EU group paragraph

The European Council

The European Council plays an important role in setting a general political direction for the European Union. This institution, which meets at least four times a year, is composed of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council. The President of the European Council, currently Herman Van Rompuy, is elected for two and a half years and can be re-elected once. He is responsible for coordinating the work of the European Council and ensures that decisions are put into practice. The decisions are made by consensus: a concept or an idea has to be accepted by every voter or by the qualified majority depending on the nature of the treaty. In some cases decisions are reached by unanimity, which means that every Head of State or Government needs to agree.  If someone does not approve, the change cannot come into force. Although the European Council is not a legislative body, thus not allowed to pass laws, it is still very important since it sets priorities and debates sensitive issues.

EU individual paragraph

Brainstorming

Happened mainly in class while discussing in groups: content of the text, understandable, cohesive without linking words, headings, register, long sentences, "but" and "so" at beginning of sentence

Original paragraph

When I read the text “What the EU is for” the first time I found it rather impressing and well structured. The author did not need any linking words to connect one sentence with another and the usage of different headings for each paragraph made it easy to follow.  The choice of register also appealed to me, since the Author used beautiful but easily understandable language. “For want of a better word” and “reluctant to be disadvantaged” are expressions which caught my eye. However, after reading the text again more carefully there were also some negative aspects. The quite frequent use of the conjunctions “but” and “so” at the beginning of a sentence do not really agree with the rather high register used in the rest of the text.  The usage of very long sentences had better been avoided, since in English, it is better to write shorter sentences as it is linguistically more beautiful and easier for the reader to follow the text. Apart from the slightly inconsequent use of register, the text “What the EU is for” is, in my opinion, well written and really informative.

Feedback summary 1 (Topic Sentence, Register)

My classmates thought that my topic sentence and concluding sentence go well with each other and that they are referring to the same statement. They did also agree with the register but they advised me to find another adjective instead of "beautiful" in order to describe the language.

Feedback summary 2 (coherence, cohesion, vocab)

Overall, my colleagues agreed that my paragraph was cohesive and coherent. Nevertheless, they gave me some helpful advice how to improve it. They pointed out, that in my text are a lot of "the" and that I could leave some of them out. In addition to this, the thought that I should change the sentence abouth the negative aspects and make it clear that this is just my opinion.

Final paragraph

When I read the text "What the EU is for" the first time I found it rather impressing and well structured. The author did not use many linking words to connect one sentence with another. The different headings for each paragraph made it easy to follow. The choice of register also appealed to me, since the author used sophisticated but understandable language. "For want of a better word" and "reluctant to be disadvantaged" are expressions which caught my eye. However, after reading the text again more carefully there were also some aspects I did not agree with. The quite frequent use of the conjunctions "but" and "so" at the beginning of a sentence are not appropriate for the high register used in the rest of the text. The usage of very long sentences had better been avoided, since in English, it is advisable to write shorter sentences as it is linguistically more aesthetic and easier for the reader to follow. Apart from the slightly inconsequent use of register, the text "What the EU is for" is, in my opinion, well written and really informative.


Second final paragraph

When I read the text "What the EU is for" the first time I found it rather impressive and well structured. The author did not need many linking words to connect one sentence to the next and the different headings for each paragraph made it easy to follow. The choice of register also appealed to me, since the author used sophisticated but understandable language. "For want of a better word" and "reluctant to be disadvantaged" are expressions which particularly caught my eye. However, after reading the text again more carefully, there were also some aspects I did not agree with. The quite frequent use of the conjunctions "but" and "so" at the beginning of a sentence are not appropriate for the high register used in the rest of the text. The use of very long sentences should have been avoided since in English it is advisable to write shorter sentences as it is linguistically more competent and easier for the reader to follow. Apart from the slightly inconsistent use of register, the text "What the EU is for" is, in my opinion, well written and highly informative.