COMMON ISSUES IN YOUR FIRST DRAFTS
1) Sentence structure
Indeed, this wide range of popular sites are using technologies like SSL, that was developed in 90s and
whose last version was published in 1996, or TLS, which was defined in 1999 as an upgrade of last version
of SSL, that are not entirely safe.
SENTENCE 1 SENTENCE 2 SENTENCE 1 SENTENCE 3 SENTENCE 1
Exercise: Look at the following excerpt and make alterations so that the sentence structure is clear.
As we see obstacles as possibilities, there is no need to take obstacles seriously or be nervous because of
their presence because overcoming of obstacles means becoming better and more skillful.
2) Use of language – linking ideas
Although high-resolution display walls have been proven useful tools for data visualization, there is still
struggle with control methods. Camera-sense system is excellent solution for this problem.
DARPA is an agency of the United States Department of Defense and is the biggest organization realizing
projects which are beyond our imagination in this section such as thought-controlled mechanical arm. …
The history of DARPA contains hundreds of projects and cannot be skipped. DARPA was
established in 1958 and its original mission was to keep technological leadership before other countries.
Exercise: Try to rephrase the following in a way so that it sounds more natural. Do any alterations you feel
are necessary.
“An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are
calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is,“ said Steve Jobs at the
Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 to introduce an iPhone.
Every year, millions of trees are cut down to make notebooks and textbooks. Millions of students develop
back problems because of heavy backpacks. Schools spend millions of euros to purchase up-to-date
textbooks.
Playing a game is for mammals a very natural behavior. People also belong to this biological class so
playing should be for them very normal.
3) Articulation of Ideas and Argumentation
The Czech Republic has tried to assimilate Gypsies to fit better to population by financial way. We want to
motivate them to study. There is created special scholarship for Gypsies. Why is that so? A lot of people is
short of money, but they are not Gypsies, therefore this scholarship is not applied to them. It is actually
discrimination of these people or it is not about money and we could create scholarship for other groups
of people like lazy ones.
Exercise: Read the following paragraph. What is the main focus? Make any alterations so that the
paragraph is more coherent.
However, some people may be more interested in so called fitness applications which are becoming more
and more popular these days. They seem like a perfect fit for Google Glass, because the user does not
need to fix the device to his body and be careful of headphones. He can just freely run or do exercise
without taking care of the gadget. One of these applications is the RaceYourself that promises the users to
reward their hard work with exciting content to help them push themselves to the new levels. While
Google Glass is not released to the public yet, the quantity and the quality of applications are quite low in
comparison to general expectations. Now, Google Glass based on a hands-free display technology changes
it radically again and is a good competitor to all the smartphones that most people own in a number of
fields. Not only voice control or the freedom in general, but also various applications are the strengths of
this gadget.
4) Overstatement
The british singer Mike Rosenberg, the frontmen of Passenger, sings in one of his song: “We pretend to be
friends on the internet when in real life we have nothing to say ”. It is only lyrics of the song, but he is truly
right.
Exercise: The following text contains many generalizations. Make appropriate alterations.
For many years there were gods as a primary representation of something mystique. Common
people used them as an explanation for natural phenomena, illnesses or bad luck. Similarly in medieval era,
where I think the concept of good and evil was strongest, exists two opposites: the Devil and the God. If
you were the healer who used his faith in God, herbs and ointments to heal others than you passed
unnoticed. On the other hand if you were curious how the world works and became an alchemist or
astronomer you ended up possessed or wielder of magic. And also dead. People just do not understand
that what they were doing was science.
On the contrary today, where we know that science really works and we do not have to torture
physicists for they work, we want the magic back.
5) Repetition
… Although the idea of social networks seems to help people to build up their relationships, in many cases
opposite becomes true. Social networking is considered a tool which improves communication, still it has a
strongly negative influence on quality of relationships among the people. The idea of social network is not
new. It became a phenomenon at the beginning of the third millenium.
Exercise: Make changes so that you avoid repetition.
Another important part is visualization of obstacles waiting on player on his way to the goal he wants
to achieve - without obstacles, every game would become boring very soon. In a game without smaller
complication, there is anything new we could learn. People are adaptive and doing routine
or monotonous work become boring very soon.
6) Weak thesis statement/conclusion
(conclusion) All the applications which are already made show that there is a very large potential in
developing for Google Glass. Furthermore, the thought of freedom behind the project or voice control
may also be the reasons for users to decide to use it instead of any smartphone. These arguments
supports the probability that Google Glass would replace mobile phones in the future.
Read the following two introductions and add a strong thesis statement.
Books have been a symbol of wisdom and intelligence throughout the centuries. Having a bookshelf filled
with leather-bound books always emanated a certain aura making people feel that the owner of such
bookshelf has to be a literate man. When talking about reading nowadays one needs to consider both
options - books and e-readers. But even though books are now converted to electronic versions for the
sake of readers's convenience, the number of readers is constantly declining.
Reading is one of the most fundamental skills and it is necessary for everyday life in a modern world.
People are taught that since their early childhood. At first parents are being advised to read to their
preschool sons and daughters before going to bed, then every child learns to read in the first grade of
elementary school. However, that is not enough and students of all grades are therefore supposed to read
also in their free time. In the Czech republic, required reading is a commonly used method to encourage
students to read, but the issue is whether this method is encouragement or rather discouragement for
them.
7) Grammar/spelling mistakes
We have been raised in a so called „post-communist“ era, so it seems like communism has no influence on
our generetion as it had on the older one, but quite the oposite might actually be true. We might fool
ourselvs however we want, but …
Lets take a smart phones a second example.
Exercise: Read the following and correct all the grammatical mistakes you can find.
Moreover the people should not limit themselves on using the new technology but also learn how to write
their own programs. Despite of there is so many software on the market they do not cover every action
that user require. But if the user have also some basic programming skills he can do his work faster and
more effective. For example imagine office worker that have to process one thousand documents per day
and each document is processed by the same sequence of commands. If the user spend few days by
learning some simple programming language and then write the program that do the same sequence of
commands automatically then the user never have to spend so much time by clicking thousand times the
same button again. Thus he can do some other important work. Therefore programming skills can be very
useful in situations like these and save people lots of repetitive work. And also if the program is correct it
cannot do mistake while the user can.