Lakhasly

المحاضرة الثامنة تتناول أخطاء الطلاب الشائعة عند كتابة المقال الوصفي. أولاً، اختيار موضوع غير مناسب، فالمقال الوصفي يرسم صورة بكلمات، يجب أن يستطيع القارئ تخيل ما هو موصوف. يجب اختيار موضوع ملموس، مثل سيارة أو منزل، وليس مجرد صداقة مثلاً. ثانياً، البعض يذكر الأشياء دون وصفها، يجب وصف كل شيء بالتفصيل، مثل لون وطول وعرض طاولة، بدلاً من مجرد ذكر وجودها. ثالثاً، الوصف غير كافٍ، يجب ذكر كل تفاصيل الشيء الموصوف، حتى لو كانت تفاصيل صغيرة. رابعاً، أسلوب اللغة غير دقيق، يجب استخدام جمل مختصرة، وتجنب التكرار. خامساً، استخدام أزمنة الأفعال غير الصحيح، يجب استخدام المضارع في الغالب. تم تحليل مقالتين نموذجيتين: "صورة عائلية" و "مطعم منتصف الليل". الأولى جيدة لأنها تصف صورة، لكنها تحتوي على أجزاء سردية، يجب حذفها لتصبح المقالة وصفية بالكامل. الثانية تعاني من نفس المشكلة، حيث تُوصف حالة "الوحدة" التي لا يمكن وصفها مباشرةً، بل عن طريق وصف الأشياء المحيطة. يجب على الطلاب التركيز على الوصف التفصيلي للأشياء الملموسة مع مراعاة ترتيب منطقي ووصف دقيق.

محاضرة 8

[00:00] Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Dear students, this is the second class.
[00:09] Inshallah, today we'll talk about the descriptive essay. It's page 69 in your book.
[00:19] Well, before talking about this essay, I'd like to tell you what errors general students commit when they write a descriptive essay.
[00:31] The first, some students may not choose a suitable topic for description.
[00:38] Remember, description means drawing a picture.
[00:44] But here we are not drawing.
[00:47] We are drawing a picture by words, not by lines or colors.
[00:52] Your words should draw a picture in the mind of the readers.
[00:57] If the reader reads your essay and doesn't imagine how the thing you are describing looks like it means you fail to describe enough
[01:08] So first of all, you should choose a good topic for description
[01:12] Now the good topic is something you can see and touch you cannot describe for instance something you cannot see and touch
[01:19] such as for instance a
[01:22] Friendships, can you describe a friendships? You cannot if you can can you tell me its color?
[01:32] You cannot can you tell me how it looks like its size its height whether it is soft or
[01:41] rough whether it is tall or short you cannot so this means friendships as a descriptive topic is
[01:51] not possible you can write about it yes but it doesn't mean you are describing when you write
[02:00] anything about friendships it can be a descriptor so it can be an example essay for instance but it cannot be a
[02:09] descriptive essay because you cannot describe it therefore when you choose a topic for
[02:16] description don't forget you should choose something you can see and touch
[02:21] for instance you can describe a car you can describe your house you can describe
[02:27] a friend you can describe your mother you can describe your bedroom you can describe a table a window a chair and so on these
[02:37] things are things we can see and touch therefore you can tell us about its
[02:43] color its shape its height its size its materials whether soft or rough whether
[02:50] it is made of wood or iron and so on so these are good topics for description
[02:56] now this is the first problem students may not choose a topic for descriptions second one some students choose a good topic but when
[03:06] they try to describe they don't describe they mention without describing how for
[03:14] instance a student may tell you I want to describe my bedroom well this is a
[03:20] good topic yes your bedroom can be described we can see it we can touch it
[03:27] but when they start describing the room they will tell you in my room there is a chair full stop in addition
[03:37] to that chair there is a table full stop behind the table there is another chair
[03:44] above the table there is a computer and so on now you mentioned many things but
[03:51] have you described any of them no can you tell us how the computer looks like
[03:58] can you tell us how the chair looks like how the table looks like nothing at all so this means you are mentioning but you
[04:06] are not describing so some students will describe like this and this is not correct we don't have
[04:13] any description we said description means telling us how something looks like so when you mention
[04:24] like this without describing it doesn't mean your essay is a descriptive essay no how to become a descriptive essay? If you mention something and you describe it completely before mentioning another thing.
[04:43] You should mention the first thing and then you describe it. Then you mention the second thing and you describe it and so on.
[04:51] But if you keep mentioning, this is not acceptable.
[04:55] Now, the third problem many students commit when they write a descriptive essay is they try to describe, but they don't describe enough how for instance
[05:06] they will tell you in my room there is a beautiful table well is beautiful enough
[05:14] to describe how the table looks like of course not if I tell you can you imagine
[05:19] how this table looks like no readers will not imagine at all this means you
[05:27] don't describe enough one thing or two things are not enough Look at the table before you describe. How many things you will see in the table? You
[05:38] will see its size, you will see its height, you will see its color, you will see whether it's
[05:46] soft or rough, you will see whether it is made of wood or iron, you will see the legs whether
[05:54] they are made of iron or not or wood, whether they are black or white, whether the shape is rounded of the table I mean or squared etc so you
[06:07] will see all these things about 10 things you can see now to describe
[06:12] completely or enough you should describe or tell or write all these things which
[06:21] you can see you can see about 10 things then if you write just 2 or 3 it means
[06:27] this is not enough the readers will not imagine how the table looks like but when you mention all
[06:34] these things the things that you can see so i'm asking you to look at the thing you are describing
[06:42] in if you want to describe enough how many things do you see now look at the window of your room
[06:48] you will see how the window looks like whether it is squared whether it is rounded or whatever
[06:54] you will see whether the window is divided into parts or not you will see whether it is made
[07:00] of wood or or or aluminum you will see whether it is glass or wood whether the
[07:07] glass is soft or not soft whether the glass is penetratable I mean white not
[07:15] colored or not you will see whether there are two parts or three parts of that window you will see if the window has a frame and what kind of frame what color of that frame
[07:29] see how many things do you see it's illogical to see all these things about the window
[07:34] and then you mention in your description just two or three things this means your description is not enough
[07:42] no one reader will imagine how the window looks like but if you mention all these things
[07:49] yes the reader will tell you yes now I know how the window looks like even if you
[07:57] find a black point a black point in the window you should mention it so the more
[08:04] details the clearer the picture in the mind of the reader will be the more
[08:10] details about the thing you are describing the better your description
[08:15] will be this is why the descriptive style is the most difficult because it
[08:19] needs as many details as you can now some students may ask well if I mention
[08:27] all these details I cannot describe many things well we are not asking you to
[08:32] describe many things when you describe your room if you mention two three
[08:36] things this will be enough if you describe two three things in details
[08:41] completely this is wonderful you don't need to describe ten things if you
[08:47] mention twenty things without describing it's nothing but if you mention just the three and describe them
[08:53] enough yes this is a descriptive style therefore it's not the number it is the description that we
[09:02] need because this is a descriptive essay it's not any other type of essays now another problem that
[09:10] some students may commit when writing a descriptive essay is the vertices remember you are describing something in front of you. This is why you need the
[09:21] present tenses most of the time. You can say for instance the table is red, it is
[09:27] made of wood, it has four legs, it is rounded in shape and so on. So all
[09:34] these sentences are in the present. If you want to add some information to the
[09:40] description, yes you can add. When you describe the table enough, then you can add some information such as this table was given to me as a present
[09:51] last year on my 25th birthday from my friends yeah this this information this piece of information is
[10:00] good to have to be added to your description but remember the description should be first
[10:07] then you can add some information the information that you need to add shouldn't be as much as the description itself because remember this is
[10:16] a descriptivacy so the description should be in details another problem that students may commit
[10:24] is in the language itself some students do not have a good style their language is is not concise
[10:34] which means there are many let us say repetitions many words and sentences that are not needed for instance a student may write
[10:44] in my room there is a table first stop that table is red first stop in addition
[10:49] the table is rounded furthermore the table is is black well you can put all
[10:56] these sentences in one sentence this is not a good style it's not acceptable you
[11:02] can write for instance in my room there is a black rounded wooden table a black rounded wooden table. So you put adjectives together
[11:13] So you don't need three sentences you can put them together in one sentence
[11:19] So don't say I have a table the color of the table is red. No, this is not a good English
[11:27] This is not good English. I have a table the color of table is red
[11:32] No, you can say I have a red table. That's it. I have a red table that's it I have a red table this is how you should write now be careful about these things all the students before you in the previous years committed or many of them committed such mistakes
[11:50] so try to be better than them try again let us mention again what I have mentioned about the
[11:58] problem that students may commit when they write a descriptor say first they may not choose a correct topic, second they may not describe, they mention only,
[12:08] third they may describe but not enough, fourth they may not write a concise
[12:16] English, and fifth they may not write with correct verb tenses. I think this is
[12:23] enough about the problems committed by students in the descriptivc. Now again
[12:30] in front of us there is a descriptivc. for each type we have two similices now the descriptive says the
[12:38] first one is family portrait see the title it's about portrait a picture you can see the picture
[12:46] you can touch it it means this is a good topic of description but you cannot write about something
[12:54] abstract something you cannot see or you cannot touch the family portrait this is a good topic uh the second one if you go through uh it's entitled the diner at midnight
[13:09] the diner it means a small a a restaurant diner is a small restaurant a the small restaurant you
[13:19] can see it how it looks like whether it is made of wood or made of stones whether the color is
[13:26] red or not and so on so something you can see and you can touch means this is a good topic.
[13:35] Now let's go back to the first essay. Last time in the first class, we talked about the introduction.
[13:40] We said it includes a few sentences at the beginning, which we call the opening sentences.
[13:46] Then we have a thesis statement, which is the last sentence in the introduction.
[13:51] Now let's look at the thesis statement. This is the last one.
[13:55] This picture of my mother as 20 years ago girl and the story behind it have fascinated me from
[14:02] the moment i began to consider it now the topic is the portrait the picture of my mother now what
[14:11] about this picture what are we going to describe what are we going to talk about this picture
[14:19] fascinated me yes this is a controlling idea that we will explain why the picture fascinated me well some students may ask how about the story
[14:33] we're talking about two things the picture fascinated me and the story also
[14:39] fascinated me well you have two topics here is it acceptable of course not this
[14:46] is a student essay remember it's written by students so there are some mistakes
[14:52] there are some weaknesses we should discover these things now when we say the picture fascinated me and the
[15:01] story fascinated me it means you should describe the picture why fascinated you
[15:09] and you should what describe the story the story cannot be described the story
[15:18] can be narrated well can we narrate a story in this essay well this is a
[15:25] descriptive essay it's not narrative narrating a story is good for a narrative essay.
[15:31] Well, this means we have two topics.
[15:34] It means this essay is 50% descriptive and 50% narrative.
[15:40] And this is not acceptable.
[15:42] So to make this statement correct, you should delete the story completely.
[15:49] You should delete it.
[15:51] The picture fascinated me.
[15:54] Now you have three body paragraphs.it means you should explain why the picture fascinated you in these three body paragraphs paragraph two paragraph three and paragraph four these are the body
[16:09] paragraphs now why the picture fascinated me look at the first topic sentence the young woman in the
[16:16] picture has a face that resembles my own in many ways so this is the first reason why the picture fascinated me, why I loved the picture because the woman in
[16:28] the picture looks like me, the face of that woman in the picture is the same as
[16:34] my face, this is why the picture fascinated me, this is why I loved that
[16:40] picture. Well, this is a topic sentence you need to explain it in this paragraph
[16:45] how? everyone will ask how the face of that woman looks like your face, it means you should tell us about the face you should describe
[16:58] the face her eyes are just like my eyes they are blue they are white they are
[17:04] this and this the hair nose is just like my nose it's long it's wide etc so you
[17:12] need to describe everything you can see in the face you can see the hair you can
[17:18] see the eyebrow and before the eye brow the forehead, the eye brows, the eyelashes, the eyes, then
[17:27] we move down the nose, then the mustache if we are describing the face of a man, then
[17:35] the lips, the mouth, if the teeth are there and clear we can describe the teeth and the
[17:42] chin, so this is the face, you can see all these things, then you should tell us about
[17:48] them, you should describe them i i'm not saying that in this paragraph the writer
[17:53] describes all these things and in details but at least there is an attempt to describe these things
[18:00] but you as a student you can describe better if you want you can mention more details than the
[18:07] details mentioned here in this paragraph uh remember the the space order we talked about in the descriptive paragraph or in the descriptive say, we
[18:19] should follow the space order, you are describing a face, you can start from the
[18:25] top or from the bottom of the face, you cannot describe the top and then you
[18:30] move to the bottom and in the middle, you cannot describe the hair and then you
[18:35] move to the chin and then you go again to the nose in the middle, so be careful.
[18:43] Now if you look at the details here, yes the writer mentions the shape
[18:48] of the face here, then the hair as you realize, then the nose, remember we moved
[18:57] from the hair to the nose. Now how about the eyes, let's go down and continue. The
[19:06] mouth, you see the mouth, then the smile, how it seems in the picture, the woman
[19:13] the picture is smiling, so the writer is trying to describe the smile and and if you
[19:20] continue moving then we have some something about the eyes the most
[19:28] haunting feature in the photo however is my mother's eyes well is it a logical
[19:36] order he started I mean the writer started describing the hair and then he
[19:43] moved to what to the nose and then again moved up to the eyes this is a wrong order but
[19:52] remember it's not wrong see what is written here the most hunting so what
[19:58] does it mean the most important the most remarkable thing this is the emphatic
[20:06] order well it means the writer left the eyes to the end because he or she
[20:13] considers the eyes as the most attractive. so everything in the face is
[20:20] attractive but the eyes are the most attractive, the most hunting, and this is
[20:27] the emphatic order, leaving the most important thing to the end. so this
[20:33] paragraph follows the emphatic order. so we are not saying the essay, we are
[20:41] talking about the paragraph, the paragraph has coherence, why why there is an emphatic order okay now the second reason why the picture fascinated
[20:52] me i've also carefully studied the clothing and the jewelry in the photograph he studied what
[21:00] the clothing and the jewelry so these are the controlling ideas the clothing and the jewelry
[21:06] this means the writer will explain or describe the clothing and the jewelry so it doesn't mean
[21:12] two controlling ideas remember when you say two things i like the picture because of two things
[21:20] so these are two things it means together as one clothing and the jewelry now the writer mentions
[21:28] clothing first and jewelry next this means in the paragraph the writer should describe the clothing
[21:35] first if he or she describes it the jewelry first it means the paragraph doesn't have coherence the order is wrong see the order in the topic sentence should be the
[21:48] same order here in the support the writer mentions clothing first this means he will describe the
[21:56] clothing first and this is clear my mother is wearing a blouse and a skirt so he starts with
[22:04] clothing then he describes the clothing how they look like see easily be worn today it means white the blouse is made of heavy this is what this is how they look like egg shield
[22:19] color satan it it is made of satan it's not silk it's not cotton it's satan and the color is like
[22:29] the color of the eggs you see so we're talking about clothing we're describing the clothing
[22:35] somebody may ask how does the writer know that the clothing of the woman in the picture is made of Satan the Satan is
[22:46] known when we touch it right but we are touching a picture we are not touching
[22:51] clothing remember the Satan reflects the light in its false and
[22:59] wholist reflects when you look at the picture there are the light is reflected
[23:06] in its false and wholist and the type of clothing that reflects the light is the Satan, this means we know it's made of Satan from the
[23:18] picture, from the picture not from touch, not by touch, we are not touching clothing
[23:25] we are touching a picture now, then after the clothing the writer will continue
[23:32] talking about the jewelry, look here in this sentence my mother is wearing
[23:37] silver drop earrings, we start talking about the jewelry, the earrings and here's the description silver okay silver drop they are about
[23:48] two inches this is the length of the earrings and roughly a shield shape this
[23:54] is the shape and so on so we have good description here about the two things
[24:00] the clothing and the jewelry now in the third paragraph the story because the
[24:06] writer mentioned a story in the thesis statement this means he should talk about it here. As we said this is
[24:14] narrative, you cannot describe a story, a story cannot be seen or touched, it can
[24:19] be narrated. This means this paragraph is narrative. Now we have three body
[24:25] paragraphs, two of them are descriptive, the third is narrative, so we said this
[24:30] is not acceptable. Now if you want to make your essay completely descriptive,
[24:35] you should remove the story from the statement and here in the third paragraph you should mention a
[24:42] third reason why the picture fascinated you. You can talk about for instance the woman's body,
[24:51] the woman's legs, the woman's shoes. You can describe anything in the third paragraph in
[24:57] order to make all this descriptive. Now let's move to the second descriptive say the diner at midnight we are talking about
[25:06] a restaurant a diner a small restaurant now we have the opening sentences here
[25:14] look at them I've been in lots of diners and they've always seemed to be warm
[25:19] busy friendly happy places are we talking about good diners warm busy
[25:27] friendly happy places we are talking about good diners but if you look at
[25:32] that this statement the last one a diner at midnight however was
[25:36] not the place I had expected it was different and lonely it means the diner
[25:42] was very bad different and lonely here are the in the opening sentences in the
[25:49] first one he talks about good diners now what's the technique used in the opening
[25:56] sentences do you remember in the first class one of the techniques is using the opposite right they say is about a bad diner lonely and different but he starts
[26:09] talking about good diners which are warm busy friends so the writer starts with the opposite
[26:15] this makes your essay attractive now let's move in the opening sentences also that's why
[26:21] on a recent monday night i stopped in a diner for a cup of coffee well he tells a story here. This means we have two techniques in the opening sentences.
[26:34] A short story and the opposite. Then we move to the third statement. A diner at midnight. However,
[26:40] was not the place I had expected. It was different and lonely. So, the diner. This is a topic. So,
[26:47] what about the diner? It's different and lonely. We need to describe different and lonely. Now,
[26:56] different. When I tell you this building is different, you will ask me how. I'll tell you this building is different you will ask me how I'll tell
[27:02] you it's so huge the color is amazing it's red yellow and describing why
[27:09] different but when I tell you this diner is lonely how can we describe lonely can
[27:16] you tell me how it looks like the size of lonely the color of lonely the height
[27:23] of lonely you cannot because it's something we cannot see and touch again this is something not recommended in a descriptivist
[27:32] we can't describe it why different but we cannot describe why lonely you can tell us why lonely
[27:40] by giving examples or reasons or causes it means they say it's not descriptive but if you describe
[27:47] you will tell us the color the height the size the shape and so on so lonely cannot be described then how does the writer describe lonely now we mentioned different
[28:01] first it means the writer should explain here why different now let's look at the topic sentence
[28:09] even the outside of the diner was uninviting it means it's ugly the outside was not good this
[28:16] means we will describe the outside remember again in the descriptive essay we should have a place
[28:23] order you can describe the diner from outside and then from inside or you may start
[28:29] from the inside and then from the outside so you should have an order you
[28:34] cannot describe the inside and then you go out to the outside and again to the
[28:37] inside or this is not a logical order so the writer starts describing the outside
[28:44] of the diner if you read these sentences yes it will tell you how the diner looks
[28:50] like made of aluminium it's buildings, looks like an old railroad car
[28:59] and so on, so this is the shape of the building. now the second paragraph the
[29:05] diner was quiet when I entered, the diner was quiet, the diner is the topic, quiet
[29:11] is the controlling idea, can you describe quiet, can you see it, can you touch it, you
[29:21] cannot, so quiet here cannot be described.
[29:25] Then how can we describe quiet?
[29:28] Well, if you read these sentences, the writer will describe something we can see and touch.
[29:35] The writer looks at the tables.
[29:37] He describes the tables.
[29:38] Looks at the cooking area and describes the cooking area.
[29:42] Looks at the pots.
[29:45] Looks at the spoons and so on.
[29:49] Describing things we can see and touch. And then he tells us these things are not used no
[29:56] customers this means the diner is lonely it is quiet it is quiet no customers
[30:07] well this is not something recommended by students because it's not easy for
[30:14] you instead of describing quiet you can describe the inside describe the tables inside the diner describe the walls describe some customers inside
[30:27] something you can see and touch