Look through the letter of apology given below and define a topic of each paragraph
3) Choose one of the following situations a) or b) to write a letter of apology
a) Imagine that you are a young scientist. You conduct a scientific experiment with a senior colleague, your scientific adviser, who asked you to process the results of the experiment to present them at the international conference. You were terribly short of time and interpreted some data incorrectly. You discovered your mistake when your boss had already left for the conference. Write a letter of apology to him.
b) Imagine that you are a member of the international research team. You have a detailed plan of work, but due to some reason you can’t complete your part of the work in time. Write a letter of apology to the manager of the project explaining the reason for being behind the schedule and negotiate a new deadline.
Use appendix 7 for more samples and tasks of letter of apology and useful language given below.
| Useful language for letters of apology | ||
| Opening remarks | Formal | Informal |
| I am writing to apologize for / I must apologize for / please accept my sincerest apologies for / how can I apologize enough for / I must apologize profusely for | I hope you will understand when I say that / what can I say, except I’m sorry that / I’m sorry for / I owe you an apology / I’m sorry if I upset you in any way / I can’t describe how sorry I am and how guilty I feel | |
| Closing remarks | Once again, my sincerest apologies for / I hope you will accept my apologies / I hope my apologies will be / are accepted | I hope you believe me when I say how sorry I am / I can’t tell you how sorry I am / I beg you to forgive me for / there is no excuse for… and I hope you’ll forgive me |
4) Work in pairs and check your classmate’s letter using the Criteria for assessment of appendix 8
5) You are planning a trip to the USA. Choose your destination, for example, San-Diego, CA or Kansas, MO and find out as many details as possible in your price range. Compare any two sites on the USA travel, for example http://www.tripadvisor.com/ and http://www.expedia.com/daily/home/?affcid=cj2477067 or any others to be found on http://www.allmyfaves.com/ under the rubric TRAVEL. Which of the two travel sites you have compared provides more information, has better access to it, is more user-friendly (offering, for example, some information in Russian, but not only in English), etc.
Write a report on the results of your comparison, with its paragraphs corresponding to the words italicized in the previous sentence of this task.
Read the information in the second part of the textbook “Academic writing practice” about writing for a grant and compose reference cited. Another option for you is to find a sample reference cited in the Internet. Whatever the choice, make sure you come to mutual agreement with all the members of your research group.