glossary again and again

[ivy]

“For the Glossary” (or it “On the Glossary” or “In the Glossary”?)

Things I hear myself saying over and over again (these comments fall
into two main categories, depending on the students I am tutoring and
yes, this is a very crude generalization and politically incorrect, to
boot). Nevertheless here goes:

• ESL issues (Western: i.e., Hispanic)

Prepositions:

I (Ivy, the tutor, speaking): “Okay, prepositions, how do we know if
it’s “on” or “in” or “for” or “of” or above or over? There’s no real
good way to tell, as Native speakers we [tutors] know the difference
from hearing them used for many years. As Non-Native speakers (term
borrowed from the book, ESL Grammar, p. v) there is no easy way for
you to tell which preposition to use.”

Note: I attended an ESL workshop held by one of our faculty members
last semester, and she suggested we tell students to make lists of
prepositional phrases they come across as they encounter them.


Prepositional phrases and commas:

I: “Okay, how do we know where the comma goes?” The comma goes after
the prepositional phrase, you can tell if it needs a comma by covering
the prepositional phrase up, if you don’t need it to make a
grammatically correct sentence then you need a comma to set it off
from the the rest of the sentence (Lester, p. 258)

I: “Okay, how do you know when you need a Comma? We cover this part
of the sentence up and if you can delete it altogether, it needs a
comma on both sides. For ex., Mrs. Patrick, the Librarian, is a nice
lady – you need commas on either side of the Librarian.”

This/These, Were/Where, They’re/Their/There

I: “These are common mistakes – everybody makes them…”

I would like to see the wording, “Major Blunders”, done away with,
perhaps we need to phrase it differently, to be more positive, (i.e.,
“Warning! Danger! Peligro!” lol)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

• ESL issues (Eastern, i.e., Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean)

Articles:

I: “Okay, how do you know if you use “a” here or “the” here? – it’s
really confusing, especially if you are a Non-Native speaker – I know
you don’t have articles in Chinese (Vietnamese, Korean, depending on
student – I always find out ahead of time which language they speak) –
and it’s hard to know which one to use – I find it’s usually the
opposite of what you expect, my best advice (also suggested by Lester,
p. 29-48) get someone (native speaker) to proof-read your paper before
you turn it in. Yes, there are rules, for usage, but the exceptions
to the rules tend to outnumber the rules.”

Note: I have been editing papers and books for native Taiwanese
speakers for years – this is the hardest and most common mistake I
come across and I have not found a good way to explain correct usage –
conclusion and generalization: Chinese people want rules to learn and
this time we have no good rules for them.

Verb endings (-ing, -ed, or no ending, ex., “to work”)

I: What tense is it? [Is it past tense or gerund, or infinitive…?]
If it’s past tense, use –ed, if it’s happening right now, use –ing,
how do you know when to use infinitive – this is more complicated…?

(I have no good explanations here – maybe this is where we need some
serious group thinking…)

Plurals and Singulars/Verb and Noun Agreement

I: I know we don’t have plurals and singulars in Chinese (Vietnamese,
or Korean). How do you know which ending to use on the noun? Ex. I
have five books, book takes an “s”, I have one book, no “s”, Ex. The
book is blue, the books are blue. (Lester, p. 9-10)

Noncount nouns

I: Is it research or researches? Ex., Research is already
plural” (Lester, p. 6-7)

Posessives:

I: “We need an apostrophe here. This is Fred book – look at the word
after the noun, ask yourself the question, ‘the book belongs to
who?’” (Simplest example)

On Organization/Essay Writing in General:

I: “Okay, this is how we write an essay, first paragraph is the
Intro, pretend you are writing a speech to give to an audience, the
Intro tells the audience “what you are going to tell them, then comes
the body, where you tell them what you came to tell them, then comes
the “Conclusion” where you tell them what you just told them, keep it
simple. Each paragraph only has one main idea – write the idea out
here in the margin…”

Thesis sentence:

“What is this paper about? Tell me in one sentence…This paper is
about…one noun, one verb, one direct object. [I draw a diagram and
label the parts]. Keep it simple. Don’t overwork it. If the teacher
wants a longer thesis, we’ll write it…”

On Big Words/Long Sentences/Run-on sentences:

I: I know this is college but you don’t have to use big words, make
your writing understandable to your audience. The only difference
between writing at the college level and the 6th grade level is the
number of three-or more syllables (polysyllabic words, how’s that for
a long word? Joke, I use). It’s better to make it [your writing]
understandable than to make it complicated. Keep the sentences short
and sweet, again, your main job as a writer is to communicate with
your audience. We want them to understand what you are trying to tell
them.” I know the teacher already knows this, but we have to pretend
we are not writing for the teacher….”

On Plaigairism:

I: “I don’t care where you got this as long as you understand what it
means. But your teacher cares…Tell me what you are trying to say in
your own words. Don’t forget to cite it. Even if you paraphrase, you
need to cite it.”

I: Who’s talking here? Is this you, the writer, talking, or is this
directly from the book? If the author is saying this, we need
apostrophes here...”


On MLA, APA, CMS Usage

I: “What style does the professor want? – we can look it up in this
book here (indicating one of the Style Manuals in the Writing
Center). Let’s look up “in-text citations, let’s look at the finished
essay here, and check the bibliographic references”.

I demonstrate where to find this info in the book.

[Shannon Stoney]

> Noncount nouns
>
> I: Is it research or researches? Ex., Research is already
> plural” (Lester, p. 6-7)
>
>

This is a really hard concept to explain sometimes!

Also, it's hard to explain why sometimes you need an article like "the"
and sometimes you don't, with plural nouns.

Like, why do you say, "People come here to hang out," instead of "the
people come here to hang out"?

--shannon