Warm-Up 2 is all about complaining. 'The Hire Car from Hell' is all about really bad treatment when renting a car in the USA. The idea for this Warm-Up came from the wonderful film, "Trains and Planes and Automobiles", with Steve Martin and John Candy. The task is set up so that you don't have any other option than to write a well-composed letter to the company in the USA - and hope for the best. The sum of money involved is too small to make it worth your while starting a legal action (at least from this side of the Atlantic - it'd be different if you were living in the USA, where they have Small Claims Courts). There's also a lot of scope for 'he said-she said' situations (which is how they describe situations where one person says one thing, and the other person says something different in American English).
The task itself is quite limited: you only have to write FIVE sentences from the letter you'd write (i.e. NOT the entire letter). The point is to see whether you can calibrate your language, so that you express yourself firmly, but refrain from insults and gratuitous comments that will just result in your letter being filed in the trash can! Once again, there's a link to the Send-In Task which comes next.
You submit your Warm-Up Task 2 by copying your text into a comment. Remember to include FIVE sentences only - and to include your name in the submission.
By the way, an FAQ for this task is: what's a 'redeye'? If you'd like to know, take a look at the first comment on this blog post.
Tuesday 30 September 2008
General Feedback on Warm-Up 1
I think I've finished all the Warm-Up 1s now. If you're still waiting for feedback on yours, please get in touch and I'll see what's happened to it …
Your Warm-Up 1s were generally done very well. You needed to include two different types of information in your presentation: 1) something about what you've done as a person and as a professional thus far in your life; and 2) something about why these qualities and experiences are going to be of benefit to your new employer. Where some of you had problems with this was in making the links between past experiences and future value explicit. In general, it's not enough to just make the information available - you have to spell its significance out too.
'Too colloquial' is a pair of words I typed lots of times! Colloquial language is spoken language of the sort that everyone understands, but people tend not to write, when they're writing formally. If you think of the UK English word 'quid' or the US English word 'buck', everyone knows that these refer to the respective currencies. However, you don't see these words written into contracts of employment - it says 'pounds' and 'dollars' there, respectively. In formal written English, it's important to avoid colloquialisms - and you're going to find out about plenty of them as the course progresses! 'Get' and 'big' were two of the commonest colloquialisms I commented on this time around.
I used Microsoft Word's Comment feature to identify all the errors and usages I wanted to comment on in your work. If this is the first time you've ever had your English looked at in this much detail, don't be downhearted!! It's actually very difficult to produce absolutely faultless English - even for me! Perhaps the most valuable service your tutors and I can perform for you, though, is to let you know what's right and what's wrong. When I look through your Warm-Ups, I identify every single mistake … so you can now safely assume that if I didn't correct it, it isn't wrong! However, you need to distinguish between important and unimportant mistakes. Among the latter are preposition errors (like writing 'in University' when you need to write 'at University'). The accuracy of your language does play a role in arriving at your mark for a Warm-Up, but it isn't a very important one: the content is much more important.
If you have any questions about the feedback you've received, please don't hesitate to ask - I'll be glad to explain to you how I arrived at your mark.
Now you're heading for Send-In Task 1 (remember there's a podcast about it out already). I'm going to create the Warm-Up 2 Blog Post this afternoon, though, so that you've got somewhere to put your sentences from a letter of complaint. Good luck with Send-In 1.
Your Warm-Up 1s were generally done very well. You needed to include two different types of information in your presentation: 1) something about what you've done as a person and as a professional thus far in your life; and 2) something about why these qualities and experiences are going to be of benefit to your new employer. Where some of you had problems with this was in making the links between past experiences and future value explicit. In general, it's not enough to just make the information available - you have to spell its significance out too.
'Too colloquial' is a pair of words I typed lots of times! Colloquial language is spoken language of the sort that everyone understands, but people tend not to write, when they're writing formally. If you think of the UK English word 'quid' or the US English word 'buck', everyone knows that these refer to the respective currencies. However, you don't see these words written into contracts of employment - it says 'pounds' and 'dollars' there, respectively. In formal written English, it's important to avoid colloquialisms - and you're going to find out about plenty of them as the course progresses! 'Get' and 'big' were two of the commonest colloquialisms I commented on this time around.
I used Microsoft Word's Comment feature to identify all the errors and usages I wanted to comment on in your work. If this is the first time you've ever had your English looked at in this much detail, don't be downhearted!! It's actually very difficult to produce absolutely faultless English - even for me! Perhaps the most valuable service your tutors and I can perform for you, though, is to let you know what's right and what's wrong. When I look through your Warm-Ups, I identify every single mistake … so you can now safely assume that if I didn't correct it, it isn't wrong! However, you need to distinguish between important and unimportant mistakes. Among the latter are preposition errors (like writing 'in University' when you need to write 'at University'). The accuracy of your language does play a role in arriving at your mark for a Warm-Up, but it isn't a very important one: the content is much more important.
If you have any questions about the feedback you've received, please don't hesitate to ask - I'll be glad to explain to you how I arrived at your mark.
Now you're heading for Send-In Task 1 (remember there's a podcast about it out already). I'm going to create the Warm-Up 2 Blog Post this afternoon, though, so that you've got somewhere to put your sentences from a letter of complaint. Good luck with Send-In 1.
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Warm-Up 1
This is the post to which you add your Warm-Up 1 task as a Comment (i.e. click on the Comment button below). When you do that, don't forget to write your name on the post! You'd be amazed how much detective work I sometimes have to do!
Warm-Up 1 asks you to write a personal presentation for a web site. This is a general message that goes out to everyone who visits the web site of the new company you've just got a job with. I.e. it needs to be informative, but a bit general - and a good piece of advertising for your new employer. In other words, you need to show how smart your new employer is for hiring you!
You'll find a couple of useful links on the Warm-Up 1 page: one from the University of Cambridge with some general advice, and an example of personal presentations from the Ericsson company.
When the Warm-Ups have all been marked and sent back (by me, David), I'll post a general comment in a post on this blog, with advice for everyone about Send-In Task 1.
Warm-Up 1 asks you to write a personal presentation for a web site. This is a general message that goes out to everyone who visits the web site of the new company you've just got a job with. I.e. it needs to be informative, but a bit general - and a good piece of advertising for your new employer. In other words, you need to show how smart your new employer is for hiring you!
You'll find a couple of useful links on the Warm-Up 1 page: one from the University of Cambridge with some general advice, and an example of personal presentations from the Ericsson company.
When the Warm-Ups have all been marked and sent back (by me, David), I'll post a general comment in a post on this blog, with advice for everyone about Send-In Task 1.
It's Course Launch Day!
In a couple of minutes I'll be going into the classroom to meet some of the students on the Business Writing course. I think we're going to have about 8 people here in Kalmar this evening.
I've also just activated the course web site (and sent you a mail about it), so it looks like we're good to go!
We hope you enjoy the course - and we're looking forward to your first Warm-Up Task.
I've also just activated the course web site (and sent you a mail about it), so it looks like we're good to go!
We hope you enjoy the course - and we're looking forward to your first Warm-Up Task.
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