Academic Word List ( AWL) and Long Weekend

Hi guys!

My long weekend was just awesome. Although I couldn’t get out of Calgary, I enjoyed those relaxed and productive days off. On Friday my first plan was to have lunch with a couple of friends from this course at a Mexican restaurant, but I changed it because a Venezuelan neighbor and friend of mine asked me if I could babysit his daughters for a while. So I couldn’t say no to help him, earn some cash and have a wonderful time with his two little princesses. The older one is 8 years old and the youngest is 6 years old. The younger one has an intellectual disability, it means that she learn a little bit slowly than other children that have the same age as her, so it was definitely a wonderful experience. On Saturday morning I did some yoga just after I woke up, then I helped my best friend and her husband to paint the walls of our living room and then we organized the garage. On Saturday evening I went to a friend house who arranged a gathering to share a nice time with a couple of friends, drink some wine and eat a lot. I had a really great time there among nice and entertaining people and the food was amazingly delicious. On Sunday morning I did one hour of yoga again and asked my body for forgiveness for all the wine that I drank hahahahahaha. In the evening of that day, I attended to a birthday party and I ate a lot AGAIN. Today, Monday 16th also the last day of freedom, I have to catch up the homework and read some books.

On the other hand, regarding the AWL, I found that it is a complete list of usual words that appear in most of English language academic texts. I have to confess that I have never heard about it; however, I am familiar with a few of the words on that list. Here is a link that explains it better. In my opinion, this list is an incredible way to enhance all English skills and expand our English vocabulary as well. 

Paraphrasing, Summarizing and Quoting

Hi guys!

There are some writing methods that exist to make our life easier when we are trying to support a writing work with other people writing works. In academic writing, people usually incorporate other ideas from different sources in order to strengthen their writings, but avoiding plagiarism. This awesome link will clear this out.

Summarizing means making a concise description of the major points of something read or listened to. Writers use this method when they want to highlight the main point of the additional source in a general way, says a writing academic skills document from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Moreover, paraphrasing means to make an itemized restatement of what someone else has written or said, using one’s words. When writers paraphrase, they have to find other words that have the same or similar meaning (synonyms) to restate the information provided in the additional source material. Writers use this technique when they want to emphasize the information of the supplementary source in a detailed way, as indicated in a writing skills document from the Student Success Center of the University of Houston-Victoria.

According to the book Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test, “A summary differs from paraphrase in that it does not represent a full account of the material, but rather describe only the major points” (J. Gear and R. Gear 2006, p. 54).

Finally, quoting means expressing the same words of someone written or spoken work, as the paragraph above. Writers use this method when they want to precise supporting testimony of some material that is essential to clarify the writer ideas.

Using these techniques depends on what the writer need to state. There is another link that will help you to have a bright view about this. 

When Lies Mean Protection

“Always telling the truth is no doubt better than always lying, although equally pathological,” says the blogger Robert Brault. Whereas some people believe that telling the truth is always the best option, I think that it depends on the situation we are dealing with. 

People tend to deceive when they want to safeguard someone who they care about. For example, it is quite common when brothers and sisters support one another to avoid being grounded from their parents. They undoubtedly will lie if they need to be safe from some situation where truth means being vulnerable to risk. Another example of this is when friends cover their backs up from girlfriends/boyfriends to make a shield and defend each other from any specific situation when one of the people involved is in more danger if they tell the truth than if they tell a lie and can guarantee a collective satisfaction, which is my case. Although I do not like lying, I did it to protect a friend because the more we care about someone, the more we are likely to lie.

 A couple of years ago, a friend of mine ask me to help him to create a false story to avoid problems with his girlfriend and after I told him that it was outright unfair to his girlfriend, I finally agreed to help him. In addition, people habitually choose to create a delusion to elude uncomfortable situations when truth can make and affect people that we love. If I would not have told a lie to my friend’s girlfriend, my friend would have been in a tough situation. I do not know why my friend did that, but I am pretty sure that he will never do it again. He was kind of confused about his relationship by that time and after that date with the other girl, he felt very bad about lying to who is now his wife. Apparently, the more you lie, the more awful you feel. Moreover, sometimes lies can represent a way to respect other people choices. For instance, it was no my business that my friend decided to cheat on his girlfriend. I confronted him with my opinion, but it was no my problem that he chose to did it. 

In summary, telling the truth is not always the best option because there are situations when lies can protect someone. Taking aside some values and moral standards, we know that life is packed with constant changes and replete of specific situations when we manipulate the truth a little bit in order to keep someone safe. The more subjective you are, the more likely you are to lie.