Informal e-mail

In today's class we will be looking at how to write an informal e-mail to someone. You will be using your school mail account to do this activity.

Like letters there are a number of parts to an informal e-mail. The first part of an e-mail is the greeting. This is normally followed by a brief introduction. The second part, which contains most of what you want to say is called the body and the last part is the closing or conclusion. We will be looking at each of these parts of the e-mail.

Some people start the greeting with just “Hi” or “Hello” and the person’s’ name. However, some people prefer to use a salutation like they do in a letter and write ‘Dear’ followed by their friend’s first name. “Dear” is slightly more formal or polite, but you probably don’t need to use it with a friend. After the name you usually put a comma “,” and then you start a new line.

The introduction of a spoken e-mail is very like the start of an English conversation. You would normally ask how the person you are writing to is and thank them for any previous e-mail. The introduction would normally explain what your e-mail is going to be about. Normally the introduction would be a separate paragraph.

The main part of the e-mail is the body. This can be one or more paragraphs. The main differences between the body of a formal letter or mail and an informal one are the type of words and expressions used. Also informal mail will use symbols such as the smiley :-) to show you are joking or happy, the frown :-( to show that the person is sad or unhappy. Informal mail also uses abbreviations, such as IMHO, which is used to give an opinion or FYI which is used when you give someone information. There are others as well such as LOL and BTW. Do you know what these mean?

The conclusion of the mail usually includes some closing expression such as, “that’s all for now” or “bye for now.” It will also often contain some kind of encouragement for the person to respond to your e-mail, such as “hope to hear from you soon.” The last thing in the mail is normally the signature, that is the writer’s first name. This may be preceded by an expression such as “best wishes” or “love” if it is a very close friend.

Paragraphs

In this class we will be looking at using paragraphs in blogs. We will be looking at what a paragraph is, the parts of a good paragraph, and the style, or formatting, of paragraphs in English. After we have looked at these points you will be practicing writing one or more paragraphs for your blog.

What is a paragraph? A paragraph is a group of sentences that have a main idea, which is called the topic. For example, if you have three main ideas that you want to express in a blog post your blog should have three paragraphs. It may also have an introductory paragraph and a conclusion. You should not have completely different or unrelated ideas in the same paragraph. The main point about paragraphs is that they are a way or organizing your writing to make it easier for the person reading your text to understand.

How is a paragraph organized? A paragraph does not have a fixed number of sentences, however it is probably a good idea to write between four and eight sentences in a paragraph. Normally the first sentence is a sentence called the topic sentence. This is probably the most important sentence in your paragraph. It should tell the reader what your paragraph is about. That is its main idea or topic. Paragraphs then have one or more body sentences that support the topic sentence. That means that they either provide evidence to show that the topic sentence is true or provide details to explain what it means. Finally there may be a concluding sentence. However, not all paragraphs have a concluding sentence.

There are two main styles (formats) for writing in paragraphs. The first style is called indented. It is mainly used in books and newspaper and magazine articles and often in personal letters. With this style they may not be a space between the paragraphs, but each new paragraph begins on a new line and is indented. That means that a small space is left at the beginning of the line of a new paragraph, either using the tab key or three to five spaces with the space bar. The other format is called block, and is used for business letters, but it is also a lot more commonly used on blogs and on web sites. In block format the first line of a paragraph is not indented, but it starts on a new line and usually one or two line spaces (use the return key) are inserted between paragraphs. Please write in paragraphs using one of these styles. Don’t start a new line by pressing return, unless you want to start a new paragraph.

Blogging

Blog is short for weblog and a blog is s a sort of online journal or diary. In our class you will be learning how to create a blog using Google’s blogger software. You will be expected to write a post to your blog in English at least once a week for the rest of the course. These blog posts do not have to be long. 250 words is a reasonable length for a blog. It is very important though that you should post regularly to your blog. Interesting and lively blogs also contain pictures, links to other sites and even movies.

1. In lesson three of this course you will be starting your blog. Before you start writing your blog you have to think what you are going to write about. Most blogs have a theme. The writer will mainly post about a theme that interests them. Readers also tend to subscribe and read regularly blogs about topics that they find interesting. You need to decide what you can write about. Do you have a hobby that you are very interested in? Could you write about it regularly? Do you have strong views and opinions about things that are happening in the world? Is there anything that you think other people would be interested in that you know a lot about? Have you got a good idea for your theme?



2. After you have thought about and decided on a theme for your blog you will need to choose an English name for it. Many blog names have already been chosen, so you will have to check whether the name is available and if it is not you might have to change it to one that is available.



3. When you have decided on a theme and a name for your blog you should watch the video tutorial on google blogger that is linked to in the course Moodle and then set up a google account if you don’t have one and then set up your blog on www.blogger.com in English. You teacher will help you to do this.



4. You should then write an introductory post in English, telling your readers about yourself, your blog and its theme.



5. When you have finished you should post a link to your blog on the “Blogs” forum that your teacher and others in the class can read it regularly.