BICOL UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

COMPILATION OF EFFECTIVE

BEGINNINGS

AND

ENDINGS
(ENGLISH)

SUBMITTED BY

DAVE RAYNANCIA

BSCE 1B

EFFECTIVE BGINNINGS
 1. Narrative

A Stressful Time in Your Life

Money causes teenagers to feel stress. It makes them feel bad about themselves and envy other

people. My friend, for instance, lives with her family and has to share a room with her sister, who is very

cute and intelligent. This girl wishes she could have her own room and have a lot of stuff, but she can’t

have these things because her family doesn’t have much money. Her family’s income is pretty low

because her father is old and doesn’t go to work. Her sister is the only one who works. Because her

family can’t buy her the things she wants, she feels a lot of stress and gets angry sometimes. Once, she

wanted a beautiful dress to wear to a sweetheart dance. She asked her sister for some money to buy the

dress. She was disappointed because her sister didn’t have money to give her. She sat in silence for a

little while and then started yelling out loud. She said her friends got anything they wanted but she

didn’t. Then she felt sorry for herself and asked why she was born into a poor family. Not having money

has caused this girl to think negatively about herself and her family. It has caused a lot of stress in her

life.

2. Descriptive Opening

College Life

Most students like the freedom they have in college. Usually college students live on their own,

in the dormitory or in an apartment. This means they are free to come and go as they like. Their parents

can’t tell them when to get up, when to go to school, and when to come home. It also means that they

are free to wear what they want. There are no parents to comment about their hair styles or their dirty

jeans. Finally, they are free to listen to their favorite music without interference from parents.
 3. Striking Statement

60 Seconds That Could Save Your Child

Have a minute? Good. Because that may be all it takes to save the life of a child—your child.

Accidents kill nearly 8000 children under age 15 each year. And for every fatality, 42 more children are

admitted to hospitals for treatment. Yet such deaths and injuries can be avoided through these easy

steps parents can take right now. You don't have a minute to lose.

4. Analogy

What True Education Should Do

Pupils are more like oysters than sausages. The job of teaching is not to stuff them and then seal

them up, but to help them open and reveal the riches within. There are pearls in each of us, if only we

knew how to cultivate them with ardor and persistence.

5. Deductive Statement

If a democracy is a government by the people, and if a republic [government where the ruler is

elected] is a representative democracy, then there is no such thing in our country except in the four

states where both men and women elect their representatives. In all other states government is by an

aristocracy of sex, for there can be neither republic nor democracy where one fraction of the people

governs another fraction.

6. Question
 Have you ever started to read a long piece of writing and given up because it looked too

daunting? Putting all the information in one place may save space, but it does not always make for

enjoyable reading. Breaking up the subject into smaller chunks (paragraphs) is essential to good writing,

to keep the writing organized and readable.

7. Anecdote

Going, Going, GONE to the Auction!

Mike Cantlon remembers coming across his first auction ten years ago while cruising the back

roads of Wisconsin. He parked his car and wandered into the crowd, toward the auctioneer's singsong

chant and wafting smell of barbecued sandwiches. Hours later, Cantlon emerged lugging a $22 beam

drill-for constructing post-and-beam barns—and a passion for auctions that has clung like a cocklebur on

an old saddle blanket. "It's an addiction," says Cantlon, a financial planner and one of the growing

number of auction fanatics for whom Saturdays will never be the same.

8. Summary

Author Jaime O'Neill's article, "No Allusions in the Classroom," emphasized the communication

problem between teachers and students due to the students' lack of basic knowledge. The author

supports this assertion by using a combination of personal experience, evidence obtained from recent

polls, other professors' opinions, and the results of an experiment he conducted in his own classroom.

The experiment O'Neill conducted was an ungraded eighty-six question "general knowledge" test issued

to students on the first day of classes. On this test, "most students answered incorrectly far more often

than they answered correctly." Incorrect answers included fallacies such as: "Darwin invented gravity"

and "Leningrad was in Jamaica." Compounding the problem, students don't ask questions. This means

that their teachers assume they know things that they do not. O'Neill shows the scope of this problem

by showing that, according to their teachers, this seems to be a typical problem across the United
States. O'Neill feels that common knowledge in a society is essential to communicate. Without this

common knowledge, learning is made much more difficult because teacher and student do not have a

common body of knowledge from which to draw. The author shows the deterioration of common

knowledge through poll results, personal experience, other teachers' opinions, and his own

experiment's results.

9. Quotation

Hillary Rodham Clinton once said that “There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices

are heard.” In 2006, when Nancy Pelosi became the nation’s first female Speaker of the House, one

woman’s voice rang out clear. With this development, democracy grew to its truest level ever in terms

of women’s equality. The historical event also paved the way for Senator Clinton as she warmed her

own vocal chords in preparation for a presidential race.

10. General Statement

Geneva Dunbar’s days are a blur of snowsuits, snacks and subtraction problem. From early morning

when she readies three children for school to nightfall when she tucks them into bed, she is like any

bone-weary, two hands-aren’t – enough mother. The difference is that Mrs. Dunbar, 51, has already

raised her family […] but when her daughter died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Mrs.

Dunbar found herself part of a vast army of grandparents suddenly thrust into a second round of child –

rearing.
 EFFECTIVE ENDINGS

1. Summary

Stephen King, creator of such stories as Carrie and Pet Sematary, stated that the Edgar Allan Poe

stories he read as a child gave him the inspiration and instruction he needed to become the writer that

he is. 2Poe, as does Stephen King, fills the reader's imagination with the images that he wishes the

reader to see, hear, and feel. 3His use of vivid, concrete visual imagery to present both static and

dynamic settings and to describe people is part of his technique. 4Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart"

is a story about a young man who kills an old man who cares for him, dismembers the corpse, then

goes mad when he thinks he hears the old man's heart beating beneath the floor boards under his feet

as he sits and discusses the old man's absence with the police. 5In "The Tell-Tale Heart," a careful

reader can observe Poe's skillful manipulation of the senses.

2. Suggestion to Action

Jogging is an excellent means to physical fitness. Heavy people should void it, though, to prevent

heart attack caused by sudden overload of violent action. Women are advised to avoid jogging, as in

some cases the movement can cause the uterus to loosen- a serious medical condition. Jogging tones

the muscles and bones and this is very important to prevent muscle and bone loss. Jogging helps you

keep your circulatory system in a tip top shape. It also works wonders for your body and mind. So, all in

all, jogging has become one of the most popular forms of exercise.