Guidelines for Writing Compositions

A. The purpose of writing compositions (tema) at this level is to have you bring and apply all the knowledge of Italian you have acquired in class and to use it to express yourself in Italian. To help you make the most of the lessons in the text book, please use only the vocabulary and the grammar learned in the current and previous lessons. For the purpose of maximum practice, if you do not know to say what you want to say, paraphrase it using the grammatical constructions of the lessons. If you cannot say it in Italian do not say it at this time.

B. Your knowledge of the structure of English composition will serve you well in your Italian class. That is, you need to THINK about what you want to say and about how to organize your thoughts logically and clearly. Your composition or essay should be based on the paragraph, which normally includes a topic statement, supporting evidence given in logically related sentences with transitions from sentence to sentence, and a closing statement or conclusion.

To aid you in writing well thought out compositions look to the following pages of transitional words.

after (afterwards)	dopo, poi
always	sempre
as soon as	appena (non),appena
at last	infine, alla fine
at once	immediatamente, subito
briefly	brevemente, concisamente
eventually	eventualmente
finally	finalmente, alla fine
first, second, etc.	primo, secondo, ecc.
immediately	immediatamente
in a little while	fra un po'
in the meantime	nel frattempo
in the past/future	nel passato/futuro
last	finalmente, l'ultima volta, ultimo
later	tardi, piu` tardi
meanwhile	mentre, nel frattempo
next	dopo, prossimo
never	non ... mai
now	ora, adesso
often	spesso
once	una volta
promptly	prontamente, rapidamente
sometimes	qualche volta, a volte
soon	presto, subito
suddenly	all' improvviso
then	allora, a quel tempo
when	quando

above	sopra, in alto, lassu`
among	fra, tra
around	intorno a, vicino a
below	sotto, giu`
beside	accanto a, presso, vicino a
besides	inoltre, anche, per di pi˜
beyond	oltre, (al) di la`
down	sotto, in basso, in gi˜
forward	avanti, farsi avanti
from	da, a partire da
here	qui, quaqui
in front of	davanti, di fronte
inside	dentro
nearby	vicino (a)
next	prossimo, vicino
on, above	su
opposite	all'opposto, contrario
outside	fuori, all'aperto
through	attraverso
under	sotto, al di sotto di

accordingly	di conseguenza
as a result	come risultato
consequently	di conseguenza
for that reason	per tale ragione
hence	quindi, percio`
then	allora, a quel tempo
therefore	percio`, dunque, quindi
thus	cosi`, in questo modo
so	cosi`, in tale maniera
it follows	segue che

above all	soprattutto
equally	ugualmente, equalmente
especially	specialmente
indeed	effettivamente, realmente, in verita`, in effetti
principally	principalmente, per la maggior parte

after all	dopo tutto
as has been noted	da come e` stato notato
finally	per finire, finalmente
in brief (in short)	in breve, brevemente
in effect	in effetti
in other words	in altre parole
on the whole	in generale, nella totalita`
to summarize	per riassumere
that is so	questo e` tutto