Expository Essays and Conrado de Quiros

• Unit 4 focuses on mastering expository essays and letters, emphasizing preparation, publication and progress.

Conrado de Quiros

• Conrado de Quiros was a Filipino journalist, columnist, and writer, who lived from 1951 to 2023.
• He was known for covering Philippine politics from the 1980s to the early 21st century.
• He was born in Manila on May 27, 1951.
• He graduated as class valedictorian from Ateneo de Naga in 1968.
• He pursued Economics at the School of Arts and Letters from 1970 to 1972.
• He authored books including “Tongues on Fire", “Flowers from the Rubble” and “Dance of the Dunces".

Expository Text

• An expository text is an academic writing that explains, informs, or describes a specific topic.
• It requires students to investigate ideas, evaluate evidence, expound on ideas, and advance an argument with clarity and conciseness.
• The essay format includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Introduction

• Introduces the essay's topic with an interesting sentence to capture the reader's attention.
• It provides background information on the topic.
• It presents a thesis statement or a summary of the essay's main argument or purpose.
• An introduction includes an attention getter (question, strong statement, scenario, or quotation), background information, and a thesis statement.

Body

• Contains three paragraphs that support the thesis statement with evidence, examples, and analysis.
• Each paragraph focuses on a single idea or aspect of the topic with specific details and explanations.
• The body covers a point with supporting details, explained over three paragraphs.

Conclusion

• Summarizes the essay's main points and restates the thesis in a new light.
• Reinforces the significance of the topic and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.
• A conclusion includes summarizing main points and a concluding statement or plan of action

Diction and Style

• Diction and style play vital roles in expressing information effectively in expository texts.
• Clarity is important, which means choosing words that are easy to understand.
• Formality is important, the tone and style should be professional.
• Conciseness is important, the information should be conveyed without unnecessary elaboration.
• Objectivity is important, by providing balanced and unbiased information.
• Coherence is important, the structure of the text should be logically organized and the ideas should flow smoothly.

Transition Devices

• Transition devices help facilitate a smooth flow of ideas, adding coherence.

Sentence Structure and Function

• Use a mix of simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences to add interest and flow while avoiding monotony.
• Vary sentence length to add emphasis; short sentences can express important points, while longer sentences offer detailed explanation.
• Use consistent grammatical patterns within sentences to emphasize relationships between ideas and improve readability.

Lesson 2: Plate Tectonics in the Philippines by Odessa L. Gutlay

• Expository texts present details to illustrate concepts, while persuasive/argumentative texts influence readers.
• Both use evidence to support claims and counterclaims.
• Claims are assertions that show the arguments in the text.
• Counterclaims are statements used to refute statements against claims, presenting counter arguments.
• An example is that even though some people may think that authorities are responsible for responding to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, natural calamities affect all lives, and disaster prevention needs the public's knowledge and cooperation.
• Factual knowledge consists of verifiable pieces of information.
• Statistical inferences are interpretations or conclusions from sample data.
• Informed opinions are opinions or judgements based on established information, research or study.
• Personal testimonies are accounts based on personal experience, and they are shared by individuals considered knowledgeable or experts on the topic.

Claims

• Claims of fact argue the logic of a claim, are debatable, and can be evaluated with factual information, often operating on cause-effect relationships.
• Claims of value argue whether something is good or bad or better than another; using claims of value requires a clear standard of evaluation.
• Claims of policy argue if something should or should not be done, requiring an assessment of the status quo.

Lesson 3: Philippines' Jeepney Transition Plan Runs Into Gridlock

• Michael Beltran is an independent journalist in the Asia-Pacific.
• He published a book on Filipino political exiles with Ateneo de Manila University Press.
• He volunteers with Pinoy Weekly magazine.
• Educated guesses involve using details and evidence from a text to explain what the author left out or to reach a sound judgment .
• An inference should combine text details with prior knowledge and be backed up by facts.

Author's Purpose

• An author's purpose can be inferred from a composition.
• The main purposes are to inform, persuade or entertain.
• Informative writing relays facts and figures.
• Persuasive writing tries to convince readers of a stance.
• Entertaining writing elicits light responses from readers.
• Philippine commuters struggle with the government's plan to replace jeepneys with minibuses due to the reliance on the 179,000 jeepneys currently in use.
• A target audience can be inferred based on the purpose and choice of words.
• A hypothetical audience is a perceived group without specific characteristics like origin or nationality.
• Real audiences are individuals or groups who actually read the work, like students from Cavite or Filipino students abroad.

Experts vs. Laypeople

• Expert audiences receive compositions with jargon, while laypeople receive compositions with understandable language.
• Managerial audiences are targeted with formal language.
• Rank-and-file audiences are targeted with easier-to-understand language.
• Incorporating data requires citing a source to support arguments by quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing.

Quoting Text

• Quoting a text is important to emphasize that an idea is not originally yours, which helps avoid plagiarism.
• Direct quoting means placing source text inside quotation marks and indicating the source in parentheses.
• APA guidelines are used for direct quotations.
• Paraphrasing uses your own words to communicate the meaning, avoiding direct quotes.
• Paraphrased text length isn't necessarily shorter.
• When paraphrasing, read, invert ideas or sentence structure, change word forms, use synonyms, and review for clarity.
• Summarizing extracts main ideas and writes them concisely making the target text shorter than the source.
• Steps to summarize include reading for understanding, changing sentence structure and word forms, and expressing main ideas concisely.
• A contraction joins two words, replacing an omitted letter with an apostrophe, creating a relaxed tone.
• Examples of contractions include I am = I'm, How is = How's, and Cannot = Can't.