1-HOUR LESSON - Improve Your Writing ✍️ (Academic, Professional, & Descriptive)

I want to help you develop your overall writing skills and that is why I put together this 1hour Mega lesson covering a variety of topics we're going to talk about tips to write professionally I'm going to help you write more descriptive by teaching you many different reporting verbs we're going to improve your academic writing as well as look at some common writing mistakes so this lesson it has it all and if you are someone who would like to improve your writing skills Please Subscribe turn on notifications that way I can become your teacher my name

is Wes the channel is interactive English it's all about trying to help you reach your fluency goals so let's begin with some useful writing tips especially when it comes to writing professionally here are 13 tips to help you write professionally and what we're going to do is we're going to start with the big picture which is an idiom that means like the entire view of a situation or issue and then we're going to try to narrow it down to your actual writing so the first tip that I have for you the first thing that I

want you to do is understand your purpose so it's a very simple question that needs to be answered what is the purpose of your writing now in general there are four major types of writing it could be a narrative and you're telling a story maybe it's descriptive and you're trying to capture an event or perhaps expository you're giving facts and information or even persuasive and you want to influence someone's opinion now whatever ever your purpose is you just need to have one because without it your writing is going to lack Direction it's like trying to

understand what is your purpose for being here right now you would like to improve your writing skills the next tip that I have for you is that you need to know your audience who is going to be reading your writing is it your boss your teacher your peers your colleagues or or just the public in general because once you know your audience then that's going to help you choose your style and in a nutshell which is another idiom I'm giving you some idioms in this lesson it really means in the fewest possible words in a

nutshell when I'm talking about style I'm really referring to formal or informal writing so if we're talking about formal writing you should avoid idioms slang just those colloquial Expressions you're also going to want to use more complex structures which I'll get into a little bit later with informal writing well then the rules are relaxed you can use some of those colloquial Expressions but because we're talking about writing professionally I really want to focus on helping you develop your formal writing style this is the style that you need to use if you'd like to appear professional

you want people to take you seriously so that is the big picture now let's talk about your actual writing when you put pen to the paper or or even your hands to the keyboard so the next tip that I I have for you is that you need to organize your ideas this is so important I don't want you just to think about this I want you to write it down start with uh brainstorming use that information to develop an outline and when I say develop and outline I want you to develop a comprehensive outline don't

just write down a few words write down complete thoughts because when you do this it's going to help your writing have cohesion and unity when I say cohesion I'm just talking about your sentences are logically ordered unity means that your paragraphs are centered around one idea so when you organize your ideas and you write this down it's going to make sure that your writing has cohesion and unity it's very important the next thing that I want you to do which can be a little challenging I'm not going to lie and that is find your voice

and when I say find your voice it it's really referring to the words that you use the way that you write your sentences think of voice like your your fingerprint when it comes to writing that maybe you forgot to write your name but somebody reads your writing they know that it's you because of your words because of your sentences now when I say find your voice that means that I I don't want you to think about well how would somebody else write this and present these ideas or what are the words that my audience probably

wants to hear you need to discover what is unique about the way you present the topic use your words your sentences be authentic people appreciate originality and I I mentioned that this can be challenging and if you're having trouble finding your voice I think the best thing that you can do is just to write as much as you can and you can start by writing to me down below in the comments but once again if you're putting together that comprehensive outline this is something that should start to be reflected in your outline when you're organizing

your ideas something else that should be reflected in your outline is your tone you need to establish a tone and there there are many examples of this tone could be aggressive or humorous nostalgic cheerful sad and what what this really does is it shows your attitude about a topic no matter what topic you have you can have different tones but you need to be consistent you don't want to switch between an aggressive tone to a cheerful one humorous back to aggressive all right writing is not a roller coaster don't think about it like that think

about it more like you're traveling down the straight road moving from one idea to the next going from one paragraph to the next which then takes me to my next tip is that you need to organize your paragraphs so I talk to you about organizing your ideas and then you can take a closer look at those ideas and make sure that each paragraph is organized with a topic sentence with supporting sentences and then wrapped up with a conclusion and this is a structure that you can follow over and over and over especially if if your

purpose is you're you're writing something that's descriptive or persuasive or even expository and just to emphasize how important this is when you organize your paragraphs it is the easiest and most effective way to convey your ideas something else that's going to help you move smoothly down that road of ideas is that you need to take full advantage of transition words and phrases so these are words and phrases that will allow you to effortlessly and seamlessly move from one idea to the next now there are many transition words and phrases out there I I think it's

very useful vocabulary for you to learn but just to give you an example if I want to add information I could use in addition if I want to contrast different ideas I could use however if I want to start out and say well well this idea is very important I could begin with first and foremost and then share my idea now what this does is it makes it so much easier for the reader to follow along not to mention it's going to help you sound more professional because you're you're going to sound like you know

what you're talking about my next tip is that you need to vary your sentence structures so when I talked about formal writing I said that you'll use more complex structures and this is part of what I was talking about so you have four different sentence structures you have simple sentences compound sentences complex sentences and compound complex sentences and I've given you some examples here so you can see what what the sentences are like but when you vary your sentence structures it it's going to make your writing a lot more engaging people are going to want

to continue reading because I if you're using too much of one structure if you're only using simple sentences it's just going to sound really choppy if you're only using compound sentences well then it may sound a bit repetitive when you vary sentence structures it's going to create a nice Rhythm and flow to your writing and and this is probably something that that you're not going to be able to do the first time it's likely something that you can do and develop when you proofread you may go through and find a couple of simple sentences that

you can turn into a compound sentence or maybe you'll add a dependent clause and create a complex sentence and then you'll be developing that Rhythm and flow as well as finding your voice and this leads me into my next tip which is to keep simple especially at first use the vocabulary that you already know if you're writing a rough draft don't stop and analyze everything use your outline keep it simple find your voice and then when you're done you can go back and proofread it and really fine-tune some of those words and sentences and proofreading

is what I want to talk to you about next because I want you to effectively correct your own mistakes so when you're writing I think many of you are going to use computer and you need to use those programs to your advantage because if you're using something like word it will tell you I if something is misspelled or perhaps there's a problem with the grammar use these programs to your advantage now if you're just going through and proof reading on your own what I would suggest you do is look for one mistake at a time

don't try to look for all the problems at once so you could start with punctuation read through your writing and only look for punctuation mistakes and then go through it again and only look for spelling mistakes go through it again and only look for word choice and maybe change some of those words so what you end up doing is that you proofread your writing multiple times and the more you do this the more you go through it you're likely to find some mistakes you'll make some changes to make your writing better another tip that I

have for you is to get others to look at your writing it's always good to have a second set of eyes because people may find spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes that you did not see before it's also good to get feedback in regard to the content but one thing I would tell you is that remember just because somebody gives you feedback about the content that doesn't mean that you have to accept it you can take it into consideration and then decide whether or not you would like to make the changes because remember it's your writing

it's your voice and then I think it is very helpful for you to maintain healthy writing habits and there are two things that I think you should be doing a little bit each and every day first I think you should read regularly this is going to help you distinguish between different writing styles you'll get a feel for how someone else's writing is organized you'll also be able to see how people use transition words and phrases as well as varying their sentences and how that makes their writing more engaging I also want you to write regular

ly and this is something you can do writing in a journal each and every day or like I said you can write to me down below in those comments it's going to help you develop and find your voice you'll also be able to explore different purposes in writing as well as writing to different audiences in addition you'll be able to practice correcting your own writing now that you have these useful tips to keep in mind let's talk about vocabulary because writing is a productive skill which means vocabulary is important and I want to help you

write more descriptively when you're telling a story because often there's going to be dialogue and I want to teach you many different reporting verbs that you can use instead of just always using the word said so let's look at different reporting verbs to help you be more descriptive let's talk about some creative ways that you can say the word said so why is this important well first it allows you to be more descriptive it's also going to keep the reader attention because these words are are just more engaging they're more captivating and you will avoid

redundancies because you don't want to keep saying he said she said we said they said you need to mix it up so let let's begin and say that you would like to persuade someone to do something or think something here are some verbs to help make your writing more descriptive you could use pleaded and this is when you're making an urgent or emotional request uh like don't leave he pleaded this is very similar to the next one which is begged except I I feel like begged is probably a little stronger than pleaded but once again

this is a strong way to make an urgent request I want a balloon the child begged so in this case it's just more descriptive I'm capturing that feeling I want a balloon the child begged this is something that uh well yeah my child told me last week you can also use intreated which means to try hard to persuade someone to do something now this verb it it's probably not as common as these others however it's still very useful because it's specific and if I want to capture sure a direct quote I could say if you

help me with the presentation then I'll work your weekend shift for you he intreated and then we have the verb implored this means to ask someone to do something or not to do something in a very sincere and emotional way think about this situation say that a woman gets pulled over by the police for speeding and and she's getting ready to get a ticket so she says please don't give me a speeding ticket she implored so she's imploring the police officer not to give her a ticket and doing this in a sincere way and of

course I had to include the picture of that dog because I think this is a good association with these verbs because dogs May plead for things or beg for things or implore their owners to do something let's continue with some more verbs if you'd like to persuade someone you could use beseeched which means to ask for something in a way that that shows you need it very much I need this raise he beseeched his boss now this is not the most common verb in the world but once again it helps you get that variety same

with the next verb cajoled this means to persuade someone to do something that they might not want to do and you're you're persuading them by just talking pleasantly and nicely like please please pretty please say yes she could so this is a a good reporting verb that I could use if I want to capture my little girl's direct speech if she wants something and I maybe I don't want to give it to her she might cajo me into giving it to her please pretty please the next two verbs I think are definitely more common insisted

this means to say something firmly especially when others either disagree just oppose what you're saying I want to see my client the lawyer insisted so in this context I it makes me think of a situation in which somebody is asking more than once and then they start insisting the next verb I think is a similar but it's a bit stronger demanded this means to ask for something forcefully and really in a way that you don't expect to be refused I want to know another candy the child demanded so again I'm yeah I just I can't

help but give many examples with children I have little girl so again these are these are things that I hear and this helps capture the moood and switch things up a little bit so you can avoid those redundancies so if you are wanting to express happiness or excitement there are some great verbs that you can use such as gushed this means to express a positive feeling especially praise but doing so in a way that it may not seem sincere perhaps they're doing it a little too much so if I'm writing a story and my character

is just praising someone over and over and he says you look amazing he gushed right that that tells the reader that perhaps they're they're going a bit overboard it's a little too much and maybe the other person does not find it all that sincere then we have cheered which is to give a loud shout of approval or encouragement we won she cheered all right really expressing that happiness and I think this verb is commonly used it in the context of maybe a competition and you're really trying to encourage others then we have the verb touted

it means to advertise talk about or praise something repeatedly and you're really you're doing this because you want the other person to accept what you're saying or maybe even buy something you won't find another car like this the salesman touted so in this case it's like well the salesman's really proud of the car they're really happy about it and they're kind of advertising it they're praising it yeah you won't find another car like this so this is a good verb for that context then we have these three verbs which are somewhat similar but also Express

happiness and in all of the examples they really provide that extra bit of information to show you that well that something is funny like laughed it means that you are smiling and making sounds you believe that this is a funny situation I knew it was you she laughed we also have the verb chortled which is not as commonly used it means to laugh and really just showing some satisfaction did you hear the news she chortled giving that extra information that this news is funny it's satisfying and then there the verb giggled this means to laugh

repeatedly in in kind of an uncontrolled way I think it's perhaps not as strong as saying laugh but again this is something we all do giggle we all giggle from time to time where did you get that hat he giggled I'm telling you that this hat maybe it looks a little funny which is why he giggled here are some more verbs proclaimed this means to announce something officially especially something that is positive this is the start of a new beginning he proclaimed another verb announced which means to make something known or to tell people something

officially we got engaged she announced all right really happy news there's also the verb declared and this means to announce something clearly firmly officially publicly uh I could say we made it to the finals the coach declared so with each of these verbs they they may be used interchangeably depending on the context but it's still good to get that variety let's move from happiness to sadness if you want to show that you are upset about something there are many different verbs that you could use like pouted this is when you want to show that you

are annoyed and you you're pushing your lips together and really pushing out your lower lip like M and and you're just unhappy happy about something I want some ice cream the child pouted you can also use the verb complained which is very common it just means that that you're saying that something is wrong or or just not satisfactory we don't want to work over the weekend the employees complained all right it's not a good situation I would complain about it as well if you want to emphasize that sadness you could use a verb like sobbed

it means to cry noisily and you're really taking these deep breaths so think about this situation if someone says I work so hard on this project and now it has been destroyed in a matter of seconds she sobbed you could also use cried which means you are well producing tears and expressing that strong emotion she told me it was over he cried and really conveying that sadness let's keep it going with some moread sad verbs keep building your writing vocabulary with verbs like lamented and this means that you are expressing sadness and really just feeling

sorry about something and I think that's a key part of it just feeling sorry maybe a little bit of regret I should never have accepted the offer he lamented you could also use the verb sneered when talking about someone or something in an unkind way that shows no respect is that the best you can do she sneered so it's not a good thing to sneer at someone but it it does it really captures that emotion wind is making that long high sad sound I'm sure you can think of someone from your life who has whined

before my ice cream melted the boy whined you're really sad and upset about this and then there's the verb bemon this means to complain or Express sadness about something great verb to use from time to time our department has to lay some people off the manager bemon all right the manager's not happy about this situation bemoaning this situation now let's raise the noise level and talk about well if somebody's being loud you could use verbs such as shouted this means to to speak in a loud voice especially when you're in a situation that well it's

very noisy around you and you want others to hear so you have to shout we won they shouted so in this context I I feel like the atmosphere is very noisy and he's very excited and just shouting this we won we also have the verb exclaimed which means to shout something suddenly because of surprise fear or pleasure that's not fair she exclaimed in this situation makes me think well perhaps she's a little surprised that's not fair and then there's bellowed which is to shout in a loud voice who's there he bellowed tells the reader that

wow this this is a very loud voice when someone Bellows let's move on with some more loud verbs like yelled this means to shout and make a loud noise because you're angry you're in pain maybe you're excited get out she yelled in this case uh makes me think she's not happy and I should probably get out then there's the verb screamed which is similar to yelled you may use these verbs interchangeably but let me give you a different context if um people say help us they screamed and in this situation they are screaming for help

and then there's the verb hollered this means to shout loudly pass me the ball he hollered and and you really want to get someone else's attention when you're hollering at them pass me the ball let's now bring the noise level down a little bit and talk about some verbs that you can use if you want to say someone's trying to be quiet like this verb right here murmured murmured just means to say something very quietly I love you the boy murmured and in this context it makes me think that well the boy is a little

shy perhaps he doesn't want the other person to hear it but he really just still feels the need to say it and he murmurs this then we have the verb muttered it means to speak quietly in a low voice so that it's not easy to hear and and when I think about this verb muttered I think that people do this because they don't really want the other person to hear what they're saying it could perhaps cause an argument so if we are in a classroom and maybe a teacher gets angry and they call a student

lazy and the student's a little upset you're the lazy one the student muttered and they say it in that low voice because they don't necessarily want the teacher to hear and that's why you would mutter something and this verb is also used in the phrase to mutter something under someone's breath which has the same meaning you're speaking softly it's not easy to hear because you don't really want the other person to hear and you mutter something something under your breath then there's mumbled which means to speak quietly and in a way that's not easy to

understand so to to give you an example of someone mumbling uh I could say I can't believe they he mumbled and you're like wait wait what was that last part I can't believe they he mumbled so when I'm mumbling it's kind of like you're just trailing off and you just don't understand what someone's saying cuz it's like they're trailing off it becomes quieter and they may be mixing some sounds together and you're like wait what was that can can you say that again and then there's whispered okay if somebody's really trying to be quiet whispered

it means that you are speaking quietly really so only the person next to you or close to you can hear what you're saying and you would whisper something don't tell anyone she whispered so this is a very common and and a great verb to use if you really want to show that somebody's trying to be quiet so I just gave you many different verbs that you can use instead of saying the verb said these are very useful reporting verbs that that'll really help you improve your writing they're more descriptive they're more precise and it's just

going to make your writing that much more captivating I know I just gave you a lot of vocabulary and I I do not expect you to memorize all of it the goal is just to be aware that there are many different reporting verbs that you can use to help you be more descriptive now I want to switch gears from descriptive writing to academic writing and I know I've talked to you about different tips to help you write professionally but I I really want to do a deep dive to help you improve your academic writing skills

and it doesn't matter if you're a student or a working professional this information will help I want to talk to you about some very useful tips that's going to help you immensely improve your writing really it's going to help you greatly improve your academic writing and develop those skills and I know that when I say academic writing you you may think of University which is where a lot of academic writing is done but this is also very important in a more professional setting a business setting so these tips will help so let's begin with the

first tip and I think this one is is very important which is why I've put it at the very beginning and that is to be concise and what it means to be concise is that you are stating the information clearly and you are using as few words as possible so really you just avoid wasting words and I think this applies to so many different things so let me give you an example uh with these video lessons before a long time ago when I first started doing these lessons I thought that well the longer I could

make them then that would just make it better and more people would be watching them but what I realized after once I started doing this is that I shouldn't be trying to make the lessons longer I should try to give you the information I should try to teach you the lesson and then whenever it's finished then well that's how long the lesson is and and that's the same with your writing you should be concise State the information and try to use as few words as possible because why say something in 10 words when you could

say it in five and one way that you can do that that that's going to help you be prise is to use action verbs so let me give you some sentences so that you know what I mean a simple way that you can avoid using too many words is to stay away from the ti n words and I'm not saying that you should never use these but really just keep this in mind because it will help you cut down on unnecessary words so if I were to say the report provided an explanation for these unusual

results you see that Tio N word explanation well can just make that an action verb and say the report explained these unusual results I've said the same thing it's more concise I've used fewer words and and you're still saying the information clearly another reason why it's very important to be concise is because it's going to help whoever it is that's reading your writing it's going to help them more easily understand what you're trying to say the final thing that I'll say about this is that you should try to use the vocabulary that you already know

I think quite often people will try to look up words that are more difficult that sound more academic intelligent and and they put that into their paper even if it's a word that maybe you don't even know try to avoid doing that use the vocabulary that you already know it's going to help you say things clearly and be concise the next tip that I have for you is to organize your paper this is going to help you carefully structure your writing and all all you need to do is create an outline it's as simple as

that and I cannot emphasize this enough because often I think many people will just skip this part of the writing process I used to teach I and Iz is a proficiency exam and part of the exam you have to write and it is timed and I would work with students to help them try to achieve a a high Mark and what I would always tell them is that at the very beginning just take 5 minutes organize your paper and write down create a quick little outline about what you want to say before you start writing

and so so often they would tell me well I I just don't have time there's no time for this I just need to start writing and when I would read their writing I could see the lack of organization some of the ideas would overlap and and some points were not even connected to their main thesis so I I think without organizing your paper and saying okay this is what I'm going to talk about first second and third it it's very easy to lose track of where where you want to go and when you start to

lose focus of your main idea you you kind of go off track and you start writing about things that may not even be relevant so please take a little bit of time create an outline organize your paper and think about how your writing should be structured my next tip is that you should avoid contractions idioms and other colloquial Expressions simply because they're very informal and writing in general writing is more formal and academic writing is definitely more formal so let's have a look at some informal language like contractions instead of writing its write it is

instead of writing could have write could have or instead of writing theirs write their has I I'll also include phrasal verbs in this because they can also be a bit informal and in that case instead of if you were to say like put up with use a more specific verb like endure or or tolerate instead of saying check out you could use a verb like view or consult so not only are you using more formal language but you're also you're also being more concise you're using fewer words and as far as idioms go just just

please avoid them look at these two sentences right here collecting data was easy and efficient or collecting data was a piece of cake it just uh just reading it is a bit awkward and the same goes for colloquial Expressions if you you if I were to write something like the scientist had trouble finishing the experiment but no biggie if they didn't finish they could just go back to the drawing board and I the colloquial expressions like saying something is well no biggie it's no big deal or I use that idiom go back to the drawing

board not only does this informal language sound unprofessional but it's probably going to seem strange to the person who's reading it so please avoid contractions idioms and these other colloquial phrases the next tip is that you should vary your sentence structures and this is going to help you avoid choppiness and if you're unsure what that means I'm going to tell you a little story and I think it will make more sense but let's get into some more details about sentence structure so there are four basic sentence structures you have simple sentences this is one independent

clause so if I'm going to tell you a story about my day I could say I woke up late this morning it's a simple sentence we also have compound sentences which is when you have two or more independent clauses so continuing the story I could say I immediately went to the kitchen and I made myself a cup of coffee a complex sentence is when you have one independent clause plus one or more dependent clauses after I finished my coffee I got ready for work then we have compound complex sentences which is when you have two

or more independent clauses Plus one or more dependent clauses and let's continue when I looked at my watch I realized I was running late so I ran out the door and jumped in my car so let's review our story using all of those different sentence structures I woke up late this morning I immediately went to the kitchen and I made myself a cup of coffee after I finished my coffee I got ready for work when I looked at my watch I realized I was running late so I ran out the door and jumped in my

car if we were to change this and just use simple sentences the story is going to sound well it's going to sound very choppy if I say I woke up late this morning I immediately went to the kitchen I made myself a cup of coffee I finished my coffee I got ready for work I looked at my watch I realized I was running late I ran out the door I jumped in my car all right it's it sounds more like a children's book and it's definitely not academic writing so when you vary your sentence structure

it's going to help your writing have a nice Rhythm and flow and to be perfectly honest when you are writing you may not analyze each sentence and and really look at the sentence structure this is more likely something that you will notice and you'll be able to get a feel for it as you reread your writing so when you reread you'll be able to get a better sense if there is some choppiness and you need to adjust some of your sentence structures my next tip is to use the active voice and that is because the

active voice it just gives more clarity now I'm not I'm not saying that you should never use the passive voice it really depends on what you're writing if you writing some scientific paper then yes it's likely you may have some passive sentences but in general overall most of your sentences should be active so let's compare the active and passive if I were to say archaeologists conducted a study of the newly Unearthed artifacts this is an active sentence it has nine words and if we compare it to the Passive A study was conducted of the newly

Unearthed artifacts you see that the issue is that well in the passive we don't know who conducted the study now we could add that to the end of the sentence and I could say by archaeologist but now I have 11 words why say something in 11 words when I could say it in nine so again it's about being more concise so just keep in mind that most of your sentences are going to be in the active voice the next tip is to avoid repetition try to use a variety of words because it's going to make

your writing more captivating use precise language if possible and try to avoid words like very because words like that are often overused now in writing one one way to avoid repetition is when it comes to transition words these transition words are when you can well add information perhaps you're moving from one idea to the next but when you're writing transition words it's easy to repeat them let's take the word also this is a word that's commonly use to add more information but you do not always need to use this word because there are other words

that have the same meaning so instead of saying the crisis caused severe economic damage companies were forced to downsize and many people lost their job also Banks were forced to Titan lending practices which meant small businesses had a difficult time accessing money also the local government proved ineffective in offering relief we can just remove also to replace with some other words like in addition and furthermore and it's going to sound much better so we have also in addition furthermore moreover besides there are a variety of words that you can use when you're talking about these

transition words the good news is is that well repetition is pretty easy to spot when you reread your writing you should be able to identify if you continuously use the same word again and again and again and really unless you're writing a poem there is no good reason to continuously repeat words over and over just remember this famous saying when you avoid repetition your writing Won't Suck actually it's not a famous saying I just made it up right now but the message the lesson is still relevant avoid repetition the next tip and I really want

to emphasize this is proofread and the reason why I say I want to emphasize this is because it's another step in the writing process that some people tend to skip and the reason why it's so important to proof read is because you're able to do some of the things that I've already talked about you're able to get a feel for the sentence structure that you use you're able to spot some of the words that you may have repeated most of you are probably proofreading because you want to correct mistakes so in that case I have

a bonus tip for you and that is read backwards go to the very last sentence read that one try to look for mistakes go to the next to the last sentence read that one look for mistakes and just continue reading backwards until you get to the beginning and the reason for that is because you're you're really isolating the sentence and you're able to look for spelling mistakes uh grammar mistakes punctuation and in short when you read backwards you're focusing more on the text and not the ideas so proofread forward from beginning to end if you

want to get a feel for the Rhythm and flow of your writing make sure that your ideas are logically ordered as well as check for repetition proof read backward if you want to really focus on the text and check for grammatical errors and most importantly just make sure that you proofread and do not skip this step so I hope that you found these tips and suggestions useful because I definitely think this will help you immensely improve your academic writing so let's practice some of the things that we've been talking about in this lesson and the

way that I would like to practice is by correcting some common writing mistakes now I'm sure that you may have heard the expression practice makes perfect so let's do that right now I want to talk to you about some common writing mistakes and see if you can identify them but most importantly I also want to talk about how you can fix these mistakes and really just try to avoid them all together this uh well these are the directions so I am going to give you a sample writing and I want you to read the sentences

read what I have for you and see if you can identify all three mistakes so in each writing sample there are three mistakes but not only that I also want you to identify the common writing mistake like what is the overall problem what is the overall issue and that's really going to help you try to go through your own writing and tell you what to look for some of the things to keep in mind to help you improve your writing and help you correct some of those mistakes so let's just jump in I think as

we go through this you'll you'll get what I'm talking about so the first one is this right here this little writing sample so I'll I'll read this as is I'll give you a moment to think about what are some of the mistakes write them in the chat and then we'll talk about the overall problem so here is the first writing sample neither John nor Mary are at school today John is a good friend who always asks for help I am happy to give my friend a hand from time to time however Mary usually tells me

that he don't need my help and should do his own work so in this in these sentences right here there are three mistakes and I want you to think about well what are the mistakes and all of all of these mistakes are similar I think the one thing that stands out which you can probably see is that he don't let me show you all three and we'll talk about the general well topic the category so what I'm really referring to the three mistakes and what they have in common is that they all deal with subject

verb agreement so the first sentence there's that first mistake neither John nor Mary is at school today when you're talking about that phrase neither or nor if we we have a singular subject in which case JN is singular Mary is singular we're going to use a singular verb neither John nor Mary is at school today and if it were a plural subject like neither children nor adults then you could use that plural verb the next sentence John is a good friend of mine who always ask for help we need that S at the end so

who who is referring to John in this case again it's singular John ask who ask and then down there at the bottom however Mary usually tells me that he don't this is a common mistake that I I see in writing but also in spoken English when people want to use that negative and they're talking about he or she and I'll hear people go to and and use don't instead of doesn't so just something to keep in mind but the first Common mistake that I often see when it comes to writing is just subject verb agreement

do the does the subject agree with the verb and that's something you should look through as you go through your writing to make sure that they do agree the next one please let me know when you're ready to talk I think there is much that we need to discuss it's been a difficult time for both of us to be honest I don't know if I can forgive you for your many mistakes and there are three mistakes in this little short passage right here and they all have they all have one thing in common so the

three mistakes all have to do with contractions versus possessives these are words that they sound the same but they have a different meaning you're the contracted form or you're the possessive form or it's the contracted form or it's the possessive so in that first sentence please let me know when you are ready to talk you're ready to talk we need that apostrophe so it's with an apostrophe can there are two contracted forms it could mean it is or it could mean it has you could use it's for either one but in this case you see

that past participle Ben so that tells you right there there that we're talking about the present perfect tense it's been a difficult time for both of us and then that last sentence uh to be honest I don't know if I can forgive you for your many mistakes in this case we're talking about your the possessive form y u r what do you think I never really check weather forecast luckily a friend told me it was going to rain tomorrow I made sure to bring a umbrella when our group of friends traveled to the Yos National

park there are three mistakes they're all the same but once again the they have this in common one thing that I think is also a challenge when you're looking at someone else's writing it can be a little easier when you're going back through your own writing it it it's actually a little more challenging the three mistakes in this sample right here they all have to do with articles here are the the mistakes mes it's just we're talking about article misuse and when I say articles I'm talking about a andth or just no article and not

using an article so I never really check uh the weather forecast you could use the article a in this case but mostly when talking about the weather you're referring to the specific weather where you are so I think it's preferable to use the I made sure to bring an umbrella an umbrella all right we're going to use that article an instead of a an umbrella when our group of friends travel um travel to not the yosan national park it should be no article and that last one when talking about no article we're talking about a

national park we don't use an article before that so the next one see if you can find the three mistakes he spent much of his time studying Finance because he was interested with economics perhaps it came naturally because he was great in math he understood that people's H spending habits depended to their income what are the mistakes in this writing sample and you know what is the category what category of mistakes am I referring to what I'm referring to the mistakes the overall category is just the wrong preposition so so that first sentence he spent

much of his time studying Finance because he was interested in economics if you're using that adjective interested you're going to say you're interested in something perhaps it came naturally because he was great at math great at something you're good at something and then finally he understood that people spending habits depended not depended to it depended on their in income so something depends on something else one thing that I'll say with these prepositions which can be tricky is that sometimes more than one preposition may be used the reason why I'm pointing this now out now is

because I want you to look at that phrase great at math and again I think in just general conversation colloquial speech you may hear someone use the preposition in when talking about a subject oh he's is great in math but if you want a point of reference and I wanted to share this site with you and I've talked about it before andram viewer this is a good way to try to understand the language and understand which words or phrases are more commonly used good at math good in math and looking at the graph right there

you can see that good at math is more frequently used every day I get get up and go for a run I usually took the same route yesterday however I decide to go jogging in the Hills nearby I had never been there before I really enjoy seeing the beautiful Forest perhaps I will do it again tomorrow so this actually goes back to what I was talking about before when I feel like in that one sample number three I had made a mistake and again the other thing is making mistakes it's it's natural it's going to

happen and I I think it is especially difficult when you are proofreading your own writing when other people are doing it I think it can be a little easier and you're able to spot some of those things mistakes because they're not your words we're talking about changing tenses and even in that sample before I made a mistake in terms of talking about the future and then kind of switching to the past and this is a mistake that people not only make in writing even whether you're an English learner or a native speaker it's a mistake

that people make and spoken English as well when they're telling a story so every day we're talking about a routine a habit we're going to use the present simple I go for a I get up and go for a run we're continuing with the present simple in that next sentence talking about what you usually do this is your routine your habit I usually take the same route the next sentence you see that word that time word right there yesterday that tells you that we're talking about the past yesterday however I decided with that Ed ending

to go jogging in the Hills I had never been there before I really enjoyed seeing the beautiful Forest we're going to use the past tense because once again in the previous sentence I had just said well I never been there before so it's not something you regularly do that you enjoy uh and that you're familiar with we're talking about again a finished action in the past and then the next sentence we switch to the Future because we have that time word tomorrow perhaps I'll do it again uh tomorrow think about those time words when talking

about yesterday or a few days ago tomorrow at the moment and those are indicators as to which verb tense you should be using then here is sample number six after going to the dentist I learned that I have three cavities the dentist said you need to take better care of your teeth he requested that I floss regularly and I should come in for a cleaning once every six months even as I was reading that hopefully just listening to it you might think that it sounded a little off what are the mistakes and it is the

same mistake I'll give you a hint it's a punctuation mistake what is the problem with the the punctuation in this writing sample we're talking about comma misuse so comma misuse could be you're using a comma when you shouldn't perhaps you're using a full stop but in all of these example these mistakes right here I should have used a comma but I didn't after going to the dentist that is my adverb phrase when it comes before the independent clause you need a comma the next one the dentist said comma and this is in quotes you need

to take better care of your teeth this is I feel like this is what my dentist would say says to me when I go there uh so again the dentist said said is that reporting verb before you say you give that direct quote those quotations you need a comma there the dentist said comma you need to take better care of your teeth he requested that I floss regularly comma and I should come in for a cleaning once every 6 months that is a compound sentence you have two two independent clauses joined by that conjunction and

often they're joined by Andor but so in this case and but you need a comma before that conjunction sample seven her colleague was late to the meeting she was attempting to purchase some time in hopes that he would arrive clearly she was not prepared to make the presentation on her own this would certainly have a negative effect on their upcoming work evaluations so identify the mistakes and then think about well what category would this fall under some of these may be a little more difficult than others but I think if you find one you can

start searching for those others so the three mistakes are right here all right right we're talking about the wrong word you're just using the wrong word a lot of times this happens with collocations words that are frequently used together the first mistake uh in that second sentence she was attempting instead of purchasing sometime we're talking about the phrase to buy sometime and buy and purchase they're generally synonyms but in this case you it's a fixed phrase to buy time which means to delay or you're trying to avoid doing something you're trying to buy some time

so that's why I said think about the situation she's in this meeting she's trying to buy time because her colleague's not there clearly she was not prepared to give the presentation on her own or do the presentation now what makes this tricky is when talking about a presentation I just mentioned collocations you could use use the verb make give or do depending on the context so let me be a little clearer to make a presentation would really be creating the presentation if you're talking about give in that case you're really referring to presenting and you're

actually in front of your audience speaking and you are giving the presentation with the verb do it can really refer to either one who's going to do the presentation like give the presentation or you could say who's going to do the presentation as in make it and create it it makes sense why some of these simple mistakes are made when it comes to these collocations it can be a little confusing and then at the end there this would certainly have a negative effect effect with an e is a noun so that is what we need

there a negative effect with an e a effect with an a this is a verb to affect something so effect and effect they're commonly confused words different parts of speech the next one see if you can find all three mistakes I think one of them will definitely be easy to spot so I'll I'll read it for you dear sir or Madam I'm writing to let you know that I submitted the pro proposal in the nick of time time the project should be a piece of cake so I believe it will be completed within a week

my team is going to work hard to make sure the project is finished in a timely manner okay what three mistakes do you see with this writing sample right here as I said one I think is pretty obvious and hopefully maybe that'll help you identify the other two if I want to give you a little bit of a hint think about that very first line Dear Sir or madam what is that telling you if somebody begins a letter or an email Dear Sir or Madam Dear Sir or Madam should tell you that this is a

formal message it is either a formal letter or it is a formal email and because of that you really should avoid you using informal language Dear Sir or Madam this is a formal message a formal email I am writing to let you know that I submitted the proposal in the nick of time is an idiom and if you're writing an in a formal uh email or letter I would recommend avoiding idioms altogether they're more casual so instead of you you submitted the proposal in the nick of time I submitted the proposal before the deadline there

are other phrases that you could use to finish that sentence but I would get rid of in the nick of time the project should be a piece of cake once again piece of cake is an idiom I would avoid it if you're writing something that's a little more formal so instead of a piece of cake maybe you could use simple and straightforward or just one of those the project should be straightforward so I believe it will be completed within a week and then that last sentence my team is going to instead of writing the reduction

you need to spell out the full form going to my team is going to work hard to make sure the project is finished in a timely manner now even if I'm reading this and I see going to the full form in my mind I I'm saying gonna I'm changing that to the reduction my team is going to work hard to make sure the project is finished on time but I would certainly avoid writing reductions sometimes I I know I say that and sometimes you may see it if somebody's writing a text message or perhaps like

song lyrics and you see people spell out these reductions it's very informal but the problem that I notice is that when people start writing these reductions it then carries over into more formal writing which can look really unprofessional if it's something for work or or School you definitely want to avoid using those reductions so just keep that in mind this informal language and I just want you to keep these things in mind and as you're proof rating these are the things that I want you to look out for so it's really difficult especially if you're

reading your own writing to track down all of the mistakes but one problem that I notice is that people will write something and they they tend not to proof re it all and I would definitely recommend it whether you're writing an email or even just a an informal letter it's just a good habit to get into now I I know that I just gave you a lot of information this past hour and I I hope that you really think about some of the things that we've talked about you can go back and rewatch parts of

the lesson because I really think that will help when it comes to improving your writing skills it is something that's going to take time it's going to take practice so if you enjoyed this lesson and learned something new please hit that like button as always thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time so long