Transcript 8 Tips to improve your writing

Ways To Improve Your
Writing!
Clauses at the beginning of a sentence are a
good idea, but avoid really long ones.
Instead of:
I train dogs. The animal shelter hires me. I do
this every weekend.
TRY:
As part of my weekend job at the animal shelter,
I train dogs.
Other examples:
Although the author used the first person, the
main character sustained an emotional distance
with the other characters.
Can you find other examples in texts?
While clauses at the beginnings of sentences are
great, you can have too much of a good thing.
Avoid really long clauses at the beginning of a
sentence:
Instead of:
"Every day, as I walk to work and pass
the kiosk, where they sell those delicious chocolate
bars, I stop to buy one.“
TRY
"Every day on my way to work, I stop to buy one of those
delicious chocolate bars that they sell at the kiosk."
Sentences that start with 'it' or dummy subjects, such as
'there is...' or 'there are...', are quite weak.
Instead of:
"It is often the case that mobile phones end up on the lunch trays after the
meal.“
TRY
"Mobile phones often end up on the lunch trays after the meal.“
Sentences that start with 'there is..' or 'there are... often have a 'who'
or 'which' that follow. These can be cleaned up as follows:
Instead of:
"There is this guy at school who always annoys me.“
TRY
"This guy at school always annoys me."
This may come more naturally for native
speakers of English. Nevertheless, many people
make mistakes in the verb tense that they use.
Be sure to know when to use each tense, such
as the present simple, the present perfect, etc.
Instead of:
"I am attending this school since 2010.“
TRY
"I have attended this school since 2010" (the present
perfect).
Using clauses in general is a good idea, as we
saw in the first tip. Using relative clauses, which
expand on ideas further (like this one), are also
a good idea. Relative clauses make use of words
such as 'which', 'who' and 'where‘
Instead of:
"I have a new job. I enjoy it a lot.“
TRY
"I have a new job, which I enjoy a lot."
It is good to read and reread your own work.
Often times during self-evaluation, you see sentences
that are not clear or 'run on'. Wordy sentences can be
cleaned up with punctuation and parallel constructions (Tip
7).
Instead of:
"If everyone in the building were to just clean up their own
garbage and if they just sorted it properly then the recycle
man wouldn't have to go through everything, then we wouldn't have
to pay extra fees for this service.“
TRY
"If everyone in the building disposed of his or her own waste in the
proper recycle bins, then we would not have extra expenses."
Although you may see sentences that start with
'But' in other works, you should avoid starting
sentences with it for academic purposes.
Instead of:
"The character displays a lot of courage. But she fails to
save the day.“
TRY
"Although the character displays a lot of courage,
she fails to save the day."
Parallelisms are sentences or phrases that contain parallel
syntactical structures. These usually contain lists of noun
phrases or clauses with similar structure.
For example: "I decided not to (1) use PowerPoint,
(2) read notecards or (3) memorize a script."
Notice how ideas 1-3 all contain a verb and an object. They all
line up nicely in parallel.
Instead of:
"I brushed the children's teeth and then I read a book to them. They climbed
under the covers and I tucked them in.“
TRY
"I brushed the children's teeth, read them a book and tucked them in."
In persuasive and academic writing and
speaking, active verbs sound much stronger than
passive verbs. Passive verb phrases use the verb 'to
be' and the past participle of another verb. For
example "The house was built by me." The active
form of this phrase would be: "I built the house.“
Instead of:
"The novel has been criticized by feminists.“
TRY
"Feminists have criticized the novel"
Other examples:
Are Your Verbs Active?
It's easy to make sure that you're writing with active
verbs. When proofreading, take a look at the
relationship between the subject and the main
verb. Ask yourself, 'does the subject perform the
action of the verb?' If it does, then the sentence is
in active voice. Or, does something else perform
the action? If so, then your sentence is in passive
voice.
Examples:
Mark passed the history exam. (active)
The history exam was passed by Mark. (passive)
Rosie loves the dog. (active)
The dog is loved by Rosie. (passive)
The professor taught the students. (active)
The students are taught by the professor