(A text review base on the video lessons)

How to Improve Your English Writing 1

In this lesson, you can learn about how to improve your English writing. Writing is

often the most difficult skill for English learners to improve. Learning to write well

requires great control of language, and also extreme attention to detail. Even then,

it’s not easy to write to a high standard, even for native speakers. In this video,

you can see some advice which will give you some ideas and help you to improve your

writing, whatever level your English is now.

 Are you writing for your friend, your

1. Understand Your Audience colleague, your manager, your
Before you write one word, you need to examiner…?
answer some questions:  What do you want to achieve?
 Are you trying to give someone
 Who are you writing for? information?

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  Are you writing to convince you can write however you want).
someone of your point of view? Normally, you’re writing for someone
 Are you writing to entertain and else.
make someone laugh?
 Are you trying to pass an exam? Whoever reads your writing will give their
 Are you writing to achieve several time and attention to what you’ve written.
different goals? Why? Why will they spend time reading
what you’ve written?
Thinking about your purpose in writing
something can help you to organise your For example, if you’re writing an essay at
ideas. school or university, your teacher
probably wants to see that you’ve
All of these questions are important, but understood the topic that you’re writing
there’s a more important question: about. If you’re writing to a friend, your
friend might want to hear some interesting
What does your reader want? or important news about your life. If
you’re writing for an exam, the examiner
Remember, when you write, you don’t will look for specific things which you do
normally write for yourself (unless you’re or don’t do in order to decide your score.
writing a diary or a journal, in which case

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Understanding your reader or readers, and include many unnecessary ideas which
what they want from your writing, make it difficult for your reader to
is essential. You need to think about it understand what you’re trying to do.
throughout the writing process, from
beginning to end. Have you ever written something and got
stuck in the middle? You start a paragraph
This is the first step, and it’s important. or a sentence, and you write half of it.
Then, you think, “What am I doing?”
So, are you ready to start writing? Not yet! “What am I writing about?” “Where am I
Next, you need to… going?” “Help!”

2. Plan Your Writing Why does this happen?

If you start writing without doing some Often, this happens because you haven’t
thinking and planning first, there’s a high planned enough.
chance your writing will be unclear,
unfocused, or disorganized. Imagine you’re trying to find somewhere
in a new city with no map, no smartphone,
Without planning, you may leave out nothing. Of course you’ll get lost. You’ll
something important, or you might go down streets without knowing where

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they lead. You’ll waste lots of time just  What points are you going to
walking back and forth. If you do get include?
where you’re going, it’ll only be because  What points are you going to leave
you were lucky. out?
 How are you going to organize your
Writing without planning is similar. ideas?
You’ll start sentences and paragraphs
without knowing how they finish. You’ll If you’re writing something simple, you
waste lots of time writing, deleting, and might just think for a minute or two about
rewriting. If you do achieve your goal, it what to say. If you want to write
will only be because you were lucky. something longer or more complex, it
might be helpful to make a written plan.
Remember, you’re writing for someone
else, and you’re writing for a reason. That So what points should you include, and
means you have a goal, even if your goal what points should you leave out?
is simple. You need to think about how
you’re going to reach that goal. That’s a general question. If you’re not
sure, think about your goal and your
That means you need to answer these reader’s needs. Ask yourself: do my
questions: readers need to read this? Will they want

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to read this? Does this point fit with my  It helps you to stay focused on your
goal? Thinking about these questions will plan and your goal
help you to decide what to include, and
what to leave out. So what does it mean in practice to
organize your ideas into clear paragraphs?
What about the third question: how are
you going to organize your ideas? Let’s Firstly, each paragraph should have one
look: main idea. If you’re writing an essay, and
you have a list of points to include, each
3. Organize Your Ideas into Clear main point should get its own paragraph.
Even if you’re writing something shorter
Paragraphs
or simpler, you still need to organize your
Organizing your writing into paragraphs is ideas into paragraphs.
important for many reasons:
Don’t put too much into a paragraph—
 It helps your reader to understand your writing will be much clearer if each
the main points you’re making paragraph is just trying to do one thing.
 It helps your reader understand
where you’re going, and why An extra point: there’s no minimum or
maximum length for a paragraph.

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Sometimes, I see English learners trying But, the important point is: when you start
to add to a paragraph because they think writing, you’ll know exactly what you
it’s “too short.” There’s no minimum. A want to say. You won’t be thinking:
paragraph should be exactly as long as it “What should I put in this paragraph?”
needs to be to make your point. “How many more paragraphs do I need to
write?” You’ll know the answers already,
Secondly, and more importantly, you need and this will make it much easier to
to know how many paragraphs you’re actually write the thing.
going to have, and what you’re going to
put in each one. Remember that this is part OK, so now you’re ready to start writing!
of planning. We still haven’t even written What next?
one word yet!
4. Cut Empty Words and Sentences
Again, you could do this planning in your
head, or you could make notes on paper, There’s a simple rule you can use to make
or you could write a more detailed plan. your English writing better and
That depends on you, how much time you clearer: write as little as possible.
have, and what you want to write.
Let’s look at some examples:

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First, don’t use two words if you can use me greatly. You could also consider
one. Don’t use three words if you can use cutting greatly. Use one-word verbs if
two, and so on. For example: possible.

Don’t say very tired, say exhausted. Don’t say maybe this will solve the
Very is generally a weak word and should problem, either say this will solve the
be avoided. The same goes for similar problem, or don’t say it at all. Words
words like really, absolutely and so on. like maybe or perhaps are rarely
They don’t add anything to your ideas. necessary. If you’re not sure about
something, why are you including it?
Don’t say as a result if you can
say consequently. Don’t say on the other Don’t say we need to find someone who
hand if you can can teach our son, say we need to find a
say howeveror nevertheless. Use fewer teacher for our son. Cut unnecessary
words! words and use fewer words wherever
possible.
Don’t say this will get better in the future,
say this will improve in the future. Don’t You can also look at sentences. Especially
say she gave me a lot of help, say she in essays, many people include empty
helped me a lot, or even better she helped sentences like:

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  There are many advantages and this give my reader? Could it be made
disadvantages to this. shorter? Shorten or remove anything
 Of course, there are two sides to this which you can.
issue.
 In this essay, I will consider all the It’s not easy to write in this way. You
ideas relevant to this point. shouldn’t expect to be able to do it
immediately after watching this video.
What do these sentences tell you? Do they Even in this script, there are probably
give you any useful information? No, and many words and sentences where I could
so they should be cut. use my own advice!

Why is this important? However, you can try thinking about it the
next time you write something in English.
Using fewer words and sentences will Over time, you can learn the habit of
make your writing clearer and easier to avoiding empty words and sentences.
read. It will also help you focus on what Your writing will be much better if you
you want to say. do!

For each word or sentence you write, try Next, let’s look at some more advice to
to think: what does this add? What does make your writing clearer.

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5. Use Short, Simple Sentences dangerous—there’s a high chance your
Where Possible sentence will become unclear and difficult
to read.
Shorter sentences are easier to read. That’s
not my opinion; it’s a fact with a lot of So how can you do this?
research supporting it—the longer a
sentence becomes, the harder it is to read Firstly, use what we talked about before:
and understand. using fewer words will make your
sentences shorter and tighter.
Also, if you’re a non-native English
speaker, writing longer, more complex Here are some other rules you can use to
sentences is especially difficult. If you try keep your sentences short and simple:
to write longer sentences, there’s a higher
chance of making grammar errors which  Don’t use the passive unless you
can make your sentence difficult to have a good reason to. Passive
understand. sentences are always more complex.
Using the passive is fine, but you
How long is too long? Around 10 words is should know why you’re using it.
a good target length. Between 10 and 20  Start your sentences with the subject
words is OK. Longer than 20 words is wherever possible.

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  Use relative clauses (with which, idea in a shorter, simpler way, then you
who, that etc.) only if you have to. should.
 When you use a conjunction
like and, but, or etc., ask yourself: Let’s review what we’ve talked
are these ideas really closely about today:
connected? Do they need to go in the
same sentence? If not, break your  You need to understand who you’re
sentence into two shorter ones. writing for, and what they want from
your writing.
To be clear, long sentences are not bad.
 Before you write anything, you
Good writers can write long sentences
should have a plan: what are you
which are clear, focused and elegant. If
going to say, and how are you going
you’re writing about a complex topic, you
to organize your ideas?
might need to use longer, complex
 Your ideas should always be
sentences to express yourself clearly.
organized into clear paragraphs, with
one main idea per paragraph.
The point is that you should only use a
 Use fewer words whenever possible.
longer, more complex sentence if it’s
 Use shorter, simpler sentences
necessary. If you can express the same
whenever possible.

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Spoken English – Word Combinations 2
Why we say make a mistake and not do a mistake? When someone eats a lot, we

say he/she is a big eater, but when someone smokes a lot, they aren’t a big

smoker but aheavy smoker? Why?

The answer is collocations. Collocations are words which just ‘fit’ together. There

isn’t always a logical or clear reason. Collocations are very common in English, so it

will help your English greatly if you learn about them. In this free English video

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lesson, you can learn more about collocations, how you can learn them, and why you

need them.

1. Every language has collocations, but most probably, you use a different

but collocations are often verb.

different between languages. What about catch a cold? Do you use the
Let’s look at an example: do you know the same verb as catch a bus? What about
verb catch? How do you say it in your these:
language?
Now, think about the phrase: catch a  I didn’t catch what you said
bus. How do you say it in your language?  I came in late and caught the end of
Do you use the same verb? Maybe you do, the match

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  I caught a huge fish last weekend! you have to learn to use different
collocations.
I can’t speak for every language around
the world, of course. Maybe you speak a 2. Collocations are easy to
language which can use the same verb in
understand, but can be hard to
all of these examples. But at least in the
guess
languages I know, you would need to use
If you hear the collocation strong coffee,
different verbs in at least some of these
it’s easy to understand even if you’ve
examples.
never heard it or used it before. Many
This is one of the reasons why collocations are like this: you can
collocations can be difficult: when you understand them easily when you hear
think in your language, you’ll use certain them.
collocations. When you speak English,

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Think about this question: how could you regular; either you know them or you
complete this sentence? don’t.

 There was some __________ rain, This can be dangerous for your spoken
but it stopped after five minutes English. If you don’t learn collocations,
it’s possible to understand a lot of spoken
We need an adjective, but what could we
English, but when you speak, you’ll make
use? Slight? Light? Thin?
a lot of mistakes, and your English won’t

Light is the only possibility which makes sound very natural.

sense. Did you get the right answer?

3. Different types of collocations
If you don’t know the collocation, it can There are many different types of
be very hard to guess. That’s because collocations. The most common are:
collocations aren’t really logical or

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Verb + noun:  talk softly
 fall heavily
 catch a bus
 make a mistake Verb + preposition:

Adjective + noun:  depend on

 talk about
 strong coffee
 heavy traffic Adjective + preposition:

Adverb + adjective:  interested in

 angry with
 terribly sorry
 absolutely awful

Verb + adverb:

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4. Advice for learning collocations examples of collocations after the
Generally, learning collocations is like explanation of a word. For example,
learning any other vocabulary. If you want if you look up the word make, you
more details on how to remember can find examples of common
vocabulary, check out this video lesson. collocations with make.
However, here are some tips which are  Focus on collocations which are
specific to learning collocations: different in your own language. For
example, where English has two
 Remember that collocations are not verbs make and do, many languages
usually logical or regular—it’s not have one verb which has both of
helpful to ask why something is this these meanings. Because of this,
way and not that way. collocations with make and do are
 Most dictionaries, especially difficult to remember for many
learner’s dictionaries, will give

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 English learners. Of course, this learning collocations in groups like
means you’ll need to think a bit this will help you to remember them.
about collocations in your own
5. Why you should focus on
language, and which collocations are
different from English. collocations: learning collocations is
 Study collocations in groups. For much more useful than learning
example, you could learn five single words
collocations with the verbtake, five When I see most students learn
adjectives which collocate vocabulary, they mostly try to learn single
with chocolate, or five collocations words. That can be useful, but it also
connected with doing housework. makes things difficult. If you just learn a
There are many possibilities, but single word, by itself, that doesn’t help
you to use the word. Generally, if you try

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to learn a word but you can’t/don’t use the imagine that you are speaking and you
word, you’ll forget it again. want to say catch a bus, but you can’t
remember which verb to use. You’ll have
When you learn collocations, it gives you
to stop and think about it, which will
some context and meaning which will
affect your fluency. If you remember the
help you to use the words in your
collocation as a unit, as if it was one word,
speaking or writing. There’s another big
you won’t have to stop and think, and
advantage to learning collocations:
you’ll be able to speak more fluently.

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