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December 3, 2009
Before he became a famous writer, Ernest Hemingway started his career as a young reporter for the Kansas City Star. It was there that he received a very basic style sheet that contains four simple rules. What did it say?
- Use short sentences
- Use short first paragraphs
- Use vigorous English
- And be positive, never negative
If those items sound familiar, that’s because you’ve likely heard them repeated numerous times in many writing guides. They’re as basic for good writing as it gets.
“Those were the best rules I ever learned in the business of writing,” Hemingway recounted years later. “I’ve never forgotten them. No one…can fail to write well if he abides by them.”
As an ESL writer who’s still struggling with the written aspect of the English language, following the above guidelines can be the best thing to keep in mind. Even with the lack of a full facility in the vernacular, you can end up with prose that reads well if you follow them in your own work, coupled with a good ESL assistant software.
Why do they work so well?
- Short sentences are easy to read, allowing you to make fewer mistakes while never losing the reader at any point.
- Short first paragraphs are easy to digest, making it easy to begin reading anything you put to paper.
- Vigorous English may not be up your alley yet as an ESL writer. But if you can manage it, your text will read alive and powerful.
- Positive statements are easier to understand than negative ones, apart from helping you come up with more powerful arguments.
August 28, 2009
It’s not easy composing business documents when English isn’t your primary language. More than stringing together sentences to get your point across, you frequently need to deliver the message in a right tone – lest risk being misunderstood.
If you’re an ESL writer and need to foster better written communication, always consider the tone with which you write. The following ideas, along with everything you’ve learned from your language learning software, should prove a good start.
Show confidence. In many cultures, confidence is construed as arrogance. For many native English speakers, this just isn’t so. As such, don’t be afraid to confidently deliver your message. If you have a point, state it. Don’t apologize or make excuses for anything you say. Show confidence in your ideas and your readers will follow.
Show courtesy. In English writing, you temper the confidence with courtesy. If you’re polite and mannerly, you can deliver you statements full of conviction without putting your readers on the defensive.
Use emphasis appropriately. If a particular statement or idea needs to be emphasized, place it in a short sentence. The longer it goes, the less the impact that your statement carries. If you need to expound, you can use following sentences to explain it further.
Use non-discriminatory language. As you may not be endowed with a large vocabulary yet, this may prove a bit tricky. Use the thesaurus feature of your language software to find alternatives to words that either show or imply gender when a neutral one is better. Similarly, you’ll need to avoid terms that can be considered demeaning, statements that stereotype individuals and information that slot people because they fit in a certain demographic.
June 30, 2009
Using a grammar software to improve your comprehension of the English language probably isn’t the greatest idea in the world. After all, writing software is typically used to improve composition skills rather than your ability to understand the language.
However, language software that helps correct writing errors typically come in an all-in-one form that includes a variety of features, including a dictionary, a thesaurus, a style guide, writing templates, samples and more. As such, you can easily employ it as an accessory tool when working to improve your English comprehension skills.
If you can’t understand what a certain words or constructs are referring to, you can try using the thesaurus or the dictionary to look for its meaning. Can’t figure out what an articles is saying? Try checking it for correctness – it might have some errors that are making it difficult for you to understand. You might be surprised with how many areas of improvements a writing software can find in many pieces of text, especially those from online sources. Chance upon a sentence that seems a little too complicated for your current skill level? See if your language software offers a simple English writing style that can help you rewrite it in a more basic form.
While a writing software won’t be a primary tool for advancing your comprehension skills, it certainly could help using its many versatile talents.
June 25, 2009
Want to expand your stock of English words and phrases? Try writing on a regular basis with the help of an English language software, making full use of its integrated facilities for picking up new elements of the language.
If you’re trying to get better at your English skills, going this route is usually better than most common avenues of learning. For one, it’s an applied form of study, where you pick up vocabulary as you use it in real time. More importantly, though, writing software shows you exactly how to use those words correctly within the proper contexts.
What elements of such tools can you use for language learning?
Thesaurus. All good writing software comes with an exhaustive thesaurus that helps you substitute words and phrases. Using this alone can help stock your vocabulary with new words faster than some language learning courses.
Grammar Checker. If you thought grammar checkers are used solely for adhering to strict rules, you’ve got another thing coming. Modern writing software now include grammar checkers that analyze your usage of words within each sentence and can detect awkwardly-utilized ones. Not only will they alert you to it, you’ll get suggestions of more appropriate words to use within the context.
Style Checker. For many words, certain variants work well for particular types of writing. A word that may be acceptable to use in a science journal may prove too dense for when you’re writing a conversational letter. Built-in style checkers can account for this and suggest better alternatives when they chance upon badly-chosen words and phrases.
June 22, 2009
The English language has one of the largest vocabulary among the world’s languages, with close to one million word items estimated to be available in its arsenal. As such, mastering the English vocabulary typically takes a very long time, especially for those starting their English education from scratch.
Despite that, gaining a good enough mastery of the English lexicon isn’t an impossible task. In fact, if you put in the time for study and use the proper tools, you might just surprise yourself with the amount of vocabulary you find yourself equipped with.
One way of enriching your facility with the English language is to write in the vernacular on a frequent basis, all while employing new words within your sentences every time. Whenever you sit down to write something in English, whether an email or a essay, put the thesaurus included with your language software to good use, employing it to help you discover new words to express your ideas.
While vocabulary mastery isn’t the easiest thing in the world, it’s definitely something you can integrate into your everyday life, making it an achievable goal to aim for. Apart from the exhaustive thesaurus, writing software (such as Whitesmoke) usually includes a suggestion feature that recommends replacement words and phrases, for both clarity and better reading.
June 18, 2009
Looking for more ways to practice your growing store of English skills? Try writing using the technique of Exploding Texts, which allows you to gradually fashion more and more complex sentences as you go along.
The way the exercise works is that you start with a short and simple statements, then gradually add words and phrases to it till it becomes a long complex sentence. If you’re a beginner learning English, it will prove a great way to begin getting into grammar, beginning from the most basic constructs and progressing. For more advanced learners, it’s an excellent way to gain a greater control of sentence construction, not to mention stretching your creativity with the vernacular.
Here’s a sample of an Exploding Text exercise:
That is a car.
That is a blue car.
That is a blue car with white stripe.
That is a midnight blue car with white racing stripes.
…and so on.
Basically, you just expand the sentence as far as you can, adding new elements, objects and even verbs, if you want to. Later on, try running what you’ve written through your English grammar language software to see if you committed any casual mistakes. If you do, jot it down with your notes so you can remember it for later.
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