Textkompetenz: Why the EU should intervene to stop Hungary from a dictatorship

Here's the link to our text: http://heroldflux.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/why-european-union-schould-intervene-to.html

EU project: European Citizenship

Original Paragraph

European Citizenship

Everybody who is a citizen of a country in the European Union is automatically an EU citizen. As you probably know, citizenship means belonging to a community in which every citizen has certain rights and duties. Therefore, European Citizenship means belonging to the European Union. There are a number of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by birth, descent, marriage or naturalisation (which means spending at least a certain amount of your life in a country legally). An EU citizenship has various advantages: A well-known advantage of EU citizenship is the right to move and reside freely within the EU, under the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU country. In practice, this means a British person can move to Greece and work there without having to ask for permission from the local authorities. Should this expectation not be met, EU citizens can sign a petition at the European Parliament and lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman. People with a European citizenship can also directly influence politics by either casting their voice in an EU-wide election or even standing as a candidate for the European Parliament. However, there are also disadvantages about EU citizenship: For example, the right to reside and work in another country does not necessarily mean being accepted by its people immediately and many have to face racism and prejudice every day. To make matters worse, local authorities are mostly incapable of providing social services such as housing, education and health care. While they are struggling to master this challenge, the citizens blame the immigrants for allegedly taking over their country and stealing their jobs. Some also fear the loss of their national identity and cultural heritage, which is a common cause for xenophobia. After all, being a European citizen does not only bring important rights with it, but in order to grant the European community to live together peacefully, each and every citizen has to live up to their responsibilities.

(329 words)



Final Paragraph
 
European Citizenship

Every citizen of a country in the European Union is automatically an EU citizen. There are a number of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by birth, descent, marriage or naturalisation. EU citizenship has various advantages, for example, people with European citizenship can directly influence EU politics by either casting their voice in EU-wide elections or even standing as a candidate for the European Parliament. Another well-known benefit is the right to move and reside freely within the EU, under the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU country. In practice, this means a British person can move to Greece and work there without having to ask for permission from the local authorities. However, there are also disadvantages about the right of free movement within the EU: The right to reside and work in another country does not necessarily mean being accepted by its people immediately and many immigrants have to face racism and prejudice every day. To make matters worse, more and more local residents also fear the loss of their national identity and cultural heritage, which is a common cause for xenophobia.  Being a European citizen not only entails important rights and benefits, but in order to allow the European community to live together peacefully, each and every citizen has to live up to their responsibilities.

(222 words)

EU individual paragraph

Brainstorming:

• what topic was news to me?
• European Year of Citizens: individuals in the center, make EU less complex
• since 1983: every year different topic
• funding, laws have been amended

Original Paragraph:

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this means. After doing some research on the Internet later at home, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. Especially this year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is interesting for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”, which means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it.  


Feedback I:  

In general, the people in my group mentioned that some parts of my text seem to be unnecessary and a bit long-winded (e.g. I don’t have to point out whereI did my research on the Internet). Also one of the sentences seems to be a bit too long and can be shortened easily in order to make it easier for readers to understand what I want to express. Another improvement would be to subisdise the phrase "what this means" with "what this meant" or even only with "what this was" as it would be better to use the past tense.

Regarding to the topic sentence, Laura, Tiana and Harald were pleased with it as they thought it is a good idea to begin with a personal experience and then get further into it. 

Version 2: 

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this was. After doing some research on the Internet, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. Especially this year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is interesting for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”. This means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it. 

Feedback 2:
The people reading my paragraph seemed to be pleased with my work. Since I described my own experiences and how I found out more about the European Year I did not use a lot of high-register vocabulary but the others thought it is fine like this. However, what I definitely need to correct is the "especially" as it should not be at the beginning of a sentence. Also making a stronger connection between the 5^th and the 6^th sentence will improve my paragraph as the theme-rheme-structure is not obvious.

Final Version: 

Aspect of the EU that interests me from this week’s class

While most of the terms that were raised in class seemed familiar to me, I have never heard of the “European Year” before.  In class we found out that 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens” but I still did not know what this was. After doing some research on the Internet, I came across an interesting article on the European Year and its purpose. Every year since 1983 the EU calls attention to a certain topic in order to raise awareness and make people ponder. In previous years, various projects in connection with the European Year’s theme have been financially supported by the EU and in some cases laws have been amended. This year’s theme, celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, is particularly important for all of us as it is the “European Year of Citizens”. This means that the main focus is on how the EU affects the lives of us individuals.  The further goals of this year will be to make the EU look less complicated and gigantic as well as to point out the advantages of being a part of it.