Technical Writing Class: 07/03/09

Synthesis: July 3, 2009

Ms. Quinto reported the following topics: clichés, colloquialism, slang and technical jargon. Cliché or trite is a saying, expression, idea or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect. In technical writing, we cannot use clichés because it is too informal. Colloquialism is an informal relaxed speech used on occasion by any speaker. It includes contractions like ain’t, you’re, can’t, etc. These expressions are acceptable in informal communications but not in formal technical documents. Slang is an informal lexical item used by a specific group. Some examples of slang are chorva, keme, chenez which are used by gays. According to Mrs. Manzano, people use such informal expressions to express themselves colorfully and spontaneously. It can be acceptable in spoken language but never in any written communication. Colloquialism and formal expressions are considered as Standard English language. It may be used without apology because it is accepted by the speaker. Technical jargon, on the other hand, is the specialized vocabulary of a profession or particular group of workers. For example, CLT, ALM, L1, L2, and Accuracy are technical jargons which can only be understood by language professionals. After Ms. Quinto’s presentation, Mrs. Manzano gave us an assessment knowing the meaning of the slang expressions that she gave. Some of those were whizkid (smart kid), bobbies (police officer), yuppies (young professionals), bus (omnibus) etc. Done with the short test, the class had the run-ons or fused sentences. Because Mrs. Manzano wanted the reports to be finished immediately, Ms. Flores just presented it for about 3 minutes. Then, Ms. Malbas had the parallelism for only 2 minutes. Ms. Llabore stressed that dangling or misplaced modifier describes or limits a word or words that are not stated in the sentence. She gave 2 ways in correcting dangling modifiers: (1) rewrite the dangling modifier as a complete clause with its own stated subject and verb; and (2) change the subject of the sentence to a word that the modifier properly describes. After her report, Ms. Idañol quickly discussed the Subject-Verb Agreement by giving us examples of sentences. With our participation, we identified those sentences if it’s grammatically correct or not, and we stated the rules in SVA afterwards. Mrs. Manzano reiterated how we will teach indefinite pronouns to the students using the Chart of Singular Indefinite Pronouns. She even had a recap about present simple vs. present progressive and past simple vs. present perfect tenses. She stated that the reason why we should compare present simple and present progressive is to show actions which are permanent and temporary. Mr. Balunday still asked something about tenses and aspects but she just replied, “Mag-aral ka Balunday. Kung may question ka, tanungin mo kami.” The class has only few sessions to cover remaining technical writing topics. So, we’re in a hurry to finish everything. Time is gold so we have to make use of it productively.