I am happy to announce that the venue is ARS in Vienna’s first district, where you can spend the day sharpening your skills in a comfortable and very well organised [...]]]>

My one-day seminar ”The Elements of Composition” offers you the opportunity to revise your written English skills and refresh your memory on some easy but very useful language rules!

I am happy to announce that the venue is ARS in Vienna’s first district, where you can spend the day sharpening your skills in a comfortable and very well organised environment. Coffee and snacks as well as a mouthwatering lunch buffet make sure that you have enough food for thought.

 The next date is 27 June 2011; so secure your place while you can.

 Just follow the link to print out the brochure with all the details you need: http://www.ars.at/pdf/IW092419.pdf

I hope to see you there in June!

Akademie für Recht, Steuern & Wirtschaft

Schallautzerstraße 2-4

1010 Wien

Tel: (01) 713 80 24-27

Fax: (01) 713 80 24-14

office@ars.at

The semicolon is somewhere between a comma (,) and a full stop (.) (or period in US English). We use it to join two complete sentences to make one single written sentence. The reason is that when [...]]]> The comma is not the only punctuation mark in the world! There is also the semicolon (;): an often neglected and ignored character.

The semicolon is somewhere between a comma (,) and a full stop (.) (or period in US English). We use it to join two complete sentences to make one single written sentence. The reason is that when two sentences are very closely related, a full stop would make two separate sentences, and that could be too strong a separation. You can also use a comma to join two complete sentences, but that would require a connecting word such as “and” or “but”, and that could interrupt the flow the two sentences create together.

Here is a famous example by Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Dickens could also have written

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

or

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

However, the semicolon indicates that the writer sees the two smaller sentences as being more closely related than two consecutive sentences. On top of that, it carries a lot more impact this way.

So, that’s all for today folks!

Until next time,

Julia  

Reference:

Trask, R.L., (1997), The Penguin Guide to Punctuation, London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-051366-3

Engineers, managers, lawyers and everyone else who needs to be able to express themselves well in written English should be interested in this new seminar. Whether you write business reports, articles for trade [...]]]> New workshop: The Elements of Composition

Composition: the art of putting words and sentences together in accordance with the rules of grammar and rhetoric.

Engineers, managers, lawyers and everyone else who needs to be able to express themselves well in written English should be interested in this new seminar. Whether you write business reports, articles for trade journals or are working on a thesis or dissertation, this course will show you the technicalities of organizing your writing according to correct English usage.     

This seminar looks at the most significant elements of composition, usage and approaches to style common to the English language. The main message conveyed throughout the seminar will be: CLARITY – write for the reader!

The objective is to look at and practice:

• Sentence structure
• Paragraphing
• Punctuation and capitalization
• Achieving clarity
• Word choice
• Approaches to style
• Effective Planning

You may have noticed that I am in the middle of updating my website. Please bear with me; I should be finished in the next days.

Thanks, Julia

Well, as promised, here is another rule for comma usage!

Conditional sentences or, otherwise known as, “if” sentences:

I’ll go to the party if you go with me.

Conditional sentences are sentences discussing the consequences of certain actions. The above sentence is an example of a first conditional sentence, which generally refers to a potentially true condition.

It [...]]]> Hello All!

Well, as promised, here is another rule for comma usage!

Conditional sentences or, otherwise known as, “if” sentences:

I’ll go to the party if you go with me.

Conditional sentences are sentences discussing the consequences of certain actions. The above sentence is an example of a first conditional sentence, which generally refers to a potentially true condition.

It is made up of two parts:

I will go to the party – consequence clause/main clause

if you go with me. – condition clause/subordinate clause

As I have already mentioned previously when talking about subordinate clauses, starting a conditional sentence with the condition clause (or subordinate clause) is similar. If you start with the condition clause, you need to separate the two parts of the sentence with a comma. The above example does not do this because it starts with the consequence clause (or main clause). Turn it around, and you get:

If you go with me, I’ll go to the party.

Here are a few more examples:

If I had known the weather was going to be bad, I would have brought a sweater.

If I were you, I would call a lawyer.

If you heat water to 100° C, it boils.

So, that should be pretty clear now, shouldn’t it?

Hope it helps!

Julia