ASSIGNMENT

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OUMH1203
OUMH1203 ENGLISH FOR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
JANUARY 2017 SEMESTER
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INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS

1. This assignment contains seven (7) questions that is set in the language of the printed module for the
course. Answer FIVE (5) only.

2. Answer in English.

3. Learners are to submit assignment only in MS-WORD format unless specified otherwise. Please refrain
from converting text/phrases into picture format such as .gif / .jpeg / print screen / etc.

4. Download the language version of the assignment template concerned from the myINSPIRE for
preparation and submission of your assignment. Your assignment should be typed using 12 point Times
New Roman font and 1.5 line spacing.

5. Your assignment should be 500 words each questions excluding references. Do not copy the assignment
question and instructions to your answer. Only assignment answer developed within the approximate
word limit will be assessed. The number of words should be shown at the end of your assignment.

6. You must submit your assignment ONLINE via the myINSPIRE. Refer to the portal for instructions on
the procedures to submit your assignment online. You are advised to keep a copy of your submitted
assignment and proof of the submission for personal reference.

7. You can submit your assignment ONCE only in a SINGLE file.

8. Your assignment must be submitted between 6th 19th March 2017. Submission after 19th March 2017
will NOT be accepted.

9. Your assignment should be prepared individually. You should not copy another persons assignment. You
should also not plagiarise another persons work as your own.

10. Please take note that PENALTY will be imposed on late submission of assignment as specified in the
Registrars Office circular 6/2012 (Refer to Registrars Announcement in myVLE).

11. Please ensure that you keep the RECEIPT issued upon submisson of your assignment as proof of
submission. Your assignment is considered as NOT submitted if you fail to produce the submission receipt
in any dispute arises concerning assignment submission.

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EVALUATION

This assignment accounts for 50% of the total marks for the course and shall be assessed
based on the Rubrics or Answer Scheme attached.

You would be given feedback on the assignment before the Final Semester Examination
commences.

PLAGIARISM: MARKS DEDUCTION

Warning: The submitted assignment will automatically undergo a similarity check. If

plagiarism is detected, marks would be deducted as follows:

No. Similarity Percentage (%) Marks Deduction (%)

1. 0 30 0
2. 30.01 50 5
3. 50.01 70 10
4. 70.01 - 100 100

Assignments found to have similarities under any of the categories above; will not be entitled
to apply for appeal. For learners who fall into the 70.01-100 similarities group, the access for
online appeal for assignment remarking of the subject will be disabled from the appeal
options.

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 ASSIGNMENT QUESTION

Written assessment (there are seven questions in this assignment, answer FIVE questions
ONLY. 10 marks each. Each essay must contain approximately 500 words).

1. Despite the many advantages of the internet, some people believe that it creates
many problems.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Internet is revolutionizing our society, our economy and our technological

systems and it is also means the ability to send and receive data for every day. The
important technological developments have created a global environment that
making the people closer and closer together. There are many online applications are
available to the Internet user such as e-mail, web browsing, online gaming, streaming
music and video and instant messaging like the most popular nowadays Whatsapp,
Facebook, Instagram and so on.
Firstly, from the positive side point of view, internet makes communication
become much easier for every person in this world. It can bring people to
communicate with their families or relatives or friends even in work or even in far
distance from them. The internet has given us the opportunity to connect to any place
in the world, to share or get information in only a few minutes. The best thing about
the internet is that getting information is much faster and easier. It seems like people
are getting out of borders and this can bring the whole world in one room by just
using a computer. Besides of the positive things that it brings, internet also can cause
many problems in humans life.
Despite the fact that the internet is saving our time, it has critically become a
problem nowadays. Many people, especially the young, spend too much time on it.
There is a lot of wrong information on the internet and it is also causes some people
are getting addicted to it and they have already stopped to hang out with their friends,
started to live with a virtual life. Thus, this caused problems with their interactions of
family, relatives, friends and loved ones. People more often use indirect
communication on the internet, use the signs and symbols until they forget how to act
in real society.

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 Furthermore, the internet has almost certainly led to an increase in the overall
level of sexual offending against children and young people. There are many cases of
pornography that can get in the hands of young children too easily and they will
waste a lot of time on the internet it is means the child or young adult spending
excessive amounts of time and energy on the social media sites. Many children often
feel free enough to explore their sexuality and desires without anyone knowing who
they are, this can very harmful to them. They will lost interest in activities they
previously enjoyed, stay up late to online, have irregular sleep patterns and they try
to escape many problem by just spending a lot of time to online.
In conclusion, there are many negative effect on the internet addiction such as
have problems in family relation, academic grades, healthy and lack of
communication skills in real life especially among youth. In order to save the next
generation, parent is the one who can help in reducing this internet addiction problem
towards their children by creates the time with children to knowing about their
feelings and improves their social interactions.
(503 words)

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2. Nowadays, many students decide to further their studies abroad.
Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of studying abroad.

Nowadays, many people especially young interest travel around world to

explore many different countries, cultures and might get some experience from there.
Moreover, many teenagers take education as their ticket to explore many new things
in a foreign university. Instead, students want to challenge themselves to get great
qualifications and have advanced skills as examples knowledge many different
languages that might help them to get a great job in future. Different people have
different perspective whether studying abroad is beneficial or not. From my
perspective, I believe that there are some benefits and drawbacks of studying
overseas.

Firstly, every student dreams to go to the best universities because they could
use better facilities provided and access the latest development in science and
technology. Beyond that, they can learn as much they want from the most
knowledgeable lecturers. Studying abroad gives the opportunity to experience foreign
traditions, learn variety of attitudes from different people, create social networks,
widen their prospects and shared it to others. For instance, students from Asian can
explore the lifestyle and culture of British while they study in the country.

Secondly, there is differences academic education from other countries

compare to domestic education. In overseas, many higher skills can be comprehensive
by receiving different education. Furthermore, the book resources are more up-to-date
because most of the best textbook published from overseas. For example, Asians
student like Malaysian especially for medical student will buy references book from
overseas, seem the book provides detail and latest information that they need to learn.
To get the book shipping to Malaysia it is taking time. So there will be advantages for
student there, they can get any book as well as fast they want.

From other perspective, I certainly believe on that while study at overseas it is

also has drawbacks, even the advantages that we can see are more obvious. As
mentioned before, different people have different interpretations about this issue. First
of all, student will suffer home sickness, loneliness and make them feel depression. As
instance, overseas student that fell depressed bring them towards lack of
communication skill with people surrounding and they unable to understand the local

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 customs and lifestyle. This may be serious if student will experience drain brain and
loss their great talent.

Another drawback of abroad study is when some student start to adapt the new
culture that they have learned from foreign country. Relate to this issue, the
knowledge of social acquired in the other countries make them become more open
minded sometimes will be changed to extremist. This adaptation can be danger for
them. For example, some country LGBT is prohibited, but student might bring this
kind of culture that they have observed from overseas to their country. This will be
danger for next generation.

Here, it can be concluded there some advantages and drawbacks for abroad
student. Advantages student can gain wide about others culture and education. At the
same time, there will be disadvantages for this issues, some student will experience
the loneliness and depression. This can lead them to mental break down.

(512 words)

3. Problems with environmental pollution have become so serious that many

countries are trying to solve these problems.

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Suggest possible solutions and give your own opinion.

Pollution is an undesirable change in the environment. Pollution causes

imbalance in the environment. This imbalance is a threat to the whole world. There
are many types of environmental pollution which are water pollution, air pollution,
thermal pollution, soil pollution, noise pollution and light pollution. Mostly, the
deforestation and hazardous gaseous emissions also leads to environmental pollution.
All these are unbalanced will affects in a growth of life in this world and may destroy
habitats or kill life on larger scales. The increase in pollution has resulted in global
warming that could result in rising sea level, changes in weather patterns and this
make the world are experiencing the floods, hurricanes and other natural disaster.

There are several things we can do to deal with environmental pollution. One
is to stop making the deforestation which is leads to the imbalance the temperature
that making conditions for the ecology difficult and results in huge loss of forest.
Deforestation produces excessive amount of carbon dioxide known as greenhouse gas
and to reduce it we need to plant more trees because trees absorb carbon dioxide and
produces oxygen. All the trees that have been cut down must be replaced by young
trees to replace the older ones that were cut. Other than that, the government rules
should be stricter and cutting of forest must be banned.

We also can do by switching the waste from oil, coal and gas to renewable
energy. Examples of renewable resources can be found daily around the world
from windmills to solar panels and from cornfields to forests. Renewable resources
include sustainable resources that never run out such as solar power, wind power,
biomass, hydroelectricity that helps to minimize the impact humanity has on the
global and ensuring continued survival. Without sustainable and renewable resources,
the global's natural resources would eventually be exhausted and life would come to
an end. Generally, we should be wise to use the energy as examples by encourage our
family to use the public transportation like bus, train or bike this will reduce the
amount of pollution.

Other than that, we also can apply in how to use less energy by doing reduce,
recycle and reuse. Environment become friendly if we minimize the energy usage and
the temperature not rise too much. Reduce which means reducing the waste that we

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 produce every day. This can help in order to conserves the environment and resources.
More important after we reduce the waste, we do the recycle. Recycling begins at
home, we making new products from old products that we not use anymore. At same
time, it will be economically for us time in time. Lastly, reuse is another ways to
reduce the waste. For example, we can use the reusable containers rather than
disposable bags to store food.

As conclusion, it is impossible to stop the environmental pollution, but what

we can do is better if we try to prevent is as soon as possible. In order to reduce it in
future we just have to understand that pollution is serious issue and to protect
ourselves.

(512 words)

4. Global warming is one of the most serious issues that the world is facing today.
What are the causes of global warming and what measures can governments and
individuals take to tackle the issue?

Discuss.

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 Global warming has becomes a serious issue nowadays, it is defined as an
increase the average temperature of the Earth caused by the presence of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere, which can cause changes in the global climate. Greenhouse
effect is the major cause of global warming which naturally greenhouse gases such as
carbon dioxide CO2, nitrous oxide N2O and carbon Chlorofluorocarbons CFC caused
a condensed layer known as ozone formed surrounding Earths surface. This can
result heat will warming the air around the Earth. It is becomes the most serious
problem that the world is facing today.

As the population of the world grows drastically, the needs of transportations

are also increasing. People use fossil fuel to generate some power from machines for
their needs in order to make them life easier. Humans activities include burning fossil
fuel, deforestation or industrial production may due to the global warming to happens.
We as human or government need to find solution to prevent the global warming
become more critical. Government should implement the rules by take an action to
human who involves in cutting down trees and minimize the deforestation activities
because if human continuing deforestation, the excessive amount of carbon dioxide
cannot be absorbed by the trees.

At the same time, due to the prevention it can help to conserve the
environmental and to protect our mother nature. Since, trees are quite efficient in
converting energy as example absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Hence this
can control the problem of global warming very quickly with low cost by planting
trees. Planting of the trees is the only way we can reverse the effects of global
warming. This method by planting trees is the best solution to reduce the global
warming within short time to reduce the contribution of greenhouse gases to the
atmosphere. People also should be advised and suggested to plant more and more
trees. Trees will help to improve the temperature on earth and maintain the ecological
balance.

Human should do wise choice for their life needed. They supposedly need to
reduce or stop open burning such as burning garbage. Open burning will release
carbon dioxide especially plastic which is contain toxic substances that can harmful
the environment. Other than that by choosing a hybrid car it will reduce the
consumption of fuel gasoline. Besides, petrol is the causes of the contribution of

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 carbon dioxide. Another way to reduce gasoline is better take public transportation or
sharing a car simply it will save cost. Government and single of individual must get
together to tackle the problem of global warming by managing the surroundings
around places.

As conclusion, global warming have causes many problems for human but we
are human who make the global warming happens. Therefore, if our generations do
not taking care of the earth to reduce global warming now the next generation will
suffer it. So, we have to deal with this serious problem of global warming effect that
can pose the biggest threat to life on earth.

(503 words)

5. In many countries it is now illegal to smoke in public places. It is only fair that
people who wish to smoke should have to leave the building.
In your opinion, can this be applied in Malaysia? Support your answer with
examples.

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 At this era, one of the most horrible problems that killing people all over
around the world is smoking. Smoking is a dangerous habit, which it is contain
harmful substances such as nicotine, drugs or carcinogens that might cause cancer.
This such kind of harmful substances will simultaneously damages humans organs
lungs and brain. Many people start this bad habit smoking because of personal issues,
depression or wanted to try something new. But they did not realize that one cigarette
actually can lead them to major addiction. The smoker can affect not only their health,
but it also can harm the non-smoker. When smoker smokes a cigarette they are not
only hurting themselves but others around them and many people are death because of
this reason.
Since every year there thousands of people die because have been exposed to
harmful smoke in public areas due to smoking. For my opinion, smoking in public
places should be banned. Im totally agreed if people who wish to smoke should have
to leave the building. Malaysias government should ban the smoker when smoking in
public areas such as in the company building and provide some places for smokers so
that the non-smoker will not affected. They can only smoke at certain area that is
personal and private. This can result for everyone to use and enjoy the clean air and
the risk of lungs cancer will become low.
First and foremost, the cigarette it has been proven consists of carcinogenic
compounds that lead to be dangerous for health. Therefore it causes for
many dangerous diseases such as lung cancer, heart attack or asthma. Anyone around
smoker can develop cancers of the lungs and hence no one noticed lung cancer is one
of the most diseases causes of death in the world. It is not fair if non-smoker influence
into this most horrible diseases. Smoker should not to be selfish, they should
conscious about the bad effect of smoking and need be more concern about other
peoples health too.
Furthermore, if smoking was to be banned in public places, this will give
conscious to the smokers to smoke lesser or quit smoking eventually. The reason why
smoker should leave the building if they want to smoking is the non-smoker in the
building will feel very uncomfortable when they inhale the smoke of a cigarette. For
example, there are many people of all ages in the building inhaled passively the
smoke cause distribution on their mood and health. Other example, pregnant women
also can be in the building and if they exposed to cigarettes smoke this will result an
increased risk of having abnormal baby.

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 As conclusion, the world would be a better place without cigarettes. Cigarette
is very harmful to mankind and people who wish to smoke should have to leave the
building. It is to encourage people to take steps to better their quality of life and to
take care of themselves as well as the people around them. So that, many people
would live in full of healthy life.
(507 words)

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 Assignment Rubrics

OUMH1203 ENGLISH FOR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

JANUARY 2017 SEMESTER

Use your discretion for marking the essays. Below are only the guidelines for essay rubrics.

Missing
Low Fair Above average Excellent
Item Max
Criteria Weight
0 1 2 3 4 Marks
INTRODUCTION 0.5 No introduction. There is no clear The introduction The introduction The introduction is 2
introduction to the states the main topic, clearly states the main inviting, states the
main topic or but does not topic and previews the main topic and
structure of the adequately preview structure of the previews the
paper/essay. the structure of the paper/essay, but is not structure of the
paper/essay nor is it particularly inviting to paper/essay.
particularly inviting the reader.
to the reader.

CONTENT 1 The main idea is The main idea is not The main idea is The main idea is clear There is one clear, 4
not mentioned. clear. There is a somewhat clear, but but the supporting well-focused topic.
seemingly random there is a need for information is general. Main idea stands out
collection of more supporting and is supported by
information. information. detailed information.

CONCLUSION 0.5 No conclusion. There is no clear The conclusion is The conclusion is The conclusion is 2
conclusion, the recognizable, but recognizable and ties strong and leaves the
paper/essay just ends. does not tie up up almost all the loose reader with a feeling
several loose ends. ends. that they understand
what the writer is
"getting at."
 Missing
Low Fair Above average Excellent
Item Max
Criteria Weight
0 1 2 3 4 Marks
LANGUAGE / 0.5 The writer makes The writer makes The writer makes 3-4 The writer makes 1-2 The writer makes no 2
GRAMMAR more than 5 more than 4 errors in errors in grammar errors in grammar errors in grammar
errors in grammar grammar (sentence (sentence structure) (sentence structure) (sentence structure)
or spelling that structure) or spelling or spelling that or spelling that or spelling that
distracts the that distract the distract the reader distract the reader distract the reader
reader from the reader from the from the content. from the content. from the content.
content. content.

TOTAL MARKS 10