Reading and writing : Make recommendations

🔊 La maîtresse lit pour toi

Everybody in your class agrees that something is a problem. Everybody. And then the conversation stops — because nobody knows what to say next. “We must do something” commits no one, asks nothing of anybody, and will still be true next year. Here is a text that does the difficult half of the work properly: it names a problem, it gives a study, a law and a figure — and then it stops, on a question: “What can we do about this serious problem?” Answering that question is a skill of its own. So what does a real recommendation contain that “we must do something” does not?

🎓في نهاية هذا الدرس ستكون قادرا على:

قراءة نصّ حجاجيّ واستخراج المشكلة والأدلّة التي تسندها
التمييز في النصّ بين ما هو دليل وما هو رأي
صياغة توصية كاملة : الفعل المطلوب، ومَن يقوم به، والسبب
اختيار الصيغة المناسبة : ⁦the imperative · should · must · If …, we will⁩
كتابة برنامج من ثلاث توصيات مرتّبة، مع خطّة بديلة لِما قد يتعثّر

🔑يفترض هذا الدرس أنّك تتقن:

صيغة الأمر، و⁦should⁩ و⁦must⁩ وأنّ الفعل بعدهما مجرّد
الشرط من النوع الأوّل : ⁦If + present , … will⁩
روابط الترتيب : ⁦First of all · Second · Finally⁩

Read

اقرأ النصّ مرّة قراءةً سريعة لتعرف المشكلة، ثمّ قراءةً ثانية متأنّية للأدلّة.

Read the text once quickly, just to find out what the problem is. Then read it a second time, slowly, with a pencil, and underline only the facts: a number, a study, a law, a fine. There will be fewer of them than you expect — and they are the only things you will be able to build a recommendation on.

Violent video games: Cause and concern

Entertainment companies make more money from the sale of video games than from the sale of movies. This is because young people all over the world spend a lot of time playing video games, and many of them are violent video games. Many parents, teachers, and psychologists are very concerned about the effects of these games on the players. Some games encourage violent behaviour against other people such as women, police officers, and people with different political views. Some people believe that violent video games may be very harmful because they are interactive. That means the player takes part in the action of the game. The player becomes an aggressor, the person who plans the attack and causes the violence. Many people worry that children will become too aggressive in real life. They believe that children will learn to find solutions to problems only through violence. Some researchers are studying the effects of violent video games. One study included 210 college students. Some of the students played violent video games and some played non-violent ones. The study showed that students who played more violent video games showed more aggressive behaviour. In Washington State, there is a law against selling violent video games to young people under age 17. Store owners who sell these games to children must pay a fine of $500. Other states are considering such a law. Many people want to completely ban, or forbid, the sale of these violent games. We need to understand the possible dangers of violent video games. The question is: What can we do about this serious problem?

Skimming — the general idea

القراءة السريعة : الفكرة العامّة.

What is this text about, and what does it deliberately NOT do?

عمّ يتحدّث النصّ ؟ وما الذي يمتنع عمدا عن فعله ؟

It is about the effects of violent video games on the young people who play them, and about what different people — parents, teachers, psychologists, researchers, lawmakers — are doing about it. And what it does not do is give an answer. Read the last line again: “The question is: What can we do about this serious problem?” ⟹ The text stops exactly where your work begins. It has spent four paragraphs building the ground; the recommendation is the building, and it is not there. That is not a weakness of the text — it is its design.

Scanning — the details

القراءة الباحثة : التفاصيل. ابحث عن الجواب في النصّ، لا في ذاكرتك.

1. Why do these games make so much money? 2. Why do some people think they may be very harmful? 3. What did the study find? 4. What has Washington State done? 5. What do some people want?

أجب عن الأسئلة الخمسة انطلاقا من النصّ.

Because young people all over the world spend a lot of time playing them — entertainment companies now make more money from video games than from the sale of movies.
Because they are interactive: the player does not watch the violence, he takes part in it. The text says it exactly: “the player becomes an aggressor, the person who plans the attack and causes the violence”.
It included 210 college students. Those who played more violent video games showed more aggressive behaviour.
It has passed a law: violent video games may not be sold to young people under age 17, and a shopkeeper who breaks it must pay a fine of $500. Other states are considering the same law.
Some people want to completely ban, or forbid, the sale of these games.

⚠️ Answer 4 is the one to keep. It is the only place in the whole text where somebody has actually done something — and notice what a real measure contains: who (store owners), what (may not sell), to whom (under 17), and what happens if they do ($500). Four elements. “We must do something” has none of them.

2. Sort the text: which sentences are facts, and which are opinions?

صنّف جمل النصّ : أيّها دليل وأيّها رأي ؟

From the text	Fact or opinion?	How you can tell
One study included 210 college students.	fact	a number; anybody can check it
Store owners must pay a fine of $500.	fact	a law, with a figure
Some people believe that violent video games may be very harmful.	opinion	“some people believe” — and “may be”
Many people worry that children will become too aggressive in real life.	opinion	“many people worry”, and it is about the future
The player takes part in the action of the game.	fact	it describes how the object works

⭐ Count them: in a text of four paragraphs, there are only three or four hard facts. Everything else is what people believe, worry or want. ⟹ This is why the sorting matters. A recommendation supported by “many people worry” can be answered with “other people don't”, and the conversation is over. A recommendation supported by a study of 210 students and a fine of $500 cannot be answered that way. Build on the underlined sentences, not on the others.

The four ways to recommend

صيغ التوصية الأربع، ولكلّ واحدة مقامها.

Which form for which situation?

أيّ صيغة لأيّ مقام ؟

The form	Example	When you use it
The imperative	Go straight to the Registration Office as soon as you arrive. · Keep your city clean.	a notice, a poster, a set of instructions — short and public
should / shouldn't	You should not give money to people on the street. · We should try to help.	advice to one person, who is free to refuse
must	Store owners must pay a fine of $500.	an obligation, usually written into a rule or a law
If … , we will …	If you vote for us, we will plant trees. · If the youth hostel is fully booked, we'll accommodate you in tents.	a promise, a programme — and a plan for what may go wrong

⭐ Read the last line twice. Those two sentences have the same grammar and do two different jobs. The first is a promise: “if you do this, we will do that”. The second is a contingency plan: “if things go wrong, here is what we will do anyway”. ⟹ A programme that contains only promises is believed by nobody. Add one sentence saying what you will do if the first plan fails, and the whole list becomes credible. That single sentence is the cheapest thing you can add to a recommendation, and the most convincing.

Write — a programme in three recommendations

الإنتاج : اكتب برنامجا من ثلاث توصيات.

A recommendation that works has four parts, and “we must do something” has none of them. ① The action — a verb, and a precise one: plant, ban, build, clean, re-use. Not improve, not fight against. ② Who does it — you, the club, the town, the shopkeepers. A recommendation with nobody in it will be carried out by nobody. ③ The reason — and take it from a fact, not from an opinion. ④ What happens if it fails — the contingency plan, in one sentence: “If …, we will …” ⭐ And order your recommendations as the model below does: First of all … Second … Finally … Three is the right number: two look thin, five are not remembered.

Your task

Imagine you are a member of a school club — an environment club, a reading club, a sports club — and you have to present a short programme to the other pupils. a. Choose a problem you have really seen in your school or your street. b. Write three recommendations, ordered with “First of all · Second · Finally”. Use a different form for each one: one imperative, one with should, one with If …, we will … c. Give a reason after each recommendation. d. Finish with one contingency plan: “If … , we will …” ⛔ Do not invent a figure to make your reason stronger. A recommendation with an invented number is worth less than one with no number at all.

A model — the same method applied to the text you have just read

نموذج : المنهجيّة نفسها مطبّقة على النصّ الذي قرأته.

Write yours first. This model answers the question the text ends on, taking every reason from a fact printed in the text — so that you can see the method, not copy the content.

Model — What can we do about violent video games?

First of all, shops should not sell violent games to children. In Washington State there is already a law against selling them to young people under age 17, and a shopkeeper who breaks it must pay a fine of $500. Other states are considering the same law. Second, read the age written on the box before you buy a game, and show it to your parents. One study of 210 college students found that those who played more violent games showed more aggressive behaviour — the age on the box is not a decoration. Finally, if our club organises a games afternoon, we will choose non-violent games only: in the study, it was the students who played more violent games who showed more aggressive behaviour. We will also ask the players to vote at the end for the one they enjoyed most. And if nobody comes to that afternoon, we will ask them why — because a rule that nobody wants is a rule that nobody follows.

Check the model against the four parts: precise verbs (sell, read, show, choose, vote), somebody in every sentence (shops, you, your parents, our club), a reason taken from a fact every time (the law, the fine, the study of 210 students), and a contingency plan at the end. And count the words spent on the problem itself: none. The text had already done that work — repeating it would have cost you the only lines you had.

At the BEM, making recommendations is one of the standard subjects of Written expression: “write a short paragraph to say what should be done about pollution / about your school / about the internet”, sometimes in the shape of a letter or a poster. Keep three things ready: a precise verb and somebody to do it ; a different form for each recommendation — the imperative, should, “If …, we will …” ; and a reason taken from a fact, after each one. ⛔ The mistake examiners see every year: three sentences that all begin with “We must”, with no subject that can act and no reason after any of them.

Describing a problem is the easy half; everybody can do it, and a text that stops there has done nothing. A recommendation is what comes after the question mark, and it needs four things that “we must do something” never has: a precise verb, somebody to carry it out, a reason drawn from a fact rather than from an opinion, and — the sentence that makes people believe you — a plan for what you will do if it fails. Order three of them with “First of all, Second, Finally”, and you have written something a club can actually use on Monday morning.

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