies given over 25 years to renewable energy.
•It found that each of the 50,000 jobs created cost €570,000, with an estimated total spending of
€29billion.
•But had the state permitted the same sum to be spent by private businesses, they would have
produced over twice as many jobs: 113,000.
•According to these calculations the subsidies in Spain have effectively eliminated more than
50,000 posts.

Task 3
1.viewed as / seen as
2.been limited to / failed to address
3.been raised
4.proposes / describes / presents
5.extend / widen / broaden
6.put forward / proposed
7.investigated / studied / analyzed / evaluated
8.reported / found
9.carried out / performed
10.argues / maintains / suggests / points out / underlines

Task 3
1.roles / applications
2.difficulty / drawback / disadvantage / flaw
3.paper / review / study
4.subject / matter / area
5.hypotheses / theories
6.modifications / alterations / adjustments
7.regulations / standards
8.program / package
9.reasons / rationale
10.subjects / participants

Task 4
1.Hispanic, American Indian and Filipino are examples of the various categories of race and
ethnicity.
2.Rendering techniques can be subdivided into three categories: A, B, and C.
3.A philosopher is someone who spends their day thinking about existential problems.
4.Existential problems are what a philosopher spend his / her day thinking about.
5.The rod is usually two meters long / in length.
6.Two meters is the usual length of the rod.
7.Water pollution, contaminants in food and such like may cause the disease.
8.The ideas from previous taxonomies are combined in the categorisation.
9.How the brain works is still not fully understood.
10.The package was delivered by courier.
11.
11.

Punctuation
•
•                    "Let's eat Grandma."
•
•
•                   "Let's eat, Grandma!"

Task1: Punctuation: commas ,
1.Students who have completed the course will be awarded a certificate.
2.Some of the top clubs, who had never liked the system, were worried about the growing tendency of
the very best professionals to leave the country to play in Italy and elsewhere.
3.Unfortunately, what is meant by the term varies according to the field of study.
4.The evidence shows, however, that this variable does have a significant influence on useability.
5.In firms of all sizes, a basic aim of management accounting routines is to control vital areas
and to monitor performance.
6.The difference between tamper-proofing and other techniques is characterized in Figure 10.
7.If you enter the factory, you are required to wear a hard hat.
•

Task1: Punctuation - commas
8.Originating in the high temperatures within the depths of the Earth, geothermic energy is as old
as the planet.
9.Geothermic energy is as old as the planet, originating in the high temperatures within the depths
of the Earth.
10.To tackle the above navigational problems, developers of hypertext systems have devised a number
of navigational tools.
11.Developers of hypertext systems have devised a number of navigational tools to tackle the above
navigational problems.
12.Any significant greenhouse warming could cause a rapid melting of polar ice, which would result
in a rise in sea level and the consequent flooding of coastal areas.
13.Any significant greenhouse warming could cause a rapid melting of polar ice, resulting in a rise
in sea level and the consequent flooding of coastal areas.
14.Design activities are often interdisciplinary, thus bringing together concepts from the arts,
mathematics, and sciences.
•

Punctuation
üUse a comma to separate non –defining relative clauses from the main clause
•
üUse a comma to separate sentence conectors and other adverbs from the subject
•
üUse a comma to separate an introductory phrase from the subject
•
üUse a comma before and after non-finite '-ing' clause
•
üUse a comma after a dependent clause that begins a sentence

Task 2: Punctuation - commas
1.Hydrogen fuel cells are safe and effective, yet the technology is still too expensive for the
mass market.
2.Hydrogen fuel cells are safe and effective but still too expensive for the mass market. market.
3.These schemes provide a solution to current traffic problems, and they are easy to implement.
4.These schemes provide a solution to current traffic problems and are easy to implement.
5.In the future, those non-energy sectors most dependent on energy will suffer the greatest loss in
production, as shown in table 1.
6.It has been divided between fourteen cousins, three of whom are of Corsican extraction and thus,
according to our French friends, impossible to deal with.
7.Nokia, the world's top cell phone maker, on Tuesday launched the first pre-commercial 3G network
in Toulouse, France.
•

Task 2: Punctuation - commas
8.During a recent visit by the Finnish President, Tarja Halonen, Japan experienced a very serious
earthquake.
9.During a recent visit by President Tarja Halonen, Japan experienced a very serious earthquake.
10.In the future, those non-energy sectors most dependent on energy, such as the chemical and steel
industries, will suffer the greatest loss in production.
11.Music has been used by other community agencies, including a health center and church groups, as
a vehicle for promotion of community projects and events.
12.The Family Filter blocks all harmful image files, video files, SPAM and internet pages from your
children's computer.
13.Similar to many other initially exotic, expensive technologies, CD-Recordable drives have become
everyday tools for most users.
14.Almost all modern electronic devices have internal clocks.
•
•

Punctuation
üUse a comma before coordinating conjunctions combining two complete sentences
•
üUse a comma to signal non-essential information within a sentence
•
üUse a comma for appositives = renaming something mentioned before
•
üSeperate items in a list
•
üSeparate two or more equivalent adjectives

Using Commas in Other Conventional Contexts
1.With Direct Quotations
ØEmerson said to Whitman, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.“
Ø“I greet you at the beginning of a great career,“ Emerson said to Whitman
2.With Titles or Degrees Following a Name
ØMicheel Crichton, MD, wrote Jurassic Park.
3.In Addresses and Dates
ØHer address is 600 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10024.
ØOn January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded.
4.In Salutations and Closings
ØDear John, Love, Sincerely,
5.In Long Numbers
Ø1,200      12,000     120,000 1,200,000

Using Commas to Prevent Misreading
•
•Those who can, sprint the final lap.
•
•
•Everything bad that could have happened, happened.
•
üwithout the comma, can appears to be an auxiliary verb (Those who can sprint ...)
üthe comma tells reader to pause, so eliminating confusion
•

Task 3: Preventing misreading
1.According to Bob, Frank’s computer is obsolete.
2.By Monday, evening students must begin preregistration for fall classes.
3.Whatever they built, they built with care.
4.Students go to school to learn, not to play sports.
5.Technology has made what once seemed not possible, possible.

Task 4: Editing misused commas



Using Apostrophes  ’
•     the idea that Warren had
•
ØWarren’s idea
Ø
–the climate of the Virgin Islands
–
ØThe Virgin Islands’ climate

Task 5: Using Apostrophes
1.Reading Henry James’s The Ambassadors was not Maria ’s idea of fun.
2.The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature is available online.
3.The Women’s Room is a novel by Marilyn French.
4.The editor-in-chief’s position is open.
5.He accepted the Secretary of State’s resignation under protest.
6.Ernest Hemingway’s and Gertrude Stein’s writing styles have some similarities.
7.Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta is called The Pirates of Penzance.
8.Laid-off employees received two weeks’ severance pay and three-months’ medical benefits.
•

Using colons :
•We need three kinds of support: economic, moral and political.
üintroduce list or series
–
•The meeting was postponed: the Dean was ill.
üintroduce explanation
ü
•As the Duchess of Windsor said: “You can never be too rich or too thin.“
üintroduce quotations

Task 6: Using colons :
1.It was conceived of by all those who participated in it not as a coalition government as
generally understood, but as a temporary, emergency government, formed for a single limited
purpose: to balance the budget through drastic economies and increases in taxation.
2.The National Government was a genuine coalition in the sense in which that term is used on the
continent: a government comprising independent yet conflicting elements allied together.
3.This third National Government was the type of coalition government with which British history is
much more familiar: a coalition between one major party and a fragment from another which has
broken off because it disagrees with one of its parent party's central tenets.
4.The Labour government found itself under pressure from three directions: from the left wing, from
the TUC, and from Sir Oswald Mosley and his supporters.
5.Finlay had recommended four alternatives: full internationalization, a European plus dependencies
system, an Empire only system, or international regulation.
6.Only the United States had no state airline and believed that airways should be open to free
market capitalism: "In general, the Chicago conference can be described as an attempt by the United
States to capitalise on its overwhelmingly strong bargaining position in international aviation by
securing for itself a near monopoly of long-haul air transport."
7.Berle also was not impressed with Swinton, who always pleaded that he was bound by instructions
from London: "Swinton is ill-prepared and he also tends to be arrogant and inflexible."
•

Using semicolons ;
•
•20 people were interviewed for the first study; 33 for the second.
•
übetween two closely related independent clauses, phrases, and so on that convey parallel or
contrasting information but are not joined by a coordination conjunction
–
•(Maitland, 2008; Rosenor, 1997; The Economist, 2006)
•
üdivide up items in a list when one or more of the items include commas

Task 7: Using semicolons ;
1.A thorough and detailed biography of Arthur Henderson is also badly needed; the recent short
studies by F. M. Leventhal and Chris Wrigley add little in so far as the events of 1931 are
concerned.
2.Clearly, as the concentration of P rises, so will the proportion of enzyme molecules to which P
is bound; hence the rate of conversion of S to A, and hence to P, will fall.
3.Labour was the largest party with 288 MPs; the Conservatives, who had gained more votes than
Labour in the 1929 general election, were, nevertheless, only the second largest party with, by
1931, 262 MPs; and the Liberals had fifty-nine MPs.
4.Latin literature continued to be copied by Christian aristocrats; classical learning survived in
the teaching available, now in episcopal households rather than public schools; Roman art continued
to adorn the walls of churches and the sides of sarcophagi.
5.Thomas Jefferson brought two hundred vanilla beans and a recipe for vanilla ice cream back from
France; thus, he gave America its all-time favorite ice-cream flavor.
•
•
•

Using dashes –
•Neither of the boys – both nine-year-old – had any history of violence.
•
üto separate nonessential information, but unlike commas, dashes call attention to it
•
•“Study hard,“ “Respect your elders,“ “ Don’t talk with your mouth full“ – Sharon had often heard
her parents say these things.
•
üto introduce a statement that summarises a list or series before it

Task 8: Using dashes –
1.Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, lilies – all these grow from bulbs.
2.St. Kitts and Nevis – two tiny islands nations – are now independent after 360 years of British
rule.
3.World War I – called “the war to end all wars“– was, unfortunately, no such thing.
4.He considered several majors – history, English, political science, and business – before
deciding on journalism.

Task 9: Not Overusing dashes –
•Registration was a nightmare.
•Most of the courses I wanted to take – geology and conversational Spanish, for instance – met at
inconvenient times or were closed by the time I tried to sign up for them.
•It was really depressing, even for registration.

Housekeeping
•Upload the second version of your abstract in the Information System by 18 April.
•Participate in a Skype call with Rachel Lindner on 28 or 29 April.
•Upload the final version of your abstract in the Information System by 2 May.
•Give the presentation on 9 or 12 May.
•