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English for Computer Science

Lecture 12

Writing in Steps (2)

Getting Your Sentence Correct Topic Sentence Varying Your Sentence Writing Practice

Getting Your Sentence Correct

Before writing good sentences, make correct sentences.

Beware of 3 common errors.

Lack of agreement

Dangling constructions

Faulty parallels

Getting Your Sentence Correct

Examples

*We propose a new approach to image compression because traditional approaches were faulty.

*Developed in the 1960s, many researches turned to attack machine translation, calling it unnecessary.

*Software engineering is the study and an application of engineering to the design, developing, and maintenance of software.

In-Class Exercise

Correct the following sentences.

Students should learn to solve problems independently. Don’t rely on your teachers’ help.

To write good code, a set of coding standards must be followed by a programmer.

Topic Sentence

Most technical paragraphs begin with a topic sentence.

A topic sentence is usually followed by supporting details, which elaborate or develop what is stated in the topic sentence.

Topic Sentence

Examples

Data mining is a highly effective tool in the catalog marketing industry. Catalogers have a rich database of history of their customer transactions for millions of customers dating back a number of years. Data mining tools can identify patterns among customers and help identify the most likely customers to respond to upcoming mailing campaigns.

Object creation is also asynchronous. The implementation is allowed to begin creation of the object in another thread. The handle to the object remains valid even if the object has not finished being created. Rendering can occur with objects that have not yet been created, since OpenGL rendering is already an asynchronous process.

Varying Your Sentence

To make your correct sentences even better, consider varying your sentence pattern.

Sentences may look different from each other for better cohesion, emphasis, or variety.

Varying Your Sentence

Examples

Various metals have been developed to resist corrosion. The stainless steels are among them.Various metals have been developed to resist corrosion. Among them are the stainless steels.The system architecture, its formal definition, and proofs are to be discussed in the next section.To be discussed in the next section are the system architecture, its formal definition, and proofs. There are two kinds of image compression, which are lossy compression and lossless compression. Lossless compression is preferred for archival …Image compression may be lossy or lossless. Lossless compression is preferred for archival …

Writing Practice

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Short sentences drawn from long experiences.

See you next time.

Miguel de Cervantes