Advance writing

TASK 1: Read the two excerpts presented below and answer these questions: Of the two excerpts, which one better exemplifies good writing style? In about 100 words, explain how the better excerpt demonstrates at least one of the following: clarity, cohesion and coherence, elegance. (10 marks) In about 100 words, explain why the other excerpt does not demonstrate the traits mentioned in the first question. (10 marks) Rewrite any TWO of the sentences used in the less well-written excerpt, Break them up into multiple sentences if required, but keep in mind the principles of good style. (10 marks) EXCERPT 1: Joan Didion, "On Self Respect" To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out — since our self-image is untenable — their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone's Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meting the next demand made upon us. EXCERPT 2: Rob Kyff, San Jose Mercury News The amount of grammer and usage error's today is astounding. Not to mention spelling. If I was a teacher, I'd feel badly that less and less students seem to understand the basic principals of good writing. Neither the oldest high school students nor the youngest kindergartner know proper usage. A student often thinks they can depend on word processing programs to correct they're errors. Know way! Watching TV all the time, its easy to see why their having trouble. TV interferes with them studying and it's strong affect on children has alot to due with their grades. There's other factors, too, including the indifference of parents like you and I. A Mom or Dad often doesn't know grammer themselves. We should tell are children to study hard like we did at they're age and to watch less TV then their classmates. TASK 2 Read the following essay and, in no more than 500 words, write your opinion of the author's thesis. Do you agree or disagree with his statements? Start your introduction with a shared context in one of the following forms: historical background, a recent event, a common belief or anything else that reminds readers of what they know, have experienced, or readily accept. Follow it up with a brief statement of what you will go on to qualify or even contradict. Keep your topics short and reasonably consistent, aiming for conciseness and clarity throughout. George Orwell: Why Are Beggars Despised? It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary "working" men. They are a race apart--outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men "work," beggars do not "work"; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not "earn" his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic "earns" his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable. Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course--but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout--in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him. Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?--for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modem talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except "Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it"? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich. (20 marks)