Motivation letter writing
Schema della sezione
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These slides on motivation letter / statement writing have been adapted slightly to fit the Erasmus application context (which is rather different from the job or university degree context). I've also added the two motivation letters I presented at the International Day last month in Trieste, one good (reasonable paragraphing, gives reasons not emotions, sounds as if the student has given the matter some serious thought) and one less good (poor organisation etc).
The Erasmus motivation statement can be written in English, Italian, French or German (but not extra points are awarded for languages other than Italian). It should be addressed to the commission and signed. It should be sent to mobilita@dispes.units.it with the candidate's surname and 'motivation letter Erasmus' in the subject line.
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•Evaluation criteria for written work•Analysis of text A
- rhetorical structure
- language issues
- punctuation: west, western or West, Western?
- word pair: waste or wastage?
•Analysis of text B-Language•Register: informal vs formal English -
Contents:
TEXT A:
•Read to spot the anticipated language issues (mostly, WW)•Say what the highlighted language issues are in the text•Language issues corrected•Further revision for naturalness of expression (re-writing the topic sentence; collocation; breaking up an overly long sentence)TEXTS B:
•3 topic sentences from other paragraphs are evaluated for their effectiveness. -
HW Review 3 File PDF
Contents
Text A
Minor problems with language (WW)
Problems with structure
‘In fact’ and ‘infatti’
Emotivity in academic prose
Text B
Language issues: WW, VB, Gr, Art, Ref, Register, T
Evaluation of structure (a non-paragraph, lacks unity of topic)
A well-formed paragraph discussing meanings of development - as an example.
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Paragraph writing task to be submitted on Monday 18th November.
There was some misunderstanding about this paragraph writing exercise. I announced in class last week that I would be posting on Moodle a paragraph writing task based on the UNSG listening activity, and that I would indicate then who should be doing this task. However, although I had not yet posted this information, some students nonetheless presented me with a paragraph. The details for this assignment - expanded to include also the topic of Karl Marx used yesterday Mon 11/11 - are in the attached file.
Pease remember if you have not yet done so to sign up for the Sketch Engine service (see details in the lettorato), and do the search I proposed yesterday Mon 11/11 for uses of 'between' and 'among' using the concordance tool. What do you find?
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Review of paragraph writing on the following topic sentences:
•The general public tends to have unrealistic expectations of what the United Nations Secretary General can achieve.•The title of ‘Chief Administrative Officer’ used to refer to the UNSG in the UN Charter, reflects only part of what the UNSG actually does in the role.•Karl Marx was mistaken about some aspects of the future of capitalism, but some of his predictions actually came to pass.•Karl Marx was right in some of his predictions, but he also failed to foresee some future developments of capitalism.The review considers content, structure and comprehensive language issues. Please take time to read the review and learn from the mistakes.
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