An Opinion Paragraph

Here is an example of a paragraph that my English-as-a-Second Language writing class wrote as a group project. It is an example of an opinion paragraph, providing several reasons, each with supporting examples, to support an opinion.


Indianapolis: A Great Place to Live

Indianapolis is a great place to live for three main reasons. First of all, it is a very safe place. The city has a lower crime rate than many U.S. cities. The city has a lot of police, especially in the downtown area. Second, it is a very clean place to live. There are city employees who clean the streets downtown every day. You never see old cars parked on the streets because the police tow any cars that are left for more than a day. Finally, Indianapolis has excellent educational institutions. For example, Ivy Tech Community College is a good place to study for not a lot of money. IUPUI is another good university where you can study and get a degree from Indiana University or Purdue University. I believe that everyone should come to Indianapolis to see what a great place it is to live.

Thoughts on Time

Time is a funny thing. Scientists can't even agree if time really exists apart from what we call time on Earth. Was there a beginning of time? Will there be an end of time? What is the nature of time? On Earth, there seem to be a beginning and end to all living things, including us humans. Observable stars and galaxies in our universe are apparently so old that the light we see left them billions or more light years ago. Scientists tell us that light travels at 186,000 miles per second. So light travels a long way in a year. By the time we see these stars and galaxies in our telescopes, they may have burned out and not even exist anymore. We don't know. So what about the stars and galaxies that we can't see?

On a more mundane level, here on Earth, time seems to be predicable and has to do with the movement of the Earth around the sun and the moon around the Earth. We can all agree on how long a second, minute, hour, week, month and year last. When you're a kid a year seems to last forever, but as you get older each year seems to pass faster. That makes sense, because when you're five, a year is a fifth, or 20%, of your life, but when you are 50, a year is only a fiftieth, or 2%, of your life. So the years seems to speed up as we get older. Still, in the grand scheme of things, considering the age of the universe, which isn't even known, even a relatively long human life span of 100 years is like a blink of an eye, less than a nanosecond. It's good to think about these things sometimes. It has a way of putting things in perspective.

Why is it? Questions Without Answers

Lately I've been reading Stephen Hawking's excellent books about the history of time and the universe, stuff like the Big Bang Theory and black holes. It's interesting to think about how the universe began, where it is going, if time really exists, and how scientists like Hawking have been attempting to answer such questions to arrive at a Theory of Everything.

There are other questions that are equally puzzling, if not as important, or answerable by science. Here are just a few.

Why do athletes and coaches pat each other on the butt during a game, when they would not be caught dead doing that off the field?
Why do you always find one lost glove on the ground, but you never find a pair?
Where do the socks that disappear in the dryer go?
Why do we ask "How do you do?" when we meet someone?
Why is it that men refuse to ask for directions when they are lost?
Why is the bottom of the pillow always cooler than the top?
How come the food that tastes the best is usually bad for you and vice versa?

I have no answers for these questions, but submit them for your consideration.

A Good Time for Sports Fans

Today has been a busy day and I really don't have anything in mind to write about, so I will practice a little stream of consciousness writing. So what's on my mind? I'm thinking that this is a good time for people who are interested in sports, like me. We've got the Winter Olympics going on, Tiger Wood's statement today, March Madness coming up soon, and the NBA. Something for everyone except football and baseball fans. Oh, I almost forgot the soccer World Cup will be coming soon. My daughter Maria is getting ready to start the rugby season next week. So this is a pretty good time for sports fans. At least for this sports fan.

The History of the Universe, in Under 200 Pages

For years I have been hearing about a book entitled A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, by Stephen Hawking. I had thought of reading it, but was put off by the subject matter, physics (I flunked physics in high school), and the length of the book (under 200 pages). I mean how could anyone write anything meaningful about the history of the universe and time in such a short book? I figured there would be a lot of equations and big scientific words that would just make my eyes glaze over. A couple of months ago, a friend of mine, an engineer and one of the smartest people I've ever known, mentioned that he just read the book and it was the best book he had ever read. So I decided to read it. I checked out a copy from my local library. It didn't take long to realize that Stephen Hawking is an excellent writer, one of those gifted authors who can take complicated concepts and make them understandable using simple language and everyday analogies that even I can understand. He even uses humor, almost on every page. He pokes fun at himself, and the limitations of scientific inquiry. He leaves the door open to the existence of God. There was only one equation in the book, Einstein's famous E = mc2. I can't say I understand the equation, but at least it looks pretty simple. I came away from Hawking's book with a better understanding of the universe, space, and time, and the significant progress that brilliant scientists like Hawking have made towards a Unified Theory of Everything. I was talking about the book with one of my Spanish students, who showed me another book by Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, which covers the same material, but in greater depth and with beautiful color illustrations. It's on my list of books to read.

J.D. Salinger, We Hardly Knew You

Last month one of my favorite authors, J.D. Salinger, passed away at the age of 91. He was an excellent writer and an enigmatic, mysterious person. His first novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was written in 1951, the year I was born. Like millions of other teenagers, I read The Catcher in the Rye, and identified with it. I remember so clearly when I read it I was 13, and I thought, here is a guy who knows what it's like to be a teenager. The world as seen through Holden Caulfield's eyes. Somehow, Salinger was able to really nail the way a teenager thinks, if you know what I mean. Salinger only wrote one other noteworthy short novel, Franny and Zooey, about a brother and a sister from a quirky family, and all that stuff. Both books are really hilarious to read, and sometimes even corny. Salinger also published a few witty short stories for the New Yorker magazine over the years. After writing his novels, he kind of disappeared and all. He was a recluse who was seldom seen in public and never granted interviews after the 1960s. He apparently didn't like the fame and notoriety that went along with being a famous author. He called those people phonies. My hope is that when they go through the house where he lived and died alone, they will find some book manuscripts to publish after his death. Knowing him, though, he probably left instructions that the manuscripts were never to be published. If you have never read Salinger's novels, I encourage you to read them. I have re-read both books since I learned of his passing, and I enjoyed them even more now than I did forty-plus years ago. They still appeal to my "inner" teenager. No kidding. They really do.

Stream of Consciousness Writing and Journals

I teach a writing class for college English-as-a-Second-Language students about how to write good paragraphs and simple essays. That was the topic of my blog yesterday.

There is a different kind of writing called stream of consciousness writing. As the name implies, in this type of writing you write about what you are thinking. You put down your ideas in words as they run through your mind like a stream, or river. Stream of consciousness writing can be fun to write and even more fun to read, but it is unorganized and all over the place because, well, that's what our thinking is usually like. I wonder how many thoughts run through our minds on a given day. I'm not sure anyone has every tried to estimate that! I ask my writing students to keep a journal every day. I encourage them to write about whatever they are doing or thinking. Sometimes they just write about their daily routines, but I encourage them to do more abstract writing about their thoughts, ideas, dreams, daydreams, plans, memories, likes, dislikes, pet peeves, whatever they are thinking about. I tell them that this will help them expand their vocabulary, and it might be easy, or it may be hard, to translate their thoughts into words. I tell them not to worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation--just write. I explain to them that learning to write is like learning how to play the piano or ride a bicycle. Writing is a skill that you need to practice every day if you want to improve.

Writing and Thinking: The Writing Process

I tell my ESL students that good writing starts with thinking--clear and organized thinking. We talk about different methods to organize and focus their thoughts prior to writing, such as brainstorming, listing, clustering, outlining, interviewing, peer-reviewing, and so on. Once they have a clear idea of what they want to write about, and how, the writing part is relatively easy. If they don't really know what they want to write about and what they want to emphasize and focus on, the result will not be good. I read somewhere that "every great thing begins as an idea." It's the same with writing. Great writing begins with great thinking. Or put another way, a piece of writing is no better than the thinking that produced it.

There is another kind of writing called stream-of-consciousness writing, which is basically writing what you are thinking. I'll write a few words about that kind of writing tomorrow.

Language, Publishing and Life: Where to start?

Over the years, I have thought about starting a blog, but it only remained a thought. Until now. So today I will launch my very own blog. Even though I have worked in book publishing for more than 20 years and have taught writing to English-as-a-Second-Language students for almost as long, I have never thought of myself as a writer. Until now. My job has been to work with authors to improve and polish whatever they have written before it is published. This has involved working with authors, developmental editors, copy editors, and proofreaders. I have taught students how to write good paragraphs and essays. I have enjoyed all of this very much.

Now I would like to try my own hand at writing, in my own blog. I have many interests, varied experiences, a loving family, good friends, and opinions. I am opinionated, if nothing else. Most of my professional experience has been in book publishing and language teaching. I have a passion for both. So that's what I will write about, as well as random thoughts on other interests and observations about life. I will attempt to write something daily, and my blogs will never exceed 300 words, the size of the box on this screen. I know we are all busy, so my daily blog should not take more than a minute or two of your time to read. Is that too much to ask?