Providence University
College of Management
Describing and
Predicting
Wu-Lin Chen (wlchen@pu.edu.tw)
Department of Computer Science and
Information Management
Description
• A description serves to introduce a writer’s view of
something.
• A description may also tell the characteristics or
distinctive features of an object.
• The nature of something can be explained by describing
it.
• To describe something, you simply have to tell your
audience about it.
• You simply tell how your subject appears to the senses.
• Many experienced writers find description one of the
most challenging expressive modes.
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Using English To Describe
• Physical description
– It is a flaming ball of extremely hot gases.
• Shape: ball
• Physical composition: hot, flaming gases
– The surface temperature is about 11,000° F, hot enough to turn
every solid to vapor, but relatively cool compared to the intense
heat at the center.
• Surface temperature: 11,000 ° F, hot enough to turn every solid to
vapor, cool compared to center
– Located about 93 million miles from the earth …
• Position or location: 93 million miles from earth
– …the sum has a diameter that is approximately equal to 109 of
our earths lined up like a row of beach balls, and that is about
330,000 times the mass of the earth.
• Diameter: 109 x earth’s diameter
• Mass: 330,000 x earth’s mass
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Using English To Describe
• Functional description
– The sun is the original source of nearly all our
energy.
• Importance: source of our energy
• Chemical description
– It is mostly made of hydrogen, although it also
contains nearly every other kind of atom that
exists on the earth.
• Chemical composition: mostly hydrogen + nearly all
other known atoms
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Sentence Patterns
• The present simple tense is used most
frequently when describing.
• The most commonly used verbs are to be
and to have.
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Sentence Patterns:
Describing Characteristics
The Nile River 4,145 miles long.
Mount Everest is 8,848 meters high.
The Dead Sea 11 miles wide.
The pipe 3 centimeters thick.
The Nile length 4,145 miles.
The sun surface temperature 11,000° F.
has a of 5,500 feet.
The Grand Canyon depth
Lead specific gravity 11.3.
An elephant life span about 75 years.
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Sentence Patterns:
Describing Characteristics
length the Neil 4,145 miles.
color iodine purplish black.
The texture of is/are
sand rough and granular.
orbits planets elliptical.
shape earth spherical.
Pluto relatively small.
Glass is/are somewhat brittle and transparent.
Zinc and cadmium rather reactive and silvery.
Blue stars extremely hot.
Copper salts slightly blue in aqueous solutions.
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Writing Skills
• To write a good description, you have to
do more than string adjectives together.
• Rules for descriptive writing:
– Be specific
– Focus on a particular aspect of what you are
attempting to describe
– Compare the object being described to
something vivid (optional)
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Writing Skills: Be Specific
• When writing description, avoid vague
words like big, impressive, beautiful,
overwhelming, bad, and awesome.
• Instead, use more precise words.
– Rachel is “beautiful.”
• Give the details so that your audience can “see”
– “Rachel’s radiant blonde hair backlit by the
winter sun”
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Writing Skills: Be Specific
• Be more specific by “translating” the
adjectives into the five senses:
– sight
– hearing
– smell
– touch
– taste
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Writing Skills: Be Specific
• An “impressive sight”
– a “drawn and weary, ashen-faced old man”
• An “impressive sound”
– “the mellow strings of the Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra”
• An “impressive smell”
– “the cranberry vapors of my mother’s breakfast cake”
• An “impressive texture”
– “the smooth, cold marble of the altar.”
• An “impressive taste”
– “the salt-edged bite of the sea”
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Writing Skills: Focus On
• For example: If you are describing a
person, do not just randomly list his or her
various characteristics.
• Pick one characteristic (good humor,
weariness, awkwardness) and use specific
details to develop that characteristic.
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Writing Skills: Comparison
• If comparisons go on for too long, focus
can easily be lost.
• Keep your comparisons short and pointed.
– Example: The soldiers just stood there like
bowling pins.
– Example: The whaler’s rocklike captain
refused to abandon the hunt.
– Example: Checkerboard rice fields covered
the valley.
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Predicting
• The goal of all scientific investigation is to
predict the future.
• Assumptions are usually made before
predicting.
• No prediction of the future behavior of
nature is 100 percent certain.
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Using English to Predict
• A prediction is claim that something will
happen.
– EX: At any giving time, the side of the earth
facing the sun will have daylight, and the side
turned away from the sun will have night.
• A probable prediction
– EX: If you light a match on an airplane, no
condition
wind will blow it out. prediction
• This prediction will come true if certain conditions
are met.)
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Using English to Predict
• A hypothetical prediction
– EX: If you traveled around the earth on these
condition
two dates, you would find the days and nights
equal every place you went. prediction
• This prediction will also come true if certain
conditions are met. But, since the conditions are
unlikely to occur – you are unlikely to travel around
the world on these days – the prediction is
hypothetical. It may or may not come true.)
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Using English to Predict
• An impossible prediction
– EX: If the earth had been flat, the post could
condition
not have cast a shadow at noon.
• This condition is impossible – obviously the earth
is not flat. Therefore, the prediction cannot be
fulfilled.)
prediction
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Sentence Pattern
• Prediction
– active: There {will be} an eclipse tomorrow.
– passive: The eclipse {will be hidden} by the
clouds.
• Probable prediction
– active: If it rains, we {will get wet.}
– passive: If the eclipse is hidden, the photos
{will be ruined.}
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Sentence Pattern
• Hypothetical prediction
– active: If I studied, I would (could or might)
pass.
– passive: If the eclipse were hidden, the
photos would (could or might) be ruined.
• Impossible prediction
– active: If I had studied, I would (could or might)
have passed.
– passive: If it had been hidden, the photos
would (could or might) have been ruined.
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Sentence Pattern
• The future tense with will is used for predictions that are
likely to occur. The modal would, could, or might are
used for hypothetical or impossible predictions.
• With if clauses, the subjunctive form were is used
instead of was (for example, If I were rich…).
• Any prediction that is based on a past condition cannot
be fulfilled.
– EX: If the war had ended a year earlier, many lives would have
been saved.
• Since the war did not end earlier, the prediction cannot come true.
Nevertheless, the relationship expressed in the sentence is true.
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Writing Skills
• Use modal auxiliaries properly to express your
attitude towards the prediction.
• Transition words for predicting
– a few years from now
– eventually
– in the future
– gradually
– later
– after a while
– before long
– one day
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