1 / 7

Professional editor's corner articles

The British Council (2006) found that 375 million individuals speak English as a first language, another 375 million as a second language, and 750 million as a foreign language.<br>Know more: https://polishedpaper.com

laurelwaiton
Download Presentation

Professional editor's corner articles

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Professional Editor's Corner: Articles https://polishedpaper.com

  2. The British Council (2006) found that 375 million individuals speak English as a first language, another 375 million as a second language, and 750 million as a foreign language. That amounts to about 1.5 billion, or one-fifth of the world’s population. Clearly proficiency in English is of increasing importance. • In the course of our work at Polished Paper, we see a lot of writing from non-native speakers of English. In fact, we have regular customers on every continent! Well, except for Antarctica. That has allowed us to note a few common problem areas. In this blog entry and others to come, we’ll look at some basics, important aspects of English to get right so that you don’t immediately stand out as a non-native English speaker.

  3. We’ll start with definite and indefinite articles. They are important in English, but a great many languages use neither (198 to be exact). A couple of major examples are Chinese and Russian. For native speakers of such languages, understanding the difference between definite and indefinite articles can pose a challenge. • Let’s start with the difference between abstract and concrete nouns. • Abstract nouns are general. They refer to ideas, feelings, or qualities. Examples include peace, civilization, society, love, communism, democracy, beauty, and Manifest Destiny. • Concrete nouns are specific. They refer to a person, place, or thing that you can ‘perceive’ with one of the five senses. You can see them, smell them, touch them, hear them, and/or taste them. Examples include sneeze, planet, curry, city, Pyramids, soil, and vice-president. • So what are the kinds of articles and which do we use with abstract and concrete nouns?

  4. Nouns in English appear 1) with NO article, 2) with the INDEFINITE article (‘a’ before nouns starting with a consonant, ‘an” before nouns starting with a vowel), or 3) with the DEFINITE article (‘the’). • Basic Rules • 1. Abstract nouns (in their most basic form) do not require an article at all. • Society is a collection of individuals who have common goals and values. • Civilizations come and go. • 2. Concrete nouns can take either “a/an” or “the” in different circumstances. It depends HOW SPECIFIC the noun is. That is, it depends whether you are talking about ONE OF MANY or JUST ONE (no other exists). • Can I have AN apple? (Any apple is fine.) • Can I have THE apple on the counter? (I want one specific apple: the apple on the counter. No other apple will do.) • 3. We sometimes make abstract nouns less general by adding detail. When we do that, we use either “a/an” or “the” depending on how specific we are.

  5. ONE OF MANY • A love that has no conditions is the best. • An idea I like is getting kids to do creative writing in first grade. • JUST ONE • The ancient civilization of Egypt emerged about five thousand years ago. • The democracy of the United States is much different from the democracy that the Athenians practiced. • Rules for Plural Ideas • 1. When you would use ‘a/an’ for a noun in the singular, drop it in the plural. • I want a black horse. (Any black horse is okay.) • With the plural, we still have this idea of ONE OF MANY. But instead of one member of a single group, we have one group within a larger group. • Black horses are my favourite kind. (Out of all horses—white, grey, brown, and black—black horses are my favourite.)

  6. 2. When you would not use an article or when you would use ‘the’ for a noun in the singular, do the same for the plural. • Friendship is more important than work. • Friendships are more important than work. • In both cases, these are general, abstracts. • For ‘the’ in the plural, we are still talking about JUST ONE (only now, we mean just one group). • The girl who lives next door is pretty. (Of all the girls in the world, there is only one girl that lives next door.) • The girls who live on my street are pretty. (Of all the groups of girls in the world, there is only one group of girls on my street.)

  7. Contact us • Polished Paper LLC, 1923 Bragg St. #140-2376 • USA (United State of America) • Sanford • North Carolina • 27330 • Phone number: 1-855-974-4102 • Email-info@polishedpaper.com • https://www.facebook.com/PolishedPaper • https://twitter.com/PolishedPaper • https://plus.google.com/+PolishedpaperLLC • https://www.linkedin.com/company/polished-paper-llc

More Related