I read this editorial on the Economist Website and then copied and pasted the text into the Academic Wordlist Highlighter. The Highlighter identified the following items from my article as belonging to the Academic Word List:
alternative, clarity, concentrated, constitutional, constitutional, contributed, disproportionately, economist, eliminated, estimates, fundamental, ideological, indicated, issue, items, labour, majority, minority, norm, plus, previous, proportion, proportional, redistributed, redistribution, regional, secure, secures, seek, selected, series, topics, undertaken, unique, version
How many of these words do you know? I was surprised to find so many, although I can see that some words may not really BELONG in this list. For example, in the context of the Economist article, LABOUR refers to a political party, not to work. I've added some dictionary definitions as links to words that I think might be useful to learn.
When I felt that I understood the article, I wrote this:
MY SUMMARY
This Thursday, the 5th of May, the UK is holding a referendum in which the public will be asked to vote on whether or not to change the voting system. In an editorial published on the 28th of April 2011, The Economist argues that the alternative voting system on offer (AV) is unsuitable and undesirable.
According to The Economist, the current voting system, known as “First Past The Post” (FPTP) is simple and clear but not particularly fair. The Economist supports this claim by pointing to the fact that the Liberal Democrats received almost 25% of all votes in the 2010 General Election, but under FPTP, won less than 10% of the seats in parliament.
Despite seeing flaws in FPTP, however, The Economist believes that AV will not deliver the changes that are needed. Although the success of the AV in Australia is outlined, The Economist claims that benefits of the system are exaggerated and that it is not nearly as fair as a third system, proportional representation.
168 words! Any comments???
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