e-portfolio #7(a)

Completing an English essay is a difficult work to me. Making grammar mistakes, lacking of vocabularies, points and essay styles are the difficulties I face. Since I always speak in Cantonese, my English, my writing also, contains strong mother tongue. It is also a problem I heard in this EG1471 course, but it is difficult to be improved.

To write an academic essay, we have to follow the procedures step by step. Draw a mind map or write an outline before writing the first draft of an essay. We may find many materials related to the essay from many reference books and on the internet. Simplifying the information and expressing them by our own words are needed. We also have to pay attention to the type of essay we are writing, for example, argumentative, comparison and contrast essay. Different writing styles are used in different types of essay.

Much time has already been spent to complete the first draft, but it is only the half work of the whole writing process. Usually, the first draft contains many grammar mistakes and the ideas are not enough. We have to further improve it according to our classmates’ and Ms Chan‘s comment and correction. I reviewed and reviewed the first draft and comments; the final draft is hardly finished.

In this EG1471 course, I find that my English and writing ability is really poor. My native language is not English, I usually cannot express what I want to say well and clearly. Moreover, my vocabulary is so limited, so the whole essay is made by simple words only. In my last year university study, I found that I can only know how to do the calculation, explain the principle of theorems in many engineering modules. Therefore, I wrongly think that my English level is enough for me to study in university, as the vocabulary and grammar don’t really matter in certain engineering modules.

After taking the module of EG1471, I realized how important grammar and vocabulary are. I will read more English books and watch more English film with subtitles. Using more English in my diary life is also a good way to improve it.

#6 Common grammar mistakes

Learning english grammar is must to everyone to learn english. It can be very boring but is important. To correctly use the grammatical structure, we have to remember all the rules. Looking at the common mistakes that we usually make may be a good way to avoid them and strengthen our English foundation.

Common mistake-Parallelism:
Using parallelism helps to reduce repetition in writing, so it is very useful. However, it may increase the complexity of a sentence and is easy to make mistakes in.When we join a list of two or more things in a sentence with and, but, or or, we need to make sure that the elements in the list are parallel.

Not parallel:
e.g. He is tired, lonely, and in a hurry. (tired and lonely are adjectives, but in a hurry is a prepositional phrase)
e.g. He took a book, a pen, and wrote. (book and pen are nouns, but wrote is a verb.

Correct sentences:
e.g. You can get cell phones in red, blue, green, and black. (all are colors)
e.g. Marry likes milk, loves tea, and hates coffee. (all describe emotions about food)
e.g. They took vegetables, meat, and fruit on the camping trip. (all types of food)

Common mistake-fragments:
A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. Some fragments are incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb. Fragments that we usually make mistakes in are dependent clauses. They have a subject and a verb, so they look like complete sentences, but they don't express a complete thought.

e.g. I would go there. If I could.
“If I could” is an incomplete sentence. The fragment should be made part of the sentence It should be corrected by” I would go there if I could.

e.g. John took the bus. (independent clause) Because his car was in the shop. (Dependent clause )It should be corrected by “John took the bus because his car was in the shop.”

Common mistake when using "no matter":
e.g. No matter you like it or not, you have to do it.
It is a wrong sentence, because "no matter" must be followed by wh-words like what, where and when.

Correct sentences:
e.g. No matter where you live, you should go to school/work on time.
e.g. No matter how good your are, you should be humble.

The above wrong sentence can be corrected by “No matter whether you like it or not, you have to do it.” Actually, "No matter" can be omitted in this sentence.

Grammar is the basic element to learn English, it is extremely crucial to every learner. The best way to improve it may be to do more exercises. Moreover, we have to remember all the mistakes we had made and do not make the same mistakes any more. I believe in “practice makes perfect” and I hope we(you) all can learn from mistakes.

#5 summary of roundtable discussion

I would like to summarize the roundtable discussion of Li Jing's group.
Their group had to discuss one climate change mitigation technology and their main idea is to use renewable energies.

Renewable energy is produced from non-fossil fuel sources. Current sources of renewable energy include wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biomass and nuclear. Using renewable energy is one of the most important ways to address climate change and reduce environmental impacts. The renewable energies Li Jing’s group discussed were hydropower, solar power and nuclear power.

Hydropower is a pollution-free source. A hydropower plant consists of a reservoir and a power generating facility. Many power plants are fed by several reservoirs, and in some river systems several power stations are located one after another so that the energy in the water can be used repeatedly before it finally runs into the sea.

Solar power is Clean, Sustainable and inexhaustible energy, and it has flexible installation. Solar power generation is a clean energy system that generates electricity from sunlight that falls on the earth. It can be used anywhere in large buildings, in factories, and in residential homes. Both commercial and private customers are showing increased interest in solar power generation.

Nuclear power is powerful, safe and efficient. A nuclear power plant generates steam which rotates a generator at high speed. Steam is obtained by heating water inside a boiler (the nuclear reactor), which uses heat released by the fission of uranium nuclei. However, nuclear power generation produces waste including radioactive waste which has to be managed with the greatest care.

Although renewable energies have many advantages, they are not widely used. It is because the cost to establish, set up and install the power system is very high, many companies cannot afford it. The government subsidise is needed. People believe that the renewable energies may be well developed and commonly used in the future.

Summary of 2 articles I have read

I have read 2 articles about genetical modified food(GM food) to prepare my group roundtable discussion. My group disscussion is about a set of technologies which certain group have resisted. One of the technologies we will discuss is GM food, so i chose this two articles-"The true story of GM food" and "Genetic engineering, food and our environment".

In the past decade, the issue of whether Genetically-Modified(GM) foods are beneficial to people has been debated and investigated by the scientists, public interest groups, environmental organizations, food experts and the communities all over the world. While some accept the GM foods that are nutritive, others argue that harmful substances may be created because they are genetic engineering foods.

GM foods are foods produced by altering genetically modified organisms’ DNA through genetic engineering. Many people support that GM foods are beneficial because there are numerals of advantages brought by the nutritive contents of GM foods. The major reason is that, according to Healthy Eating Club in Australia, GM foods can enhance human health because of their extra vitamins. There are thousands of children who go blind and die due to lack of vitamin A every year in developing countries. GM food may help them.

Another strongest reason is that GM foods with increased levels of chemicals and nutrition help to protect against cancers and heart diseases, for example, transgenic tomato. Flavonol is substance against cancer and heart diseases. The gene inserted in this tomato boosts the production of enzyme chalcone isomerase (CHI) and flavonol synthesis in tomato is controlled by chalcone isomerase (CHI). A large amount of Flavonol which can help to protect against cancer and heart diseases is produced in the GM foods.

Some people, however, are opposed to the ideas of GM foods are beneficial because considering the safety of GM foods is an essential part of the arguments. A strong objection is the fact that, introducing foreign genes into food plants may trigger some unexpected risks, side effects and impacts on human health due to the changing of chemical compositions. The effects of incorporating genes into plants are not predictable.

GM foods are safe for eating is still questionable. It is apparent from the above information that there are both benefits and potential effects of eating GM foods. Benefits include providing extra sufficient vitamins to human body and protecting against cancer and diseases. Potential effect is unpredictable chemical reactions to human body.



Andrew Rowell, 2003, The true story of GM food, 15th July 2003 p.146-147

Anderson, 1999, “Genetic engineering, food and our environment” Luke Green Books


Vocabulary:
prestigious-classic,famous
verdict-judgment,decision,determination
rebut-counter, prohibit, controvert
falsified-tell lies
daffodil-one type of flowers

Summary the lecture on 30 January

Three lecturers Mr Palmer, Mr Benjamin and Mr Bala, each one gave us a presentation on the lecture of 30 January. They all had concerned about global warming in different views and aspects. In the first presentation, Mr Palmer elaborated the emission of carbon dioxide in recent years; in the second presentation, Mr Benjamin used science and technology to address energy and technological problems; in the final presentation, Mr Bala simply talked about the causes, effects and solutions of global warming.

Firstly, Mr Palmer focused on the emission of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide throughout his presentation. He showed us the curve of emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from 1750 to 2000 at the beginning. It had been risen rapidly and the tendency is continuing. He then analyzed the ways of reducing carbon dioxide in fuel efficiency and conservation, switching to alternative energy sources and mitigation. He also showed us another curve that the emission of carbon dioxide had reduced after actions had been taken in UK. Finally, he said that "We will be lucky if the problem can be tackles in next 100 years".

Secondly, Mr Benjamin expounded about four different stands of determinism, technological, structural, autonomous technology and consequential determinism. Since there are cultural and behavioral challenges, public apathy and misunderstanding, psychological resistance and environmental concerns, not all the technologies is acceptable from public. To make people accept new policies or technologies, social concerns are important. Mr Benjamin stated that science and technology study methods provide a useful lens to evaluate new technologies.

Finally, Mr Bela talked about the human activities and factors affecting the climate change, greenhouse effect, future predictions, potential result of our earth, difficulties in dealing with the global warming problems and how to reducing the emission of carbon dioxide. Those information is similar to the first presentation and it is very common. I believe everyone had heard about it from public media.

Personally, I found more interests from the first two presentations. About the first one, Mr Palmer showed us some facts, it is more realistic. Furthermore, the curve that the emission of carbon dioxide had reduced after actions had been taken in UK can encourage us to take actions and the final sentence of Mr Palmer impressed me so much. About the second one, it seems be some information new to us. We can know more strategies to implement policies and new technologies, so i like it as well. After this lecture, anyone knows what can we do to save our earth. It is valuable and worth.

Policies of HKSAR govenment to tackle problems of global warming

The Hong Kong Observatory predicts that Hong Kong will experience a 3.5
degree centigrade rise in temperature over the city’s 1990 figure by the end of 21st century, which is a rate even higher than the world’s average. The
imminent crisis resulted from global warming is evident to Hong Kong.

The effect of global warming has been a hot topic for years. One million species are threatened with extinction by climate change. Disappearing Plankton, bottom of the food chain, disturbs the whole ecological environment. Weakened forests would give way to grasslands, and many forest species would fade away. Drought and possibly famine may be happened in China, the source of much of Hong Kong's food. Hong Kong could also be at risk from flooding as sea levels rose.

To save our earth, policies from difference countries had been issued. The major cause of global warming is the emission of green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, most of the policies are aimed to avoid green house gases.

In Hong Kong, Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy of HKSAR Government can help to reduce the problems of global warming. It encompasses protection of natural habitats, establishing sites with Special Scientific Interests(SSI), nature and parks such as country parks and marine parks reserve. Prevention of environmental degradation by law, Harbour Protection Ordinance, Ordinances for protection of endangered species, various pollution ordinances, is also included.

Renewable energy use and fewer cars are also encouraged. Hong Kong has been working closely with other economies, especially its neighbors and is charting a course to transform the highly developed Pearl River Delta Region into a green and quality living area, through setting joint targets on reducing emissions and co-operation in development of renewable energy, among other measures.

Actually, there are three main policies of HKSAR government. Firstly, cooperation with the Mainland. Extending the emission trading regime between the HKSAR and Guangdong Governments to cover carbon emissions. Secondly, energy policy. Securing the sustainable supply of liquefied natural gas in long term and facilitating increasing use of natural gas and adopting a regulatory approach to encourage energy conservation by end users. Finally, pollution tracking. Pollution mapping to enable more specific emission reduction targets to be set, and to improve micro-climates of specific districts through appropriate town planning and urban design measures.

Government has planned for long-lasting development so that it would not adversely affect the future environment nor have any impact to next generation. However, it is not enough. To tackle the problems of global warming, everyone is responsible to participate.

The expanding world of engineering

"An engineer's training helps to systematically analyze complex information and apply a holistic approach in designing solution."How an engineer accomplishes this?

First of all, we must know that what is engineer's training? Engineer's training usually embraces computer technology, mathematics and physics. Besides, some may include environment, safety, health learning ,systems control and some specific trainings of different aspects such as electrical, mechanical and civil.

Most of the engineers should be able to use different computer softwares to control different sorts of control systems. It's because engineer's works can be running transportation systems, managing health-care systems or large scale projects and mega developments which are mentioned in Prof. Seeram Ramarkrishna's article.

As an electrical engineering student, I have been trained in electrical installation practice, lighting and electrical system design, basic scientific computing, power monitoring, integrated building systems. Most of them are system control related. I think engineering students should not just focus on the theoretical knowledge but on practical. I believe engineering education would also provide some sorts of practical trainings to engineering students. How are these works related to the systematically analysis of engineers?

Engineers must follow the step by step instructions for doing an analysis. That is the work they usually do in their trainings and also when using a software of control system. Firstly, they divide a complex sets of information into many small sets. Then, they would find out the solutions individually. They also think about what is the next stage or result when doing the first one in each small parts. There are general sequence and various stages needed to be undertaken to find out the outcomes.

We know that if a small part of control system is failed, serious consequences may be triggered. Therefore, engineers are aware of each steps. They consider the possible results when doing each parts. If there is any conflict, they will avoid it. Finally, they would also link up the related information from different parts. Mostly, engineers would also find out the solutions which are analysed by mathematics and physics. That's the systmaticlly approach in designing solutions.

Personally, systematically analysis is a effective way to design solution. It provides a comprehensive approach to outcomes, evaluation, monitoring and strategic planning. It helps us to think about the strategic planning steps, determine which parts should be the focus and the overall monitoring. Engineers have the mind of systematically analysis, that may be the main reason why the world of engineers is expanding.