IELTS Writing.

The
most common mistakes and things you
should know, Part 2. We'll continue
reviewing our Part 2 of the most common mistakes
and things you should know by review
parallel structures. Parallel structures
are structures that follow the same pattern, so for example,
when you write with parallel structures
your writing has a pattern that is easy to follow, it helps make your
ideas easier to understand to other
people, for example, in English we have different
types of parallel sentences, and the first one
we're going to review today is a subject parallels. For example, here you see a
couple of sentences we have, and the first one shows
parallel, for example, play and study are two ways
children can use a computer, as you see, planned study, what are involved and they
are parallel in this case, and the following one is another example of
parallel sentence, playing and studying
are two ways children can use a computer, so here we have instead
of for example, in a study we have
playing and studying, so we added "I-N-G" ending. The next sentence after
that is not parallel, so you'll understand shortly why, and here we have
playing and study are two things children can
use a computer for. As you see playing and study, so the first word we have
playing was I-N-G ending, and the second one,
study was added, so it's not a parallel
sentence in this case, so you have to make sure
when you're writing sentences and you are
using parallel structure, they have to be consistent, for example, playing,
studying, dancing and playing,
so you have to make sure you are
consistent and adding I-N-G ending in both cases, that's what we call
parallel structure. The following parallel
structures we're going to discuss are verbs, adjectives, and passive voice. The
first one is for verbs, and we have a verb parallel
structure sentence here. I reached out my hand, grabbed the glass and
noticed that my watch was gone, as you've seen here, we have highlighted words or
in other words
what's involved, reached out, grabbed and notice, and it's going to
be parallel because all these words are in the past and all
of them are verbs, so that's why this is a
parallel structured sentence. The following one is
not a parallel one, and here we have, the village has grown and becoming
more prosperous. As you see, has grown, is a perfect tense and, becoming, is
continuous tense, that's why the sentence is not going
to be parallel structured. The same goes for adjectives
and passive voice, so for example for adjective, as you see we have an example,
maple syrup is a popular
and tasty treat, this is parallel because
popular and tasty, they are both adjectives
in this case, and the following sentence, maple syrup is a popular
tree and also taste good, so as you see popular, it's adjective and taste
it's actually verb, so that's why this is
not a parallel sentence. For the passive voice, it's
actually goes the same, the house was painted, the roof was repaired,
parallel sentence, and not parallel sentence
would sound like this, the house was painted and
we repaired the roof, so as you can see, was painted is in
the passive voice, repaired is just a
past simple tense. You have to make sure when
you're writing your essay, you are very careful with
your parallel structure and you double-check and revise
your essay carefully. Now we're going to talk
about punctuation, and the first one is
the most common one, it's a full stop or we
call period in America, so you can see the sign
how it looks like, and full stop or periods
have three distinct uses, we are going to discuss that. The first one, we use
period to mark the
end of a sentence, so for example, when
you finish your idea, you need to put a period, so the cat is completely black. I'm
a teacher, period at the end. Then the second use is to
indicate abbreviated words. Abbreviated words,
it's something like, the teacher will be John Smith and then you see how
we have B and A, so B is a bachelor's
and then period, A, it's an art, Bachelors of Art, so it's a teacher's degree
and we abbreviate it as B.A in this case and we'll
put a period after that. The last one we have is to
punctuate numbers and dates. For example, all
assignments should be submitted by 6.15.21. You see when we have
numbers or especially date, it's very common, so we use
period in that case as well. The next punctuation
we have, it's a colon. A colon can be used to
indicate that a list, quotation, or summary
is about to follow. For example, buy these
things: a bag of peanuts, two loaves of bread,
and a pound of steak. Do you see how we have
colon by the sinks? Then when you have a list, here we have a list of three
items: a bag of peanuts, two loaves of bread, and pound of steak, so that's when we
use
colon in the first case. The second way of using
a colon is to separate an initial sentence in
other words what we call the clause from a
second sentence, list, phrase, or quotation that support the first
in a particular way. Here we have an example that
I'm going to read it to you, writing an essay is not easy: you have to do
a lot of research. As you see, after writing
an essay is not easy I have a colon and then I
have the second sentence, you have to do a lot of research. These two sentences,
they support each other. The second part of the sentence supports the
first part of the sentence. This is one way of using a colon. Now we're going to
talk about commas. This is one of the most
common and favorite, probably punctuation
for some students because they use them a lot. They overuse them sometimes and
there are some students who don't like to use them at all. We are going to discuss
how to use them properly and know exactly when
and how to use them. As you know, comma
signal a slight pause, but not a complete stop. I understand why they are tricky,
because they have lot of rules. We're going to discuss
a couple of them today. The first one, you
need to use commas to separate items in series. A series contain three or more
or similar items in a row. Here we have an example, the girls like playing golf,
reading books, and riding horses. As you see, this is
items in series. We have three things,
playing golf, it's one, reading books two
and riding horses, three. If you have a couple of
things that you want to show, you want to list
in your sentence, then you need to use your commas. For example, if
you have only two, then in that case you are
not using any commas, it has to be three or more. The second of way of using
commas is to separate two or more adjectives that precede and
modifying the same noun. It's not very common, but it can happen sometimes
and you need to know it too. Here we have an example, the human eye is a
complex, efficient organ. Here we have two adjectives and because we have
two adjectives, not just one, we need to
use comma in-between. You have to note that you
should not use commas when the last adjective in series is part of
a compound noun. You can tell if one of
the adjective belongs to the noun and if you reverse the position
of the adjectives. Here, for example,
we have a sentence. Whose read eyeglasses
case is this? As you see, eyeglass case is a compound noun and that's why we did
not use any
commas in this case. Here we are going to discuss
about an exception we have. We'll not use our commas even though we have some
conjunction. For example, when a coordinating a conjunction such
as and, or but, you guys remember your fanboys connects a compound
verb in a sentence. In that case, you
do not add commas. Here we have an example. Jen, dropped a contact lens and
searched for 10 minutes
but couldn't find it. You see how we have
these conjunctions and, but, and we did
not use any comma. Because here we have only verbs, see we have, searched, before
and we have
couldn't before but, so in that case, we do not need any commas because it's not a
complete
independent clause. That's why we do not use commas, so just be very careful, and
then try to
remember this rule. The last way of using commas, it's when we have two
independent clauses, or in other words,
two simple sentences. For example, Jen
dropped the lens comma, and she couldn't
find it anywhere. In that case, do you see how we have two complete sentences? Jen
dropped the lens, if you see this sentence
is okay by itself, that's why we call it
independent clause. The following one, she
couldn't find it anywhere. So she couldn't find it anywhere, it's a complete idea
too, so that's why it's
independent clause as well. When you have these type
of two complete ideas or independent clauses and you combine them with
conjunctions, FANBOYS, then you need to put a comma before
the conjunction. This is one of the most common rules we
have for using comma, so try to remember, it's our compound sentence. The following
punctuation we're going to discuss is apostrophe. Apostrophes are used
in the IELTS Essay for possessive forms of nouns
and indefinite pronouns. The first way we use apostrophe
to show possession in a plural noun that ends with
the letter S. In this case, we do not add anything
except apostrophe itself. Here we have examples,
students' report, you see students in
the plural form, and we'll only add S ending. That means students have report or we
can say
students' report. The next one, the neighbors' dog and students' assignments. As
you see, neighbors, students, all of them are in
the plural form, that's why we only
add apostrophe. The second one is
quite different. Here we add an
apostrophe and letter S to show possession in a plural noun that does
not end in S letter. For example, women,
it's a plural form and we add apostrophe
and also S letter. Women's wages,
children's drawings, geese's feathers, this is a second way
of using apostrophe. The last one is
using apostrophe to show possessive forms
of indefinite pronouns. For example, we have
indefinite pronouns such as everyone, someone, anybody. In this case, we just
say everyone's paper, someone's wallet,
and anybody's turn. This is a third way of
using this punctuation. Our final punctuation
mark is parentheses. Parentheses are used to set off information within a
text or paragraph. They always come in pairs, so make sure you use them both.
Typically, the words
inside of them provide extra information about
something else in the sentence. Remember to use parentheses, especially maybe in
your
Academic Writing, Task 1, when you're providing
data or some numbers, it can be really useful. Here, we have an example, how to use
parentheses, and I'm going to read it to you. The total number of cars, 10. As you
see, we have number
10 inside of parentheses, and this is a total number. For example, if you have a
sentence that you forgot
to include the numbers in, you can actually put the numbers at the
end of your sentence, but don't forget to
put a period after your parentheses
mark punctuation. The last thing I
have for you in here is little tip that
I would like to mention is that you
do not need to use exclamation mark and question
mark in your IELTS exam, in your Academic Writing
Task 1 and Writing Task 2, because remember, both of your
essays are academic ones, and you don't really have a
hook in your Writing Task 2. Just try to avoid
using them at all, so you do not make any mistakes. That's all we have,
guys, for punctuations. I really hope this course
was very helpful for you, and you learned a lot about writing sections
of the IELTS test.