Writing Tips

The modern exam for the basic school course is structured in such a way that it tests a lot of speech skills. For example, the ability to read a text with an exploratory reading and understand it completely (that is, to extract all the textual information: both that which is explicitly communicated, and that which is hidden "between the lines", and the main meanings, the so-called "main idea"); briefly convey the main micro-themes (for this purpose it is offered to write an abstract), analyse the graphic and expressive means and text vocabulary, write an argument based on the read text, find the necessary examples in the text and comment on them. Yes, it is quite difficult, especially if you learn it all a few months before the exam. And yet, information skills are the most important, basic skills - they are needed for everyday life, for studying at school and university, and for successful professional life.
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I would like to share my observations. Many children find it very difficult to comprehend the text they have read; it is difficult for them to formulate not only the main idea of their essay but even the main idea of a three-paragraph text they have read. As a rule, they formulate a theme instead of a main idea, which is not the same thing. And when it comes to the topic of the text, many find it difficult, for example, to formulate a microtheme (the topic of one semantic part, a paragraph), to trace the logic of the development of the topic through the succession of microthemes one after another. There is also a regularity: even children who write well are often unable to formulate a logical argument. Their arguments, even if formulated, do not logically follow one another, examples by themselves, arguments by themselves, and the conclusion does not follow from these arguments in any way.

What is needed to pass the exams?
- Know what an outline is and what kind of outline it is. Be able to compress a text using the three main compression methods, formulate micro-themes, write and check an abridged text.

- Learn to distinguish between scientific and journalistic styles of speech, know what tropes and figures of speech are and analyse them in a text.

- Be able to work with textual information: read out factual and subtextual information, formulate the main ideas of a text and use the techniques of reading with attention, reading and reviewing. Know how to complete assignments that test students' reading comprehension and analyse the language and language in the text.

- Be familiar with reasoning as a type of speech. Be able to write and check three types of essay-explanation.