Table of Contents

Progression
Introduction to Critical Thinking

We Need a Revolution in University Teaching

Vocabulary 1
A Moment That Changed Me
Argumentative Essay (1): Taylor Swift—Artist of the Decade
Leads
Critical Thinking

Teaching How to Think is Just as Important as Teaching Anything Else

What are Thinking Skills?

Why Inquiry is Necessary

Talking about Thinking
Vocabulary 2
The List of Clichés You Should Strike Down in Editing
A (Non-Definitive) List of Clichés to Avoid

How to Avoid Cliché Overload

Let your characters inspire you

Use settings or situations

Be specific

But Sometimes, Clichés Are Fine

Join the Discussion on “The List of Clichés You Should Strike Down in Editing”
Manchester United’s Latest Failure Looks Less a Blip than Part of a Pattern
Correcting Common Mistakes: Exercise (1)
The Importance of Writing Skills

How Writing Helps You to Develop

Effective Writing

Improve Writing Skills

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Vocabulary 3
Forget the Stiff Upper Lip
On Self-Respect: Its Source and Its Power
Action Verbs!
Use of English: Open Cloze

ever
From Active to Passive, From Lazy to Lively
The Sound on the Page
The Agrument
Listening: Is Our Universe the Only One?

Vocabulary 4
Tell a Story

Make Characters Subjects and Their Actions Verbs

Exercise 1
Use Strong Verbs
Exercise 2

Place Subjects and Verbs Close Together

Exercise 3
Applying Storytelling to Use of English
Climb Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction
Nominalization and Jargon

Nominalizations
Exercise 4

Poverty predictably causes social problems.

Poverty is a predictable cause of social problems.

Exercise 5

Exercise 6
Writing Manual: Example of a Content Point

o
 o
 →

 →

 →

o
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Vocabulary 5
Begin Sentences with Subjects and Verbs
Locations of Subjects and Verbs in Use of English
Use of English: Word Formation

exceptional

The Golden Tickets

Evening Bulletin
100 years of Le Corbusier: What does he mean to today’s architects?
Frank Gehry: ‘I couldn’t have done some of my work without him’
Kate Macintosh: ‘After an initial entrancement, I became more critical’
Denise Scott Brown: ‘I love his houses–but he didn’t understand how cities work’
Jayden Ali: ‘Sometimes we like things that are not good for us’
Grafton Architects: ‘What an incredible achievement, to be timeless. Like a shark’
Jacques Herzog: ‘Modernists had to believe. There is no sense of doubt’
Yasmeen Lari: ‘His strength for me was his creative play of forms and spaces’

Rem Koolhaas: ‘His city plans are polemical and clearly not intended for reality’
Adam Nathaniel Furman: ‘He didn’t really follow his own rules, because he was an artist’
Correcting Common Mistakes: Exercise (2)
Critical Thinking

How to Teach All Students to Think Critically

Vocabulary 6
Listening: Ten Common Native Speaker Mistakes
Correcting Common Mistakes: Exercise (3)
The Passive Voice as a Cohesion/Coherence Technique

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Reading and Readability

Journal of Marketing JM

JM

JM

Journal of Marketing Research

JMR

Journal of Consumer Research

cause correlated
Maintaining Pace
Vocabulary 7
You, Mind Reader
The Triton Fountain
Criterion-Based Feedback

Virtues of Criterion-Based Feedback

 does

A Catalogue of Criterion-Based Questions

What is the Quality of the Content of the Writing: The Ideas, the Perceptions, the Point of View?

How Well Is The Writing Organized?

How Effective is the Language?

Are There Mistakes or Inappropriate Choices of Usage?

Guidance Sheet for Reviewing Multiple-Paragraph Essays
How to Develop the Content a Peer Feedback Point: An Example

Argumentative Essays

Thesis Statement: Clear and Explicit

Argumentative Essay (2): Fictional Peer Essay
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Correcting Common Mistakes: Exercise (4)
I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why.
Vocabulary 8
Eschew Verbosity
A Wordiness Game
An “-ly” Game
Eliminating Wordiness Exercise

→
Cut Big, Then Small

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Previous Draft

and
we cannot bear
wrote it

when
moderated

in the first
edition of The Elements of Style

Donald Murray taught me

weighed Perkins reduced

precision and concision

 your focus
 Cut the weakest and
to

to
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Then decide whether they should
 paradigm

cut

But

Targets for cuts include:

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Keep Terms the Same

Keep Terms the Same Exercise

On Cooking Blindfolded
Vocabulary 9
Enriching Our Syntax: Inversion

Inversion with Conditionals

Inversion with Time Adverbials

Inversion with Place Adverbials

After Prepositional Phrases with No

After Not

After Little

With So/Such… That

With Neither or Nor

Exercise 1
Exercise 2: Rephrasing
Listening: The Secret to Giving Great Feedback
Etiquette for Online Meetings
Meeting Agenda Structure

Meeting Agenda
Four-Step Procedure for Discussing a Topic in the Meeting

Step 1: Clarifying

Step 2: Identifying

Step 3: Explaining

Step 4: Suggesting
Vocabulary for Leading and Participating in a Meeting

Small Talk at the Beginning of a Meeting

Ending the Small Talk and Getting Down to Business

Dealing with Practicalities of the Meeting

Useful Phrases for the Body of a Meeting
Useful Turn Taking Phrases
Useful Phrases for Ending Meetings
Say Things in a Positive Way… Most of the Time
Affirmatives and Negatives

Say Things in a Positive Way… Most of the Time (Again)

Negation Exercises

Exercise 1: A “Say Things in a Positive Way” Game

Exercise 2

Exercise 3
Why I Write, by Joan Didion
The Bevatron

A Student’s Reflection Upon Reading Didion’s Essay

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Why I Write, by George Orwell
Vocabulary 10
Listening: Three Cures for Fast Speech
What to Sound Smarter? Try Saying Nothing
Consistent Subjects, Cohesive Topics
Grammar: Substitution and Ellispis
Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3
Look for an Argument

Getting to More than “About”

Why Mastering Writing Skills Can Help Future-Proof Your Career

Focus on Your Readers

Ask for Feedback (and Really Listen to It)

Forget the Flounces and Frills

Critical Thinking

Is Critical Thinking a Western Concept?

Vocabulary 11
How to Use Your Hands When Public Speaking
Listening: The Surprising Secret to Confidence

Listening Vocabulary
X-Raying Hemingway and Didion: Words Left Out

What’s There and What’s Missing

Empty Spaces, Full of Meaning
Repetition, Not Redundancy
Avoiding Repetition Exercise
Grammar: Gerunds and Infinitives
Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

taking a couple of paracetamol

Exercise 4
Exercise 5

Exercise 6

I managed to pass my driving test first time.

Last Words
Joan Didion, Hemingway, and Mathematically Musical Writing
Vocabulary 12
Cohesive Writing
Effective Academic Writing

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Report Writing
Structure of a Report

General Structure of Report Sections and Paragraphs

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•

•
Listening: How to Prepare a Monthly Report
Question Types

(1) SPEAKER A: Are you going out tonight?

SPEAKER B: Yes/No

(2) SPEAKER A: Who won the big fight?

SPEAKER B: The Boston Bruiser

(3) SPEAKER A: I bought a car

SPEAKER B: You bought a car?

(4) SPEAKER A: I bought a car

SPEAKER B: You bought (a) what?

(5) SPEAKER A: Did you buy a car?

SPEAKER B: Did I buy a car? (Why do you ask?)

(6) SPEAKER A: Did you buy a car?

SPEAKER B: Did I what?
Let Punctuation Control Pace and Space
Punctuation Exercises
‘The British Style’? ‘The American Way?’ They Are Not So Different
Grammar: Prepositions
Exercise 1

in with

Exercise 2

to

Exercise 3
Exercise 4
Critical Thinking

Religion and Politics

How to Write: The Uses of Variety
Vocabulary 13
Grammar: Articles

Exercise 1
Exercise 2

Exercise 3
Grammar: Coreference

Exercise 1

Exercise 2
Singular ‘They’
Thematic Consistency: Lexical Cohesion
The End of the Affair
Vocabulary 14
What Are You Optimistic About? The Decline of Violence
Draft No. 4
Politics and the English Language
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3
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The Passive House: Sealed for Freshness
A Map of the Mind
Vocabulary 15