Getting It Write

No matter what level of student you are - from beginner through to doctoral candidate - there will come a time when you have to sit down and write. No more scruffy note-taking and no more background reading: the time is now and your seat is waiting at the desk. So, what is it that stops you from starting? Why do you dither, prevaricate, procrastinate? Could it be that you make mistakes that others see when you can't? How do you feel about English grammar? Does writing give you the jitters, collywobbles and screaming abdabs? Well, here are six simple tips for how to control your fears, reduce uncertainty and get better marks in English written tasks. Did I mention the evil word 'grammar'? It is guaranteed to strike fear into the students across the continents. My EFL students assume (wrongly) that they are the only ones who need to be concerned about grammar. Everyone should be. Without it, meaning runs amok. We need grammar, punctuation and syntax (word order to you and me), to make those funny squiggly things sit in the right sequence and mean what we want them to mean. For that is what it is all about, in the end: controlling meaning. If you don't master meaning it will govern you ... and ruin your writing. So my six simple tips will put you in control. Believe me, they correct the mistakes that most irritate examiners, so they are really worth knowing. Spell it Write?No Good at Spelling? Tough. There is no excuse. You MUST spell correctly.?Lots of English people are absolutely dreadful at spelling and refuse to improve their language skills because it is 'too much effort'. They should see how hard my EFL students work.?You can beef up your spelling by working at it, too. Use cue cards and vocabulary-builder exercises. Memorise pronunciation and spelling patterns. Get friends to give you spelling tests or dictation exercises.?Hard work pays off with spelling. (Spellchecker on the computer doesn't.) ?Read more, read differently, and look up words you don't know. You will expand your vocabulary, increase your spelling accuracy and learn a host of useful new words. Join the Dots?Learn the 'dos and don'ts' of the dots: the simple rules of punctuation. ?Capitals start a sentence and proper nouns. Full stops end a sentence or abbreviations. Use a question mark after a question and an exclamation mark after something really exciting, shocking or unusual. Commas break up the parts of a sentence, or separate examples or items on a list. Apostrophes show omission or possession: don't use them for simple plurals. ?If you can follow these simple rules, you will avoid the main mistakes of punctuation, make your teacher more optimistic and examiners better disposed to give you good marks. To ing or not to ing?A frequent mistake in student writing is the use of a gerund (walking) instead of an infinitive (to walk). For example, 'I want walking' rather than 'I want to walk'.?The rule is that we use the infinitive after emotional verbs (I was happy to help) and adjectives (It is too cold to swim), and the gerund for the subject of the sentence (Swimming is good exercise) or after a preposition (without saying a word). ?You'll need to check your grammar book, but it is worth sorting this out now. Right that Article?If I had a Zimbabwean penny for each time I have had to correct errors with the use of articles (or 'adjectival articles' as some call them), I would be able to retire comfortably on the proceeds. You need to remember that there are four uses of article: Definite (the), indefinite (a/an) and the zero article, where no article is used. Learning how and when to use each of these forms is key to writing well in English. Repetition?This is really a matter of style and vocabulary. There are upwards of 600,000 words in English, so it is considered bad manners to keep on repeating the same word, whether in writing or conversation. With so many words to choose from, there will be a variety of nouns and pronouns you can use to avoid repetition. Are You In Tense??The last of our keys to quality in written English is maintaining consistency in the tenses you use. It is too easy to slip-slide around in time, coming into your writing in the simple past tense and then moving into the present continuous, before going back to the present perfect. You must stay in the correct tense. ?If you are unsure of moving forward and backwards in your writing, stick with one tense per sentence and use simple grammatical constructions. Once you are more confident with working solely in the simple past, say, move on to using other tenses separately. Only when you can do that should you start combining tenses in more sophisticated sentence structures.

Of course, this is just a glimpse of what to watch out for in your own or your students' writing. For a fuller picture, and for a thoroughly expert grounding in English, you should come to HELLO English - our independent language school based in Moseley, in the English Midlands. At HELLO English (www.hello-english.com), we have classes and worksheets aplenty on all these failings. Among the range of courses we offer, we can help you with your academic writing and written English, and you can choose from our General English (GEC), Pre University Package (PUP) or various A-level, Cambridge and IELTS programmes. Why not contact us today for more information?