Thesis Statements: Help!

Thesis statements can be very hard for students to learn.

What is a thesis statement?

Here is a good explanation.

The main idea of an essay or report, sometimes written as a single declarative sentence.

Here is a quiz where you can check if you can identify a thesis statement.

How can I become better at writing thesis statements?

You should try to find many examples to see different styles.

Try theses quizzes. Quiz 1, Quiz 2, Quiz 3.

Simple or Compound?

Here is a quiz to test yourself on simple and compound sentences.

Paragraphs: Bringing Order to your Writing

Here is a quick quiz about the order of sentences in a paragraph.

What will U learn on iTunes U?

What is iTunes U?

Watch this movie to find out more.

Here is what wikipedia has to say:

iTunes U was announced at Cupertino, California on May 30, 2007. The service was created to manage, distribute, and control access to educational audio and video content for students within a college or university as well as the broader Internet. The online service is without cost to those uploading or downloading material. Content includes course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by many top colleges and universities from the US, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.

What do you need to start learning form iTunes U?

You will need to download iTunes to your computer from here.

Then follow the instructions from the movie.

You do not need an iPod to watch or listen to the lectures. You can do that from your computer.

Enjoy!

Academic Vocabulary: Is it useful for you?

Many of you have studued the AWL. It is such a long list of words. Will you ever be able to remember them all? Maybe. Will you ever have to use them all? Probably not.

It would be better for you to study words that will be useful for you. This website has a great list of exercises that are categorised by university subject. Choose the subject that is closest to what you will study and start learning.

Good Luck!

Playing to Learn II

Here is another great game. This one is from the Discovery channel.

You are lost at sea. This is a life or death game.

Will you survive?

Is Australian TV racist?

Soap Operas are popular in many countries throughout the world. Australia is no exception. Neighbours and Home and Away the two most popular enjoying success not ony in Australia but also the United Kingdom.

However, this article brings up an interesting issue about Australian soap operas. Are they too white? Most of the characters are white Australians and this does not reflect Australia's multicultural society.

Is Australian TV racist? What do you think?

Neighbours airs weeknight (Monday to Friday) at 6:30pm on channel 10.

Home and Away airs weeknights at 7pm on channel 7.