Reported speech

I am hereby providing some documents on reported speech as well as object and subject questions with the key for the exercises from English Grammar in Use: Intermediate by Raymond Murphy.  More  exercises on reported speech along with the key are also made available.

Here you can also find more information on subject, object, verb, tense, time and location modifications in reported speech and indirect speech. (Business Grammar Builder by Paul Emmerson)

Subjunctive

A webpage on the use of subjunctive is hereby made available.

The dont's for PowerPoint

Here you can find Don McMillan's standup on the dont's of a PowerPoint presentation.

More tips on PowerPoint presentations

Here you can find list of do's and dont's for PowerPoint presentations.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

Here you can find Guy Kawasaki's recommendations on the length (10 slides), duration (20 minutes) and font size (30 points) in a PowerPoint presentation.

Here you can find a stream of his pitch. ('Bozo' means 'fool'.)

Lists of three and the rule of 3s: two speeches

Here you can find the first part of Steve Jobs's iPhone product launch speech.

Here you can find Barack Obama's inauguration speech.

In both of them, please pay attention to the usage of the lists of three and the rule of 3.

Here is a stream where the rule of 3s is explained among other useful tips on making presentations.

Sample summary text with reflections

Return to Maasticht 

Maastricht is on the border between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. It gave birth to the euro, and the city gave its name to the European treaty that was negotiated 20 years ago. However, the Netherlands will not celebrate this anniversary, even though there are some signatures of well-known politician’s on the walls of a famous wine-cellar in this city.

During the euro crisis the Netherlands asked for tougher measures and rigid fiscal rules. The immigration minister has been tightening the immigration policy even for EU citizens. The Dutch are sceptical against certain new Member States’ joining the EU’s Schengen passport-free travel zone. This is because there is a huge support for anti-immigration parties, and the Prime Minister has to work with these parties to form a government.

It is incomprehensible that Wilders’s party topped the polls in Maastricht, given that the city is popular with cross-border shoppers and short-break holiday-makers, and half of the university students speak English.

Nevertheless, one can argue that this party is not anti-immigration, but rather anti-Islam. People are afraid of Muslim extremists. They believe that you should not bite the hand that feeds you; as a guest you have to respect the rules of the place you want to live in. Moreover, since 9/11 people have become more afraid of the possibility of such an event also occurring in their cities. They just ask themselves when there will be another terrorist attack.

At the moment the institution of “Europe” is not working efficiently, as the ordinary people consider European Parlementarians to be part of a grabbing-culture. Europe is time-wasting and unjust, even though the euro is one of the best things that has ever happened for Europe.

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Here is the text summarised.