Mostrando postagens com marcador english. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador english. Mostrar todas as postagens

terça-feira, 27 de março de 2018

How to write a Dissertation


Argumentative Essay



▪ What is an argumentative essay type of text?

An argumentative essay is a type of text in which the writer, through the usage of arguments and research, supports or not a specific line of thinking of a subject, typically it
contains many different kinds of information, often located in specialized parts or sections. 
In an argumentative essay also known as a dissertation, you desire to convince someone to agree with; not only your viewpoint but also your assumption by the usage of evidences based on research.
Similarly, to other types of text, an essay is not difficult or challenging to write when you have both the right formula and method, as well as information at your disposal.
Let us check those tools and tips to assist you with writing astounding essays!


 Important aspects to consider when writing an argumentative essay

▪ Consider both sides of the topic, but take your position by supporting only one.

▪ Provide arguments based on data collected in charts, news, researches and influential people from the subject you are writing about.

▪ Research on more than a single source, webpage or book and compare the data that you have gathered in order not to contribute with erroneous information to the reader.

▪ Talk to experienced people concerning the subject, a teacher/professor will certainly enjoy exposing their point of view towards you.

  

 Formula to write an argumentative essay

There are uncountable different formulas to create an essay, through your deep studies; you are certainly going to develop your own style with time. However, it is indeed a good idea to have a starting parameter,
Allow yourself to examine an incredibly consistent on done with just five paragraphs.

1 - Introduction: the introduction is made of three parts being:
▪ Hook: the first sentence also known as hook, is where the author (you) grab the attention of the reader, hence administering a feeling of interest in reading the whole production.
▪ Background:  on the background, the author can grant the reader a brief touch on what it is going to be said concerning the following paragraphs.
▪ Thesis:  the last sentence of the first paragraph should deliver a concept of what is the study (essay) position over the topic, being for or against it makes no difference.

2/3/4 - Arguments: The argumentation part can be divided in three (two supporting arguments and one against). Each of those can also be divided into two other sections:
▪ Claim: a statement about the topic that you are supporting with both arguments and data in the next part.
▪ Data/Evidence:  After the statement, you should prove it through the usage of arguments (the arguments must be written according to the "Important thing to consider when writing an argumentative essay". 
▪ Counter argument:  the final argument, which is against the ones supported by the author, this one should be given coherently, but soon after, you should show why you disagree with this perspective by using arguments.

5 – Conclusion: At the final paragraph, the author want to give a conclusion showing that, with the data that previously given, it is possible to prove a point of view being the right one.
You can also picture how the world (or that subject) would be if your opinion was implemented.
(Read more)




▪ Answering questions – reasoning with your reader

Another helpful aspect is to anticipate different essay sections as answering a series of questions your reader might ask when encountering your thesis.
Readers should have questions. If they do not, your thesis is most likely simply an observation of a fact, not an arguable claim.

▪ "What?"  The first question to anticipate from a reader is what:
‘’What evidence shows that the phenomenon described by your thesis is true?’’
Examine your evidence, thus demonstrating the truth of your claim. This what or "demonstration" section comes early on, often directly after the introduction, since you are essentially reporting what you have observed. Nevertheless, be forewarned: it should not take up much more than a third of your finished essay. If it does, the essay will lack balance and may read as mere summary or description.

▪ "How?"  The reader will also want to know whether the claims of the thesis are true in all cases. The corresponding question is how:
‘’How does the thesis stand up to the challenge of a counterargument? ‘’
How does the introduction of new material, a new way of looking at the evidence, another set of sources affect the claims made? Typically, an essay will include at least one "how" section. This section usually comes after the "what”.

▪ "Why?’’  Your reader will also want to know what is at stake in your claim:
‘’Why does your interpretation of a phenomenon matter to anyone beside you? ‘
This question addresses the larger implications of your thesis. It allows your readers to understand your essay within a larger context. In answering why, your essay explains its own significance. Although you might gesture at this question in your introduction, the fullest answer to it properly belongs at your essay's end. If you leave it out, your readers will experience your essay as unfinished or, worse, as pointless or insular.



▪ Grammar outcome and review

Although writing can be easy and fun if you apply techniques you are comfortable with, you shouldn’t permit yourself to stay at the comfort zone! Make use of tools like;

▪ Formal writing: avoid slangs or idioms for this type of text, you might apply phrasal verbs with no issues though.

▪ Conjunctions: These are crucial way to connect elements for your arguments, use all its variants, but maintain the formality coherence, do not join informal connectors with formal ones.

▪ Perfect tenses: By using those, your text production is going to become certainly a lot more pleasant to the reader, save no vocabulary, use all your artillery.

▪ Variable synonyms: You are probably have to show things more than twice, avoid repeating words as much as possible.

▪ Indefinite pronouns: Giving support by mentioning sources, doesn’t necessarily mean you need to name and date them every time, make use of this incredible tool.

First person pronouns might be used into specific cases on argumentative essays.
Consider the circumstances below:
▪ You can use first person when you include a personal anecdote.
▪ You may use first person when convincing/ establishing your credibility.
▪ You are allowed to use first person when clarifying passive constructions, to avoid confusion.
Watch out!

You must not use a first person pronoun in any other case.
Reviewing your essay is as important as writing it, take your time and read it aloud to put yourself in your reader’s shoes.


Instructional Video: 

Conheça a Alpha Idiomas

segunda-feira, 15 de janeiro de 2018

The Three Musketeers

Author: Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Historical, Romance, Fiction.

The Three Musketeers is a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas.
Set in 1625–1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
In genre, The Three Musketeers is primarily a historical and adventure novel. However, Dumas also frequently works into the plot various injustices, abuses and absurdities of the old regime, giving the novel an additional political aspect at a time when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce. The story was first serialised from March to July 1844, during the July Monarchy, four years before the French Revolution of 1848 violently established the Second Republic. The author's father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, had been a well-known General in France's Republican army during the French Revolutionary Wars.
The story of d'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. [Read more]

Adventurous and spirited in tone, The Three Musketeers is considered one of the greatest historical French novels. When Athos, Porthos and Aramis befriend a young and determined country boy d’Artagnan, together they confront the scheming King’s Minister, Cardinal Richelieu and the female spy Milady who threaten to undermine the King. Swashbuckling, romantic and often humourous, Dumas’ novel is a timeless tale of friendship and intrigue.

Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Brontë
Genre: Tragedy

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. Written between October 1845 and June 1846, Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Ellis Bell"; Brontë died the following year, aged 30. Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey were accepted by publisher Thomas Newby before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel, Jane Eyre. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights, and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850.

Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, contemporary reviews for the novel were deeply polarised; it was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day regarding religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality. [Read More]

When Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits his landlord at Wuthering Heights, he is astounded by the unorthodox character of the man and his household. Back at the Grange, he asks his servant, Nelly, about the family. She tells him a strange, multigenerational tale of love, class, jealousy, and revenge. Thirty years earlier, Mr. Earnshaw, master of Wuthering Heights, returned from a trip to Liverpool with an unkempt orphan in tow, announcing to his wife and children that the child was now a member of the family. While young Catherine Earnshaw became close with this boy, Heathcliff, her older brother Hindley sank into bitter resentment of the urchin who had usurped his father’s and his sister’s affections—a feeling that only deepened when his father sent him away to college. As Catherine and Heathcliff grew into young adults, and their affection blossomed into desire, Hindley’s resentment boiled over into hatred, setting the stage for a tragic and twisted drama whose aftermath would shake the foundations of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Introduced to a serpentine plot; emotionally tortured, larger-than-life characters; and a richly gothic atmosphere, many critics viewed Wuthering Heights as a brilliant folly when it was first published. Readers have spent the last century and a half making it one of the most popular novels in history. 

segunda-feira, 4 de dezembro de 2017

Madame Bovary

Author: Gustave Flubert
Genre: Literary realism, erotic literture
Flaubert, Gustave

Both embodiment and victim of the self-satisfied nineteenth-century French bourgeoisie, Emma Bovary lives in pursuit of something more, like the world depicted in the romance novels that have come to define her. Emma is oblivious to the realities of life, and her romantic delusions and search for transcendence through sex, money, and social position serve only to drive the increasingly troubled woman into an irreversible moral, emotional, and spiritual decline.
Madame Bovary (1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert's debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.
When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published as a single volume. The novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of literary realism and one of the most influential novels. The British critic James Wood writes: "Flaubert established, for good or ill, what most readers think of as modern realist narration, and his influence is almost too familiar to be visible."
(Read More)

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass

Author: Lewis Carroll
Genre: Children's fiction, fantasy

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. (Read More)


quarta-feira, 26 de julho de 2017

Carta aos inciantes: Daniele Rebelatto

Querido pessoal da Alpha,

Este tempo que passamos juntos foi incrível para mim... ler, escrever e principalmente escutar e falar em inglês sempre foi muito difícil para mim, mas não mais! Eu sei que não sou perfeita, mas todo esse aprendizado me deu bagagem para ser uma pessoa melhor, encorajando-me a não ter medo.
O próximo passo é treinar mais, porque hoje sei que eu sou totalmente capacitada para isso. Estou extremamente feliz com o meu progresso, ou melhor, nosso progresso. Juntos nós conquistamos amizades, ajudamos amigos e também recebemos ajuda, sempre trabalhando em grupo pelo nosso crescimento.
Espero que os novos alunos tenham a mesma experiência que eu tive, que cada conhecimento absorvido ou dificuldade seja mais um passo para seu crescimento e no final eles entenderão a real importância de toda a dedicação.
Sobre o professor, tenham cuidado, ele é o mais cabeludo do mundo HAHAHAHA :) Estou brincando, ele é o melhor ! Obrigado professor, obrigado por tudo, você me proporcionou ótimos momentos e eu estou certa de que nos veremos em breve ... será estudando inglês ? comendo hambúrgueres ?

Vida longa à Alpha,

Dani / 2016

Carta original em inglês

terça-feira, 16 de maio de 2017

3rd semestrer - Class 7: Song "If I were A Boy" by Beyoncé

If I Were a Boy
by Beyoncé


Check the lyrics [ here ]

3rd semestrer - Class 5: Song "Kristy, are you doing okay?" by The Offspring

Kristy, are you doing okay?
by The Offspring



Check the lyrics [ here ]

3rd semestrer - Class 2: Song "As Long As You Love Me" by Backstreet Boys


As Long As You Love Me
by Backstreet Boys


Check the lyrics [ here ]

2nd semestrer - Class 19: Song "Used To" by Chris Daughtry


Used To
by Chris Daughtry



Check the lyrics [ here ]

sexta-feira, 28 de outubro de 2016

Cultural Immersion: Barcelona (Spain)

 The country (Spain)
Flag of Spain - Read more

Spain, a country on Europe’s Iberian Peninsula, includes 17 autonomous regions with diverse geography and cultures. Capital city Madrid is home to the Royal Palace and Prado museum, housing works by European masters. Segovia has a medieval castle (the Alcázar) and an intact Roman aqueduct. 










Barcelona


Capital of Catalonia, an autonomous community of Spain, Barcelona is a multicultural meeting place. It’s also a Mediterranean port and commercial centre, is famed for the individuality, cultural interest and physical beauty. (Read more)

▪ Tourist spots


▪ Sagrada Família
The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is a large unfinished Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. (360° view)

Architectural styles: Art Nouveau, Modernisme, Noucentisme, Spanish Gothic architecture (Read More) 



▪ Montjuïc Castle
Montjuïc Castle is an old military fortress, with roots dating back from 1640, built on top of Montjuïc hill in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It currently serves as a Barcelona municipal facility. (Read More)


Check ou the Oficial Website
▪ Palau Nacional / Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
The Palau Nacional was the main site of the 1929 International Exhibition on the hill of Montjuïcin Barcelona. Since 1934 it has been home to the National Art Museum of Catalonia. (Read More)



▪ Casa Batlló
Casa Batlló is a renowned building located in the center of Barcelona and is one of Antoni Gaudí’s masterpieces. A remodel of a previously built house, it was redesigned in 1904 by Gaudí and has been refurbished several times after that. (Read More)


▪ Cuisine


▪ Crema Catalana
It's a dish similar to crème brûlée, although the sugar is a recent innovation. Traditionally known as crema de Sant Josep, it was originally served on Saint Joseph's Day although nowadays it is consumed at all times of the year. (Check out the recipe)


▪ Escalivada / Escalibada
Escalivada is a traditional dish from Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and Aragón of smoky grilled vegetables. It typically consists of roasted eggplant and bell peppers with olive oil, and sometimes oniontomato, minced garlic, and salt
(Read More) 


▪ Sangria
Sangria is an alcoholic beverage of Spanish and Portuguese origin. A punch, the sangria traditionally consists of red wine and chopped fruit, often with other ingredients such as orange juice or brandy. (Read More) 

(Check out the recipe)


▪ Leche de Pantera
This is a very popular cocktail not just in Barcelona, but Spain as a whole. Made popular during the 1970s, its general form consists of a mixture of milk and liquor. However, it can be elaborated to include condensed milk and also ginger and other variants of the drink can even include an egg yolk and cinnamon. (Check out more traditional drinks)

 More Catalan dishes here.



▪ Habits

Indigenous people of Barcelona are very gallant and very serious. They are open for communication and have a wonderful sense of humor. The locals are very friendly to visitors and will gladly help them in most difficult situations. 


Barcelona from above
Spaniards have never been very punctual. This national trait is not a secret to anyone and so it is a typical reason for numerous jokes. Residents of Barcelona are accustomed to have a very late lunch, so local cafes start filling with visitors only after the noon. Dinners here are also fairly late, so many restaurants are open until midnight. (Read More)

▪ Bullfight
A very famous and  important part of the Spain culture, the bullfight known as “La corrida” have been present  in civilisations as far back the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Barcelona has staged its final bullfight after Catalonia became the first region to ban the traditional spectacle. (Read more)


▪ Cost of living

Barcelona can be a spensive place to live. Prices can vary a lot depending  on where you look. If you’re careful enough with your spensives and don’t plan to party too hard , wich is rather expensive, the city can be a good choice. (Read more

Source: www.numbeo.com


▪ Climate
Whit mild and relatively rainy winters and hot and sunny summers, Barcelona is a Mediterranean city. Because of the location on the east coast of Spain, the city has  a warm temperature and subtropical climate. (Read more)

Source: www.weather2visit.com


▪ Folk Music
Folk music in Spain has a long and diverse history with influences from many cultural streams , when  the Roman culture was dominant, it brought with it the music and ideas of Acient Greece, the  reciting of epic poetry and folk music played an integral role. The tradictional music and dance can vary from region to region. (Read more)



▪ Famous Personalities



Gerard Piqué
One of the most famous soccer players.

José Carreras - One of 
Barcelona’s best-known  opera singers.

Pablo PicassoOne of the most
famous artists of the modernism.




▪ Extra