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3. Concluding paragraph
To avoid an abrupt end, you should also have a concluding paragraph in your work. According to De Soto (n.d.), in order to write an effective conclusion, the following should be done:
ACTIVITIES
Activity 1: Identify topic sentences in the following paragraphs:
Paragraph 1
The maintenance of order in prestate societies is rooted in a commonality of material interests. The greater the amount of common interests, the less need there is for law-and-order specialists. Among band-level cultures law and order stem directly from the relations between people and the natural habitat from which subsistence is derived. All adults usually have open access to this habitat: the rivers, lakes, beaches, oceans; all the plants and animals; the soil and the subsoil. In so far as these are basic to the extraction of life-sustaining energy and materials they are communal "property."
Paragraph 2
Though the United States has spent billions of dollars on foreign aid programs, it has captured neither the affection nor esteem of the rest of the world. In many countries today Americans are cordially disliked; in others merely tolerated. The reasons for this sad state of affairs are many and varied, and some of them are beyond the control of anything this country might do to try to correct them. But harsh as it may seem to the ordinary citizen, filled as he is with good intentions and natural generosity, much of the foreigners' animosity has been generated by the way Americans behave.
Anthropology is the study of humankind, especially of Homo sapiens, the biological species to which we human beings belong. It is the study of how our species evolved from more primitive organisms; it is also the study of how our species developed a mode of communication known as language and a mode of social life known as culture. It is the study of how culture evolved and diversified. And finally, it is the study of how culture, people, and nature interact wherever human beings are found.
(Note. Example paragraphs taken and adapted from Using English for Academic Purposes: A Guide for Students in Higher Education: Academic Writing Web site (Exercises, Paragraph, Identify topic sentence), by A. Gillett, n.d., Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm)
In some parts of the world a wealthy man was a man who owned a lot of animals. In east Africa a man showed how rich he was by the number of cows he owned. Sometimes wives were bought with animals. Using animals as money was difficult however because it was not easy to give change. If your animal died it meant that you have lost all your wealth.
After independence in 1990, Namibia became one of the first countries worldwide to incorporate an environmental and sustainable development clause within its national constitution (Articles 95(1). It complemented this clause by enabling its citizens to raise issues of environmental concern via the office of the ombudsman. (Article 91 (c). In 1992, through Namibia’s Green Plan, the government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) created a national common vision for sustainable development. President Sam formally tabled this document at UNCED, on behalf of the Republic of Namibia. The Green Plan, in turn, to Namibia’s 12 Point Plan for Integrated and Sustainable Environmental Management, a short strategic implementation document, which was tabled and adopted by parliament in 1993. Namibia’s portfolio of environmental programmes and projects arose from this process, and were designed as a complimentary and synergistic set of activities to address the country’s environmental challenges.
(Note. Example paragraphs taken and adapted from the national assessment report for world summit on sustainable development, by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism & UNDP, 2002, p.3)
The view has three main sources. Firstly, there is the ontological view that the subject and purpose of the human sciences are so unique that they cannot be reduced to quasi-scientific models and instruments. This view is encountered in phenomenology and in certain qualitative research trends. A second source is neo-Marxism, counter cultural writers such as Ellul, and postmodernism. On the basis of, inter alia, their rejection of logical positivism, these groups equates technology with scientism, technicism and modernism. Thirdly, a moral level, technology is sometimes equated with social engineering and is hence rejected. (Marais (1996 p89)
Activity 4:
Now that you understand the different types of paragraphs, write a three-paragraph essay in which you express your view on the advantages of using the Internet to enhance learning at the University of Namibia.
4. References
Aaron, J. E. (1997). The little, brown compact handbook. New York: Longman.
De Soto, M. (n. d.). Concluding paragraphs. [Retrieved July 30, 2007, from
http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~mdesoto/101hybrid_new/concluding_paragraphs.htm]
Gillet, A. (n. d.). Using English for academic purposes: A guide for students in higher
education: Academic writing (Writing paragraphs). [Retrieved January 27, 2007, from
http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm]
Marais, C. K. (1996). Human Sciences Technology. In J. G. Garbers (Ed.), Effective
research in human sciences (pp. 80-108). Pretoria: Van Schaik Publishers.
Ministry of Environment and Tourism & UNDP. (2002). The national assessment report
for the world summit on sustainable development. Windhoek: MET & UNDP.
Reid, J.M. (1999). The Process of Composition. Wyoming: Longman
Characteristics of formal academic writing
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