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Writing

Writing and Grammar

 

 
Grammar and Writing
 
Online Resources

1. Guide to English Grammar and Writing, by Dr. Charles Darling

2. Principles of Composition, by Dr. Charles Darling

3. The Elements of Style, by William Strunk

4. Google Grammar Gadget
 

5. Confident Grammar System, by Chris Louis
 
Guide to Business Writing
General Resources and Samples

Put my show and this player on your website or your social network.
 
How to Write and Deliver a Great Eulogy

This simple, easy-to-use, step-by-step guide will help you easily write and deliver a great eulogy - to honour a special person's memory. If you have no time to lose, or are really stuck, create a personal, meaningful eulogy in just 30 minutes using the print-off-and-fill-in-the blanks templates, designed specially for this purpose.
 
Homonyms in Roger's Reference

Find any homonym or homophone in Roger's Reference quickly and easily. Remove all confusion about English words that sound the same. Eliminate tiresome searches through your regular dictionary for homonyms and homophones.Get revised electronic editions of Roger's Reference absolutely free. The Reference Dictionary is so comprehensive, you'll never be stuck for the Right (Write, Wright, Right, Rite) homonym or homophone.Click here and get it!
 
How to Become a Medical Writer

Discover how to launch a successful career writing about medicine and health, how to be part of one of the fastest growing industries in the world.
 
 
Freelance University

Write from home: create your account, view freelance positions, and select the job. Read more...
 
The Art and Science for Successful Briefings
WritingForResults gives step-by-step guidance and templates for those who need to prepare briefings for cabinet ministers, senior executives and supervisors. As a point of reference, this site uses Government of Canada memos, letters, briefing notes and briefing books prepared for ministers and deputy ministers. However, it takes only minor changes to adapt the material to diverse governments and other organizations worldwide. It is equally easy to adapt the material to briefings prepared for a supervisor or a colleague.
You will find 312 pages of guidance and over 260 templates here for briefing notes, briefing books, memos and letters.

Teaching Writing
 
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. - William Strunk Jr., Elements of Style

Ideas

In teaching writing we should consider the following aspects:

1. Age of the students.

2. Student motivation level, their aims of learning.

3. Language level.

4. Objectives and requirements of the course.

We can involve students in the following ways:

1. Choose topics carefully by considering students’ interests.

2. Develop concrete skills with the help of specific exercises focusing on a specific area which needs to be improved such as structure, tense usage, creative writing, etc.

3. Choose the right type of correction; it can be teacher-guided or in small groups (learning from each other), or other.

Basic Difficulties

Mistakes show us what we need to learn. - Peter McWilliams


Spelling

English spelling is difficult to master. Teach your students how to use computer tools such as spell checkers, dictionaries and translation tools. These tools can be more reliable than some English native speakers who may have forgotten correct spelling of words (or never knew it).

There are two basic types of problems related to spelling (also, pronunciation):

1. Students know words by sound but cannot write them correctly.

2. Students see words written but they do not know how to pronounce them.

Structure of Text

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. - E. L. Doctorow

Structure of text is related to cohesion and coherence:

1. Cohesion includes mechanical links at a language level - all grammatical and lexical links in the text: pronouns, tenses, synonyms, etc. Cohesion establishes connections within a text at various levels, such as paragraph, sentence and phrase.

2. Coherence establishes connections of denotative and connotative meanings and sequences of ideas that relate to each other (at an ideas level). These are step-by-step logical sequences in texts - from general to particular, from statement to example, from problem to solution, from question to answer, from claim to counter-claim, from dilemma to choice, from anticipation to outcome, etc.


Other Problems

Writing cannot express all words, words cannot encompass all ideas. - Confucius


Tenses

English language has a large number of tenses with some slight differences, often causing confusion.

Functions of auxiliaries

The basic difficulties include negation, inversion, and tag questions. 

Modal verbs

English also has a considerable number of modal auxiliary verbs with different meanings. For example, the opposite of "You must be here at five" (obligation) is usually "You don't have to be here at five" (lack of obligation, choice), while "must" in "You must not drink the milk" (prohibition) has a different meaning from "must" in "You must not be an Englishman" (deduction). This complication takes substantial work for the majority students to master.

Idiomatic usage

English has a lot of idiomatic expressions which cause difficulties to ESL learners, e.g. once in a blue moon, out of the blue, to see red, pie in the sky, white elephant, etc.

Articles

The meanings of the definite (the), indefinite (a, an) and zero articles are often misunderstood. See examples here.

 
How to Write an Acceptable Scholarship Essay

Is there really no one out there teaching our high school students how to write an acceptable scholarship essay? You can buy and instantly download the book that will show you how to write an acceptable scholarship essay.
 
Software for Writing Academic Papers and Dissertations

StyleEase software automatically formats your paper, handles all necessary Word functions, automates citing references, and includes the most sophisticated input verification technology on the market. Whether you are writing a research paper, writing a dissertation or thesis, or simply creating a term paper, this software is the right choice for you.
 
 
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Browse: Links for Students, Links for Teachers or What's New
Maintained by The Internet TESL Journal.

 

 
 
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Writing Software

There is software available that automatically formats your paper, handles all necessary Word functions, automates citing references, and includes the most sophisticated input verification technology on the market. Whether you are writing a research paper, writing a dissertation or thesis, or simply creating a term paper, this software is the right choice for you. To learn more, click HERE...
 
 
Education Resources

Resources for homeschooling through high school and beyond. Learn MORE...
 
 

 
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