IT Technical English - I

Second Semester - 2021

Lecture 2:IT Technical English I

Basic English

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Sentences

Sentences are groups of words that make complete sense.

Statements Questions
John hasn’t paid his rent for two months. Are you well?
All these toys were made by Uncle Joe. Have they finished painting the house?

Commands Long Sentences

Come to the office at ten. Sedimentary rocks, wherever they are, tell
Stop us about ancient climatic conditions, and
geological events that happened in the are
a during the time the sediments were depo
Short Sentences sited.
Susan lives there.
Where are you going?

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Clause and Phrase

A clause is a group of words that consists of a subject and a verb.

 He laughed.
 The guests arrived.
A phrase is a group of words that does not consists of a subject and
a verb.
 under the table • after the exams
 in the drawer • hundreds of fish
 eating peanuts • through the door

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Words — and their functions

We classify words according to the work they do.

If you’ve heard of parts of speech it simply means classes of words,
grouped according to function.
We will deal with them in the following order:
 Nouns the names of things
 Pronouns the he me them words
 Verbs the action words
 Adjectives the describing words
 Adverbs modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly),
an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended
too quickly)
 Prepositions the to in at words
And a few other bits and pieces.
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Noun

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 Pronoun
These are the words we use when we want to refer to people or things without continually
repeating their names.

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Verb

Verbs are the doing, being, having words. Their basic forms are the
forms you find in the dictionary, and you can put to in front.
to eat to write to sing
The “to” form is called the infinitive. It’s the one they used to tell us
not to split.
Verbs can be

One Word Two Words Three Words More than three

He finished the work yeste Sam is coming.
I’ll be seeing them later. By September they will
rday. He was running round in
She will have finished by have been living here for
I have the tools you want. circles.
then. two years.
This tea is awful! Have you started yet?

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Adverb

They used to say that adverbs tell how, when and where a thing is
done. You’d expect, therefore, to find adverbs connected to verbs, and
that’s where they mostly are, not always alongside, but still connected.
 “No”, he said, and laughed loudly.
 We’ve carefully planned all the moves.
 Please arrive punctually.
There are adverbs of:
 Manner: wisely, happily, clumsily, honestly, well, fast, hard
 Time: yesterday, then, later, frequently
 Place: here, there, down, somewhere
 Degree: quite, almost, very
 Question: How? Why? Where? When?

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 Prepositions
Prepositions tell us how something is positioned or done in relation to something else.
We use them for place, for time and in abstract ideas.
Conjunctions
These are words that join ideas.

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Punctuation

Suddenly one day you have to produce something in writing. Is writing

something you enjoy? Then you may not find it difficult.

But perhaps you really don’t like writing at all, and you’re faced with
having to write something. An advertisement maybe? A report? Some
family history material? Minutes for a club or committee? How will
you deal with it?

Punctuation will actually help you to say what you want to say, and
help you say it clearly.

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Punctuation
If we didn’t already have a system of punctuation, someone would
invent one.

The problem is that we have a perfectly good one but people

don’t know it – so they write or type a line or two – then
have a vague feeling that there should be some sort of mark
to indicate some sort of pause – so they do the first thing
they can think of – and put in a quick shapeless pen stroke –
or tap the hyphen key – and presto the thing is punctuated.

The problem is that we have a perfectly good one, but

people don’t know it. They write or type a line or two, then
have a vague feeling that there should be some sort of
mark to indicate some sort of pause. So they do the first
thing they can think of. They put in a quick shapeless pen
stroke, or tap the hyphen key, and presto! The thing is
punctuated. 13
I want to break up a long sentence

How do you decide when a sentence is finished?

How do you know when to use a full stop and when to use a comma
[ , ], or occasionally a semicolon [ ; ]?
Here are some sentences to consider, and then improve.

We met the three of them in a café soon after we

arrived, we all had coffee together, they live out in
the suburbs now, they just happened to be in town
that day.

We met the three of them in a café soon after we

arrived. They live out in the suburbs now, and just
happened to be in town that day, so we all had
coffee together.
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What are colons and semicolons?

Colons [ : ] are the marks you use to introduce a list of things.

Semicolons [ ; ] are another way of dividing a sentence, or of joining
two sentences, usually to link two thoughts that are very closely related
to each other.

Modern advertising doesn’t only aim to inform

us about new products and services; it aims to
make us buy them.

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 Hyphen and Dash

The hyphen (-) is used to separate parts of a word.

The dash (–) is used to separate parts of a sentence.

(Note: The dash can be represented by two hyphens.)

 Dashes should be used in all of the following
sentences. Notice the potential for confusion when the
hyphen is used instead of the dash.

I have told you everything I know-nothing has been omitted

from my account.
Whatever may be your pleasure-seek no further,
friends-you have come to the right place!
Boy, I love being single-parents, I feel for
you-because I don’t think I’ll ever get
married and have kids.
Please find a place to sit-down on the
left there-and we can get started.
Confused yet? Using a dash instead of a hyphen will correct
all of these sentences:

I have told you everything I know—

nothing has been omitted from my
account.
Whatever may be your pleasure—seek
no further, friends—you have come to the right place!
Boy, I love being single—parents, I feel for you—because I
don’t think I’ll ever get married and have kids.
Please find a place to sit—down on the left there—and we can
get started.
 Use a Hyphen

To separate the parts of a compound adjective or noun

• a well-written document
• a thought-provoking story
• out-of-state students
• out-of-shape people
• a five-year-old boy
• (BUT: The boy is five
• years old.)
• secretary-treasurer
• student-teacher ratio
• work-study program
• inner-city schools
• jack-in-the-box
• mother-in-law
 Capital letters

Capital letters can be confusing. When should I use them? When

shouldn’t I use them?
 Names of people [Yes] Tom, John and Clementine, Mr. Brown
 Names of places [Yes] France, Victoria, Geraldton
 Names of groups of people [Yes] French, Awabakal, Japanese
 Names of languages [Yes] Indonesian, German, Mandarin
 Names of everyday things [No] house, computer, cat
 Names of months and days [Yes] August, Monday, Anzac Day
 Street and road names [Yes] York Street, Oxley Highway,
 Special landmarks, buildings, etc. [Yes] The Sydney Harbour
Bridge
 Names of religions [Yes] Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam

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 Capital letters

Capital letters can be confusing. When should I use them? When

shouldn’t I use them?
 Literature, music, art, films [Yes and No]
 Usually capitals for the first word and the main words, small
letters for the rest
 Initials of organizations [Yes] RSPCA, UNICEF, AFL
 Official personal titles [Yes and No]
 Caps for main words, lower case for the rest.
 Scientific names of plants and animals [Yes and No]
 The generic (first) name always has a capital, the specific
(second) name doesn’t. Both are always in italics. For
Example: Eucalyptus haemastoma, Mus musculum

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When should I use apostrophes?

The apostrophe always follows the owner.

 I must take Jill’s book back.
 Jill owns the book.
 He keeps an eye on William’s house.
 William owns the house.

What if the owner is plural?

 We try to encourage gardening in this school. Here is the infants’
section, over there is the primary boys’ part, and the next one is the
primary girls’ section. I’m afraid the teachers’ garden is still in the
future.

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When should I use apostrophes?

Here are the conventional spellings of the common ones.

I have → I’ve he is, he has → he’s
I had, I would → I’d he had, he would → he’d
I am → I’m he will → he’ll
I will → I’ll

we have → we’ve they have → they’ve

we had, we would → we’d they had or would → they’d
we are → we’re they are → they’re
we will → we’ll they will → they’ll

you have → you’ve it is → it’s

you had, you would → you’d it had, it would → it’d
you are → you’re it will → it’ll
you will → you’ll
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When should I use apostrophes?

Here are the conventional spellings of the common ones.

will not → won’t is not → isn’t
do not → don’t was not → wasn’t
shall not → shan’t were not → weren’t
cannot → can’t are not → aren’t
must not → mustn’t must have → must’ve
should not → shouldn’t should have → should’ve
would not → wouldn’t would have → would’ve
could not → couldn’t could have → could’ve
have not → haven’t had not → hadn’t
did not → didn’t

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Subject verb agreement

Basic Rule. A singular subject (she, Bill, car) takes a singular verb (is,
goes, shines), whereas a plural subject takes a plural verb.
 The student, as well as the committee members, is excited.
 The focus of the interviews was nine purposively selected
participants.
 Neither alternative hypothesis was accepted.
 There is little administrative support.
 I will offer a $5 gift card to everybody who participates in the
study.

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 Common Errors
It was the most depressed movie I have ever seen.
It was the most depressing movie I have ever seen. (Participles as
adjective)
He approached carefully the building.
He carefully approached the building. (Adverb placement)
I will tell him when I will see him tomorrow.
I will tell him when I see him tomorrow. (Time clauses, when)
She wishes you live nearer.
She wishes you lived nearer. (Wish)
He asked where is my mother?
He asked where my mother was (Reported Question)

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IT Vocabulary

Anti-aliasing
 (noun)~ A software technique for smoothing the jagged
appearance of curved or diagonal lines caused by poor resolution
on a display screen. Methods of anti-aliasing include surrounding
pixels with intermediate shades and manipulating the size and
horizontal alignment of the pixels.
Application Virtualization
 (noun)~ The process of creating a virtual application.
Back Door
 (noun)~ A hardware or software-based hidden entrance to a
computer system that can be used to bypass the system’s security
policies.

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IT Vocabulary

Backend
 (adjective)~ In a client/server application, the part of the program
that runs on the server.
Bandwidth
 (noun)~ The data transfer capacity, or speed of transmission, of a
digital communications system as measured in bits per second
(bps)
Benchmark
 (noun)~ A quantitative measure of performance
Cache
 (verb)~ To store frequently used data values in a special memory
subsystem for quick access.

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IT Vocabulary

Client area
 (noun)~ The portion of a Windows-based application excluding
toolbars, menus, and status bars
Clustering
 (noun)~ A data mining technique that analyzes data to group
records together according to their location within the
multidimensional attribute space
Data buffer
 (noun)~ An area in memory where data is temporarily stored while
being moved from one location to another.
Data explosion
 (noun)~ The exponential growth in size of a multidimensional
structure, such as a cube, due to the storage of aggregated data.
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IT Vocabulary

Data center
 (noun)~ A facility used to house mission critical computer systems
and associated components. It generally includes environmental
controls (air conditioning, fire suppression, etc.), redundant/backup
power supplies, redundant data communications connections and
high security.
Data source
 (noun)~ A disk, file, document, or other collection of information
from which data is taken or moved.
Data structure
 (noun)~ An organizational scheme, such as a record or array, that
can be applied to data to facilitate interpreting the data or
performing operations on it.
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IT Vocabulary

Decrypt
 (verb)~ To convert encrypted content back into its original form.
Downsample
 (verb)~ To decrease the number of audio samples or pixels, by
applying an operation such as averaging. Popular internet music
formats, such as MP3, use downsampling to reduce file size
Emulate
 (verb)~ For a hardware or software system to behave in the same
manner as another hardware or software system
Floating
 (adj)~ Able to move freely as its own window. A floating window
is always on top. Toolbars, menu bars, the toolbox, and palettes
can float.
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