Writing assignment 1

One possibel disadvantage of focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education rather than language arts is that engineers might end up lacking language skills, and thus facing problems in publishing their ideas. For example, Michael Faraday discovered the Law of Electromagnetic Induction as early as the 1830s (Anonymous, 2008, para. 16-17). However, the world only got to know his great idea some 30 years later. Why? Faraday did not spend these years polishing his work; instead, he struggled to get it published, because he was very bad in writing. He treid to make others understand his great work, but his writing only made his ideas more confusing. Though he finally managed to find someone who could understand his broken language, it was really a waste of time for a scientist as brilliant as Faraday--he could have used the time to do more significant studies. In contrast, Stephen Hawking shows how good language skills can help to convey knowledge to the public. A Brief History of Time is undoutedly one of the most outstanding po;ular science books so far. As Hawking himself had said:"The aim is to put it in a form that's understandable" (Anonymous, 2001, para. 8). Indeed, he made his complex ideas clear by explaining abstract physics concepts in a way that even laymen can understand. Not only did good language skills help Hawking make himself understood, but they also help to give every reader a beneficial science lesson. Comparing the two examples, it is easy to conclude that language skills are very important to a scientific worker. Similarly, we can suppose it is the sme case with an engineer. Lacing language skills can be an obstacle in an engineer's work. It is also an unavoidabel disadvantage of focusing on STEM education to the detriment of language arts.

References

Anonymous, Michael Faraday. (2008). Retrieved September 2, 2008 from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday

Anonymous, Hawking's briefer history of time. (2001). Retrieved September 2, 2008 from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1599719.stm

Portfolio2--One common grammar mistake of mine in acadamic writing

In academic writing, one of the grammar mistakes I always make is about the using of correct prepositions. In English, different words have their own fixed prepositions to go with. I do find it very hard to remember all the combinations. Therefore, I tend to make mistakes like “lacking of something”, “end in doing something”, and “spend time to do something”. On the contrary, we should use “lack”, “end” and “spend” as “lacking something”, “end up” and “spend time doing something”. I think the most likely reason for me to keep making such mistakes is I am not familiar with English. I read too few articles, wrote too few essays and did too few exercises. For prepositions, I think the best way to remember how to use them is through practice and exercises. Once I complete enough exercise, I should be familiar with their usage and pick up the way to use them through the process of learning. Therefore, I will read more academic reading in my future study and pay special attention to the using of prepositions. In addition, I will find more on-line exercises to help me distinguish the right way of using prepositions and common mistakes students tend to make. I know learning prepositions is a time consuming process, but I am sure it is a worthy process.


Some exercises for proposition usage I find:
1. Fill in the right preposition
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/exercise.asp?exid=916
2. Fill in the missing prepositions
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/exercise.asp?exid=918
3. To, for and so that
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1614_gramchallenge37/
(the last exercise is not about preposition. But I still think it's very useful)