Warm-Up 4 and the In-Tray Exam

Warm-Up 4 doesn't give you any marks (!), but it is, perhaps, a way for you to see the collective wisdom of the group about two key areas in the In-Tray exam: complaining and apologising. Since you don't get any marks for it, you don't have to do it either - but I'm sure that your contributions will be gratefully received by everyone else, if you do! Let us all know which strategies for complaining and apologising have worked for you in the past.

You publish your Warm-Up 4s as comments to this blog post.

The In-Tray Exam is based on the idea that you work for a temporary agency (like Manpower) and have been sent in to cover the work of one of the people employed by one of the companies on this course. An in-tray is the plastic or metal tray on your desk into which all the paperwork you have to deal with is placed. When you've dealt with it, it's transferred to your 'out-tray' to be sent off or filed.

The exam itself will be posted on the course web site on Friday, 22nd November (when I activate the link on the 'exam' page of the Module 4 section of the site). It's a .pdf document which you can either download or read directly from the screen. When you read it, you'll notice that there are four writing tasks to complete, but you're given three complete sets of tasks to choose between, one for each of the companies in the course materials.

You don't have to stick to the same company for all four tasks - you can switch from one company to another, or you can stay with the same company all the way through.

You submit your In-Tray Exam to David Richardson as a Word document by e-mail. (If you're using Microsoft Works, rather than Word or an equivalent, remember to save the document as an .rtf - Rich Text Format - document, or David won't be able to open it). Open Office documents (.odt format) will also work.

When the exam's been received, David will print it on paper, mark it manually, write a mark and commentary for each task, and, finally, add your In-Tray Exam marks to the marks you've received for your Warm-Ups and Send-Ins. When the total exceeds 60 marks, you've passed, and when the total exceeds 80 marks, you've got a 'VG'. Your marks are reported on LADOK, the Swedish national university computer, more or less the same day the exam's marked.

When everything's finished, David puts your exam, the commentary and a statement of your total marks into an envelope and posts it to whatever address we have for you (if you've recently moved, or haven't given us your address, please let us know your current address as soon as possible). He'll also send you a mail straightaway with your final result.

At the end of the final mail is a link to the on-line course evaluation. This is totally anonymous - and, besides, you've already got your mark, so you can say what you like! Feedback from you is very valuable to us (even if you don't get any direct benefit from it!) and all of us on the course team greatly appreciate hearing what you've thought of the course.

Good luck with the exam! The due date is 15th December … but, as usual, we'll be understanding if you're a little late.

Feedback on Warm-Up 3

I've marked nearly all the Warm-Up 3s - if you've sent one in, but not received any feedback, it won't be much longer before you receive feedback (might be tomorrow lunchtime). It's been a really busy week this week, I'm afraid. If you've not sent one in yet, there's still time - just enter it on the blog when you're ready.

So here's my feedback …

You all did well on this task! Nearly everyone worked out that a formal report will tend to concentrate on facts and situations, whilst an informal one will often focus on people and actions. You have to use a different type of language too: informal language tends to be less precise and more vague, whilst formal language needs to be as precise as you can make it. That's why words like 'get' aren't often found in formal writing: there are over 50 different meanings of the word in the main Oxford English Dictionary … and the reader of a report needs to know precisely which one you're intending them to understand.

You generally did a good job of finding the colloquialisms in what the inspector said. Words like 'hardhat' and 'digger' are colloquial, whereas, strangely enough, 'dumper truck' isn't.

This is what a dumper truck looks like, by the way:

There were some fairly specific points about language that I want to take up with everyone:

1. Rules and regulations

Clubs, associations and organisations have rules. If you break them, you don't get fined or sent to jail, but you might find that you aren't welcome as a member of that organisation any more.

Regulations are connected with laws. There'll be a law, for example, about safety at work, but the law will need to be backed up with detailed regulations about what you need to do or not do in order to obey the law. Thus the law might specify that safety barriers have to exist, but a regulation will state how high they have to be.

2. Obligatory/compulsory

… which are connected with rules and regulations again! Strictly speaking, an obligation is something that results from you being subject to rules, whilst compulsory is connected with the idea that you can't avoid doing something, even if you wanted to. Thus it's obligatory to obey rules (if you want to stay in the club), but compulsory to obey regulations (if you want to avoid prosecution).

3. Request and require

If you request something, you're asking; if you require something, you're telling! People enforcing laws and regulations tend to require, rather than request.

4. Safety and security

In English safety tends to involve physical safety, whilst security tends to involve psychological feelings of not being in danger. So a Safety Officer will advise workers about how to avoid being hurt, whilst a Security Officer patrols the site at night to make sure that no-one enters it and starts messing about with things or stealing them.

5. Injury, damage and damages

These three words are tricky!

Animate objects, like people and animals, can sustain injuries; inanimate objects, like machines or buildings, can sustain damage; damages, on the other hand, is the money you have to pay out if you've been sued and found liable (skadestånd in Swedish).

6. The company is … or the company are …?

You can see a company in two different ways: as a legal entity or as a collection of individuals who happen to work there. So when you're talking about things the company does as a legal entity, it's going to be singular (is). When the company is acting as a group of individuals, it's plural (are):

The company is introducing a revolutionary new product!

The company are all away on a team-building exercise today.

Warm-Up 3

Warm-Up 3 is all about turning informal, spoken language into formal, written language. The prompt is the kind of thing a health-and-safety officer might say when she's on a site visit, but the written version of her recommendations will use different grammatical structures and different words … because it's written and formal, not spoken and informal.

Remember that you've only got FIVE sentences to produce - you don't need to write the entire report.

The podcast relating to this task and Send-In 3 will be published in a minute too.

Feedback on Warm-Up 2

I've just finished marking the Warm-Up 2 tasks and here's some general feedback (if you've submitted the Warm-Up, but not received feedback, let me know and I'll see what's happened; if you've not submitted yet, it's not too late!).

Firstly, nearly everyone worked out that the best way to get your money back is to be calm, dispassionate and factual. It's tempting to let off steam, but the only practical effect of that (in a letter of complaint) is to make things take longer! The recipient of this letter probably just wants to get rid of you by paying you off (the sums involved are tiny), so she probably wants to avoid bad publicity, more than anything else. On the other hand, she's not going to admit anything that might end up costing the company mega-bucks in a court case!

There were one or two cases where the letter came across as much too informal too. You're trying to impress on the company that they're dealing with a professional - someone who's angry at the moment, but could easily be placated by the insertion of money into her bank account! You need to be strictly formal in this letter, so using 'get', short forms or friendly closures like 'Best regards,' aren't a good idea.

Here are some specific points about language which cropped up in Warm-Up 2:

1. Defining and non-defining relative clauses

Sorry to get all technical on you!

Relative clauses often start with 'which' or 'that', and there are some of them that provide information essential to your reader's understanding of what you're talking about ('defining relative clauses') and some which add a little extra information, but aren't strictly necessary for your reader to understand the basic message ('non-defining relative clauses'), like these ones:

Defining relative clause:

He gave her the password which opened her computer account.

(I.e. out of all the passwords in the world, this one was the special one which did the job.)

Non-defining relative clause

She used the password to open her account, which meant that she was able to answer her new boss' mail on time.

(I.e. using the password is one thing - answering the mail is another.)

Did you notice the punctuation?

Non-defining relative clauses use a comma, defining relative clauses don't.

What this comma does is shows your reader what connections you're making between information in your sentence. There are cases where getting this connection wrong can make it extremely difficult for your reader to understand what you're saying.

In the defining relative clause example above, for example, putting a comma in says that the password somehow opened the account all on its own, without her needing to do anything. You can imagine other sets of instructions where this might really confuse someone. Let's say they have to carry out two operations. Making what you need to carry out the first one use a non-defining relative clause could easily make someone imagine that they don't need to do anything else, like this:

Take the key, which opens the security lock, and fetch the file from the filing cabinet inside the file room.

(Non-defining relative clause … so it's 'extra', unimportant information … so the person fetching the file could well end up standing outside the room with a key in his hand, not realising that he has to use it to get into the room!)

Take the key which opens the security lock and fetch the file from the filing cabinet inside the file room.

(Defining relative clause - it's much more clear what the person has do now, isn't it.)

This may seem to be terribly unimportant, but remember that famous Swedish example:

Avrätta ej vänta!

(Execute - not - wait)

Is that 'Avrätta ej, vänta!' (Don't execute [him], wait!) or 'Avrätta, ej vänta!' (Execute [him], don't wait!)?

2. In/on/at

Prepositions often cause problems - it's usually more or less impossible to explain why you use one, not another. In this case though …

When you're talking about time and place,

IN is for the big things (in Sweden/in 2012)

ON is for the middle-sized things (on Main Street/on Monday)

AT is for specific points (at the corner of Main Street and Lexington/at 3.00 pm).

Here's a diagram which could help:

3. Simple and Continuous Verb Tenses

Look at these two sentences:

A. The car broke down as I drove into New York.

B. The car broke down as I was driving into New York.

Which one is right?

Well … it all depends what message you're trying to convey! 

(A) is probably the best alternative in this particular context, because writing "drove" indicates that this is a situation which is finished and in the past.  What (B) conveys is the process and length of time the driving was taking. It provides a much more vivid picture of the problem you had … which is great when you're telling your friends over a cup of coffee or a drink what a traumatic time you had in New York, after you get home, but it introduces an element of emotive language which you're probably better avoiding in this letter.

Take these three possible witness statements about a bank robbery:

i) As I got out of my car, a man was coming out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

ii) As I was getting out of my car, a man came out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

iii) As I was getting out of my car, a man was coming out of the bank with a gun in his hand.

Experienced detectives often develop an instinct about which statement is most reliable, and this instinct is often based on grammar! Which one would you trust most?

Witness (i) saw the leaving of his or her car is a 'finished' action in the past, whilst the man coming out of the bank was something that he or she saw as an action which took time.

Witness (ii) saw the situation the other way: he or she was concentrating harder on getting out of the car, whilst the man with gun was a passing or fleeting experience.

Witness (iii) divided his or her attention between the two.

A detective would probably rely most on Witness (i)'s description of what the robber looked like, how he was dressed and which way he went. The detective probably wouldn't be able to say why she felt that … but a student of English grammar could supply some reasons for it!

4. Colons and Semi-Colons (again!)

Here's the general rule:

Colons split sentences into two unequal parts, whilst semi-colons split them into two or more equal parts.

Thus, everything that comes to the right of a colon is an example - or a consequence - of what comes to the left, like this:

There were several issues with the car: the lack of cleaning, the lack of washer fluid and the fact that it broke down on the freeway.

The national anthem of the UK is "God Save the Queen"; the one of the US is "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Sometimes colons are used to introduce lists with complex items in it, with semi-colons separating the items, like this:

The latest upgrade by Apple includes the iWork suite free of charge: Pages, which is the equivalent of Microsoft Word; Numbers, which is a substitute for Excel; and Keynote which is much more versatile replacement for PowerPoint.

Warm-Up 2

Warm-Up 2 is all about complaining. 'The Hire Car from Hell' is all about really bad treatment when renting a car in the USA. The idea for this Warm-Up came from the wonderful film,"Trains, Planes and Automobiles", with Steve Martin and John Candy. The task is set up so that you don't have any other option than to write a well-composed letter to the company in the USA - and hope for the best. The sum of money involved is too small to make it worth your while starting a legal action (at least from this side of the Atlantic - it'd be different if you were living in the USA, where they have Small Claims Courts). There's also a lot of scope for 'he said-she said' situations (which is how they describe situations where one person says one thing, and the other person says something different in American English).

The task itself is quite limited: you only have to write FIVE sentences from the letter you'd write (i.e. NOT the entire letter). The point is to see whether you can calibrate your language, so that you express yourself firmly, but refrain from insults and gratuitous comments that will just result in your letter being filed in the trash can! Once again, there's a link to the Send-In Task which comes next.

By the way, if you want to see what the practical problems of using language that's too strong are (and of letting emotion get in the way of your complaint), take a look at this scene from the film:

http://youtu.be/DsrXZ_Mdehw

Be warned, though. This scene is famous for the large numbers of times the word 'fuck' is used in a very short space of time!

You submit your Warm-Up Task 2 by copying your text into a comment. Remember to include FIVE sentences only - and to include your name in the submission.

By the way, if you don't know what the 'redeye' is, take a look at the first comment on this post.

General Feedback on Warm-Up 1

I think I've now finished marking Warm-Up 1 (if you've submitted it, but not received any feedback yet, please get in touch and I'll find out what's happened to it). You did a really good job writing personal presentations, with nearly everyone remembering 'features and benefits'.

This is a concept which pops up all the time in the world of business, and it's a concept from the field of sales and marketing. It's not enough to say "I have a Bachelor's degree in Marketing" - you have to also demonstrate why this is is going to be of benefit to your new company.

There were one or two problems which appeared in several of the Warm-Ups, so here's a more extensive explanation of what went wrong, why it was wrong and how to put it right.


1. 'Girl'

Unfortunately, the world of business in many English-speaking countries is still quite sexist. A 'girl' in English is usually a female less than 12 years of age, or, in the world of business, a woman whose job it is to provide services like making the coffee! 'Young lady' is what I sometimes say to tease my 8 year-old daughter … so my suggestion is just to call yourself a 'woman'. You're going to have to be a bit more hard-nosed than you would have to be in Sweden anyway, so if I were a woman, I'd just tough it out! (This, incidentally, is connected with the practice of women calling themselves "Ms. Svensson", instead of "Miss Svensson" or "Mrs Svensson" - why should you let people define you according to your marital status?).


2. Capital Letters

There's an exercise about the main occasions when you need a capital letter on the initial letter of a word in Module 1. I recommend that you take a look at it! There are two specific cases which came up again and again as I was marking these Warm-Ups:

a. Job Titles

A 'sales assistant' is a generic job, involving taking the money when people want to buy things. A 'Sales Assistant' is someone whose job title it is. The first type of person could well work in a supermarket, whilst the second type might well have a responsible position in, say, a computer services company. There's been a kind of inflation in job titles over the last 30 years, so someone who describes themselves as a 'Service Manager' could be the head of department employing hundreds of people, or it could be a cleaner!

b. Academic and School Subjects

Look at these two examples:

"She remembered what she'd learned on her Psychology course at university, and used psychology on her boss to get a raise."

"She studied Economics at university, so she knew the economics of the proposal just weren't going to work.

The green words are academic subjects, whilst the red ones are the words used to describe the general area of knowledge, but in laymen's terms.


3. Colons and Semi-Colons

These are used to divide long sentences up, and they express a relationship between the different parts of the sentence. If you use a colon, you're saying that everything to the left of the colon is more important than everything to the right. The part on the left could be an expression of general principle, for example, whilst the part on the right would be a specific example of that principle. For example:

"The government announced a radical new policy: from now on alcoholic beverages would be sold in all the stores in Sweden."

Semi-colons, on the other hand, divide the sentence up into equally-weighted sections, where each section could almost be a sentence in its own right. For example:

"Swedish culture puts a heavy emphasis on security and safety; in the US people are encouraged to take risks, even though they might risk losing everything."

Take a look at this Dilbert cartoon to understand why you might need semi-colons in business documents:

4. Academic Titles

The main three awards you achieve from university study in the English-speaking world are:

Bachelor's Degree (usually after 3 years of full-time study)
Master's Degree (usually after an additional 1 or 2 years of full-time study)
Ph.D., sometimes called a 'doctorate' (the time it can take to achieve this qualification varies, but the standard in the English-speaking world is 3 additional years)

This is how I describe my Bachelor's Degree:

B.A. (Hons) (Warwick University)

If I want to describe what I've studied more informally, I might write:

"I have a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Politics from Warwick University."
(Note the 'in').

or

"I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in …"

A general rule is to use whatever form of words (in English) you'll find on your degree certificate. Unfortunately, there are university departments outside the English-speaking world who've made up their own titles in English - it's best to stick to the form of words it says on the certificate, even if it's wrong!

Here's my full academic title:

David Richardson, B.A. (Hons) (Warwick), PGCE (Goldsmiths), DipRSATEFL, Esq.

The 'Hons', by the way, means 'Honours', which indicates a more advanced type of final grade, and the 'Esq,' is short for 'Esquire' which replaces 'Mr' when you're really showing off how clever you are! At some point I received a letter from the institutions involved granting me permission to use these specific abbreviations after my name.


5. Colloquial Language

This means 'the language you speak, rather than the language you write'. You might say, "Give me my money back!" but you'd write "I would like you to reimburse me" in a formal letter. Everyone knows, for example, that 'buck' means 'US dollar', but it doesn't say 'buck' on your contract of employment.

You'll find that various common words are too colloquial for formal English: 'get' is one of them. The problem with 'get' is that it's too vague: do you mean 'get' as 'obtain', 'get' as 'receive' or 'get' as 'become', for example?


6. Company is or Company are?

'Company' is a collective noun in English, and all those nouns can be seen in two different ways: either as describing a unit, or as describing a collection of individuals. Thus, when a company acts as a legal entity, you write:

"The company is considering expanding into China."

But when you see the company as a collection of individuals, you write:

"The whole company are going away to a holiday resort for a week, as a reward for excellent work last year."


7. 'Natur'

Now here's one for the Swedes! 'Nature' is not a good translation of 'natur'. Culturally, the English-speaking world sees the natural world as something that's 'other' or 'alien', whilst Swedish culture sees it as something you take part in and are part of. Thus 'natur' might be 'countryside' or 'scenery', 'the open air' or 'the great outdoors'! 'Nature' usually describes some psychological trait, like "She had a very nice nature".


8. … and finally one particularly for the Eastern Europeans and Far Easterners, but perhaps Swedes need it too!

Nouns in English are broadly divided into 'count nouns' (which describe specific instances of something or individual objects) and 'uncount nouns' (which describe general phenomena). Thus 'chair' is a count noun, whilst 'rice' is an uncount noun.

Count nouns have to have what's called a determiner in front of them in the singular. This is a word like  'a', 'the', 'my', 'this' … and there are quite a few more. However, they don't have to have one in the plural.

Thus,

"I haven't got chair in my room"

is definitely wrong (should be "… a chair …"), whilst

"Go and see if there are chairs we could borrow" is quite OK.

Uncount nouns can be written without determiners:

"Rice is a natural and healthy foodstuff"

… and they don't have plurals, so the question never arises! However, they're never written with 'a' or 'an'!

Just to complicate matters, there are plenty of words in English which can be count or uncount, depending on the context in which they're used. Here's one which appeared many times in the Warm-Ups: 'experience'.

Look at these two examples:

"My experience in China will be of great help to the company."

(Here you're talking about your experience of China in general, not any specific occurrence.)

"My experiences in China taught me a lot about Chinese culture."

(Here you're talking about specific things that happened to you in China, which told you something about their culture.)

Warm-Up 1

This is the post to which you add your Warm-Up 1 task as a Comment (i.e. click on the Comment button below). When you add your Comment, don't forget to write your name on the post! You'd be amazed how much detective work I sometimes have to do to find out who actually wrote the comment!

Warm-Up 1 asks you to write a personal presentation for a web site. This is a general message that goes out to everyone who visits the web site of the new company you've just got a job with. I.e. it needs to be informative, but a bit general - and a good piece of advertising for your new employer. In other words, you need to show how smart your new employer is for hiring you!

You'll find a couple of useful links on the Warm-Up 1 page: one from the 'How to Do Things' site with some general advice, and an example of personal presentations from the Ericsson company.

You'll also find the 'Warm-Up 1 and Send-In 1' Podcast to be of help too.

When the Warm-Ups have all been marked and sent back (by me, David), I'll post a general comment in a post on this blog, with advice for everyone about Send-In Task 1.