April 3, 2010
Not everyone can be a good writer. However, anyone can write decent enough so as not to be terrible, even for an unaccomplished second-language English writer. So what things should you avoid to make your writing, at the least, tolerably readable?
1. Type carefully. Many second language writers worry about their language so much that their writing ends up filled with too many typing errors.
2. All English sentences have a subject and a verb. Keep that in mind and make sure every sentence you create has them.
3. Vary sentence lengths. Most second-language writers tend to fall back on simple sentences too much. There’s nothing wrong with it. If you fall into the same trap, just combine two or more sentences every few lines and you should be fine.
4. Use active verbs. This is simpler than it sounds. Instead of using verb forms of “to be,” such as “is,” “are,” “have” and other similar words, use actual action words for the verbs in your sentences. The maturity they lend your writing is worth every extra minute you take to rewrite erstwhile passive sentences.
5. Use a spellchecker and a grammar software at bare minimum. There’s nothing uglier than material rendered unreadable by bad grammar and misspellings. These automated English language tools can fix those problems on the fly, so that you need not add to your worries.
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.
November 25, 2009
In Romanized writing, capitalization is important and, in some cases, can change a sentence’s entire meaning. That’s why all ESL writers who produce document in English are highly-advised to get their heads around the proper rules for this specific area.
When people first learn English from their English learning software, they are immediately told to capitalize proper nouns, but to leave common nouns without it. That sounds simple enough, right? Problem is, many people don’t understand the correct distinction between those two groups of nouns. Neither are they familiar with the additional rules that govern capitalization.
So, let’s start with the basics:
- Proper nouns refer to specific people, places or things (e.g. Mrs. Jones, President Obama, Omaha Flower Festival)
- Common nouns are nonspecific (e.g. teacher, leader, festival)
Apart from those two basic rules, take note of the following items that also require capitalization:
- The first word of every sentence
- The first-person pronoun “I”
- Days of the week, months and holidays
- Historical documents, periods and events
- Religions and their followers
- Titles of books, plays, movies and other creative works
- Personifications, as in creative names given to characters in writing
- Companies and organizations
- Derivatives of proper nouns (e.g. Westernize, Shakespearean, etc.)
- Names of classes in school (e.g. Math 101, Colonial History 102, etc.)
- Acronyms
- Official titles if they come before the name (e.g. Colonel Sanders, Miss Simmons, etc)
Note that some usage may require you to do without capitalization. That may be beyond our scope for this short article, though. We’ll look at those exceptions another time.
September 25, 2009
Looking to improve your ability to write in English? You’re not alone. Many native speakers, not to mention second-language users, continue to struggle with the writing aspect of English, even though they’ve been using it for a long time (perhaps, even all their lives).
The good news is, there are plenty of resources available to help you improve your English writing capabilities. Here are a few of them.
Desktop-based language software. Want the best way to bring your written English to the next level? An all-in-one language tool should help. Even better, you can learn by application, as you watch it point out mistakes, fix them and improve on your own writing.
Books. There are probably a million and one books about writing. I’m not exaggerating either. Being one of the longest-standing art forms and one of the most enduring communication methods, writing has seen a wide and varied share of guides.
Writing Classes and Workshops. If you live in an English-speaking country, you can literally walk into any college and find one of these scheduled. If you live elsewhere, you will likely find them too, as English has entrenched itself as an international language for many fields of endeavor.
Online. There’s a literal flood of online resources on writing. If you seek them out, you’ll probably end up overwhelmed, more than anything else. The real problem is not finding, it’s figuring out the good ones from the bad.
Others. There are many more avenues you can pursue when you’re trying to improve your writing faculties. Regardless of which one you choose, the important thing is to apply yourself in acquiring the skill. It’s not easy (nothing ever really is), but if you put your heart into it, you should be seeing some improvements within a short time.
September 15, 2009
Looking for a way to practice your English writing? Try paraphrasing from articles and books, all while using a language software for assistance.
Why paraphrasing? Writing involves numerous components, more than the mere construction of sentences and paragraphs. Picking up an already-finished piece and repurposing that for your own practice skips a lot of those aspects of writing that don’t have much to do with improving your language skills.
Since paraphrasing is just your own rendition of the ideas already expressed by someone else, you get to cut out such writing phases as research, outlining, drawing arguments and finding supporting information. All you have to do is present the piece in your own words, with whatever elements of the English language you can muster.
Follow these steps when practicing English writing by paraphrasing:
1. Find an article, news piece or book that’s appropriate for your English reading ability.
2. Read each paragraph carefully till you can understand it clearly.
3. Begin writing the same ideas (using the same organizational style) using your own words. Refer to your language software and other writing tools for help when you get stuck.
4. Use a grammar checker to proofread the finished text. Take note of any errors, so you may avoid them in the future.
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.
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