3 Tips to Improve Your English Writing

we are going to cover three tips to

improve

your writing i’ve chosen one tip for

everybody to use

including beginners and two tips that i

hope are good for intermediate to more

advanced

level learners so i hope that everybody

can find something

in today’s lesson that will help them be

a better writer

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okay everyone is here

everybody is ready let’s look at today’s

lesson

boards uh-oh sorry

i gotta take my escalation picture away

okay this is what we’re going to

practice today

part one today uh will be which words to

try to

cut in your writing to improve your

vocabulary

this is the tip for beginners everybody

can use this tip

two and three the first or rather the

second tip

we’re going to talk about is called

faulty parallelism don’t worry about the

name

the important part is to remember uh

what you need to avoid in this error

part three we’re going to talk about

another more advanced mistake

the dangling modifier again i know that

sounds weird like what is that

we’re going to learn this in today’s

lesson so let’s begin let’s begin now

with our beginner tip okay so

first tip for today is to improve your

writing

and build your vocabulary so this is

something

it i said beginner tip but actually this

is a tip for

everybody i need to use this tip

sometimes

everybody every level can use this tip

this tip is try

not to use words like these so i made a

list

of six words they are very

pretty really so quite

rather and there are some other words

too

so when i say pretty i don’t mean like

when we want to say a flower is pretty

or a person is pretty i don’t mean that

when we say something is pretty exciting

or pretty cheap

or pretty expensive that use of pretty

same thing with so when you use so

to mean extremely so

these words a challenge for you and your

writing is to try

not to use these words so

why because these words are very

these words are very common right so we

use these a lot

to emphasize the adjective

or the adverb that comes next what

should you do

to work on improving your writing and

your vocabulary

find one word that means the same

thing as one of the above

plus an adjective or an adverb so what

am i talking about what does this mean

for example let’s look at some examples

very fast so very is a word on this list

and we have fast and adjective yeah so

a good way to practice is to think about

it when you’re writing this is hard to

in speech but when you’re writing and

you see

like oh i wrote very fast think about

how you can put these two words together

so what is one word that means very fast

for example rapid so rapid is one word

that means

very fast right so this is a really

good exercise to learn new words

and to make your writing more efficient

and like to build your vocabulary so

this is a super helpful tip

for writers of all levels everybody can

use this

okay let’s look at some other examples

of ways we can do this

here’s another one really big so really

big this

is common yeah really big one word that

means really big

is huge huge and again these are not the

only words

that mean these things it’s just an

example so you can build your vocabulary

and practice them quite far quite

far a one one word that means quite far

distant for example

pretty cheap pretty cheap something that

is pretty

cheap is affordable yeah so one word

instead of two

and the word is more advanced than just

these two

something that is so scary so scary

is terrifying or horrifying

something that is rather difficult is

tough yeah so these are the six words

on this list there are other words that

you can do this same exercise with

but i think this is a good place to

start so again

consider how you can make two words into

one word

so i know you might think how do i do

this like i don’t know this word

how do i choose this word how do i know

here’s a two-step process you can try

to work on this step one use

a thesaurus to look for a new word

what’s a thesaurus you might not know

what a thesaurus is

a thesaurus is a collection of words

like a dictionary you can look up you

can search for

a word in the thesaurus but you don’t

find the meaning

of the word in a thesaurus instead you

find

other words with similar or the same

meaning

as that word there are lots of words

that have similar meanings

so thesaurus thesauruses are very useful

it’s actually hard to say

so you do this so for example when you

write this word

fast you might think ah fast that’s a

really simple

basic word what’s a word that means fast

check a thesaurus online there are

online ones

and look for another word so a problem

though

that many writers and learners encounter

they find out a new word in the

thesaurus and they think i can use this

word

but we have to understand the nuances

like the detailed meanings of these

words how do we do that

so step two after you find a new word

you think you want to use from the

thesaurus

check the meaning in a dictionary so

that means just take that word take your

new word and put it in the dictionary

search tool online or check it in your

physical dictionary

to see what the meaning is so in this

way

you can build your vocabulary naturally

through your writing

and you become more efficient okay

so this is our first tip for today this

is the tip for everyone

to use so i hope that this is helpful

for you

okay so check it out try to remove

these words there are other words you

can try to remove as well

if you want a super challenge you can

try removing

just as in very recently that’s another

good one to do

so give this a try everybody can try

this i’m going to try to do this

in my writing too removing these words

okay

i’m looking for your questions uh

some of you are making example sentences

uh with

new book these new vocabulary words

fantastic

arshad says what is the difference

between suddenly

and rapid well something that is

rapid rapid is an adjective suddenly is

adverb so something suddenly happened

but

rapid describes someone’s movement or

something’s movement

so the train is a rapid train

it moves quickly but the train suddenly

moved there are different

parts of speech okay

other questions i don’t see any okay

oh no wait bhavna says giant and huge

are the same

they can be so giant and huge can both

mean

very big yeah but sometimes it depends

on the part of speech

a giant giant can also be used as a noun

a giant is a very very big person like

in a fantasy story

that’s a giant a very big person so it

depends sometimes

on the way the word is used okay someone

says they’re from uzbekistan their first

time online welcome that’s super cool

jamsheed awesome

uh why are you using the same blackboard

because i’m at home

okay let’s go to a quick break

and then we’ll continue to uh tip number

two

so if you’re just joining today’s lesson

is about

three tips to improve your writing three

tips to improve your writing

i just talked about which words you can

cut

to improve your writing and vocabulary

now i’m going to talk about a more

advanced tip

but in case you have not please make

sure to like and share this video

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okay uh all right let’s continue on

a question on facebook leaden says could

you let me know what is the difference

between

mass and huge maybe you mean massive

and huge massive it depends again a

little bit so massive

massive and huge what’s the difference

is this question from facebook

they both mean very very big uh we tend

to use

uh well we often live in casual

situations

uh overlapping ways but we use them

like in different uh levels of formality

too

so short answer they’re kind of the same

i guess for massive and huge

okay on to part two if you missed it

today’s lesson boards are

these this so we just talked about

this point how to improve your writing

and build your vocabulary

by trying to remove some words

now let’s go to this one faulty

parallelism

what is that so i mentioned this tip

on instagram yesterday and the following

one

uh you don’t need to remember

it’s not so important to remember this

this word it’s not a word we use in

everyday conversation

uh we use it like in grammar lessons and

for editing but i want you to

remember the type of mistake

that this is so that you can practice

correct

writing so what is this

let’s look at a sample mistake

let’s look at a sample of this problem

of faulty parallelism

here we go my friends are smart

funny and always cheer me up

my friends are smart funny and always

cheer me up

okay oh thanks anna lucia on youtube

that’s awesome

appreciate it so again my friends are

smart funny and always cheer me up

you might be like what’s the problem

here i don’t see a problem here it makes

sense

yes we understand what the person wants

to say

in this sentence right but the problem

here

is our grammar why we have three points

in this sentence so my subject is my

friends yeah

my friends are smart adjective

funny adjective and

always cheer me up always

cheer me up is not an adjective that’s a

verb phrase

right so i have always my adverb of

frequency there

but they cheer me up they cheer me

up so that i’m using a verb there that’s

not a match this is adjective adjective

verb phrase

so when we write lists especially we

have

one two three items or a or b

when we do this the items in our list

need to match or be parallel

grammatically so this

mismatch where i have three items two

are adjectives one’s a verb phrase

this mismatch is called faulty

parallelism this is an example of a

situation where the items in a list

do not match grammatically so

i have this written here the items in

your list or series

do not use all the same grammatical form

or structure so that’s the problem we’re

seeing here

yes we can understand what the speaker

means but

it sounds strange or it seems strange

when we read it because the grammar does

not match

so this is the key point i want you to

remember from point two today

yeah okay so how do we fix this problem

how do we how do we fix this error find

the item

that is different and rewrite it or

rewrite your sentence

to match the grammar of the other items

okay so pretty easy right so

here is how we could do that my friends

are smart

funny and cheerful so cheerful

is an adjective now the sentence is nice

adjective adjective adjective yeah so

this is something to keep an eye out for

in your writing

here are some examples of patterns where

we often see this problem

i talked about this a b

and c that was my example or a b

or c when you see this pattern make sure

b and c all match or

sorry a and b or a

or b also this pattern not only a

but also b so

these are patterns that are like compare

uh they’re they’re showing two things

in a series or they’re showing a list of

items

so how do we how do we identify just as

i did

here i have these three points

i checked each point to see what type of

speech it is

you can do the same thing so check each

item or phrase in your sentence

to see if the grammar matches

so you don’t have to use adjective

adjective adjective

every time maybe your list is nouns like

i need to buy

fruit vegetables and milk those are

three nouns

so make sure all the items in your list

have the same grammar they use the same

part of speech that is the key with this

when everything matches we say

everything is

parallel okay

good cheer me up what does it mean

people are asking about cheer me up

my so to cheer someone up

means to improve their mood so if i feel

sad if i feel like lonely or down and my

friend

tells me a joke or funny story and i

feel better

we describe that as cheering someone up

to cheer someone up means to improve

their

mood to cause someone to become happy

i hope that helps you uh

someone says my friends are smart funny

and they cheer me up so again

check your grammar smart adjective funny

adjective they cheer me up is that an

adjective

if they’re not all the same grammatical

structure

then we need to make a change so again

yes i understand you 100 i understand

you

but for your writing you need to make

sure the grammar of your items

matches okay what’s your name my name is

alicia

let’s see others okay

i don’t see other questions so i’ll

finish point

two there also point three will take

some time so i’ll stop there

okey-dokey let’s take a quick break i

hope that was good

okay i don’t see other questions coming

in um

oh passion for flowers has a nice

example on youtube

uh ice cold water and coffee make me

happy

good so noun phrase noun phrase perfect

perfect

okay then let’s continue someone keeps

asking what’s your name on youtube

you can maybe not do that okay let’s

take one more quick break

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at our lesson boards

one more time before we go to part three

you can take a screenshot hooray

we talked about part number one and we

talked about part number two

now we’re going to talk about dangling

modifiers what is that

what is a dangling modifier so weird

right so let’s find out

again you don’t need to worry about

remembering the phrase dangling modifier

but i want you to remember the error the

error

is important so let’s practice together

dangling modifiers what is that also i

forgot

please make sure to like and share this

lesson so other people

can improve their writing too okay let’s

dangling modifiers what is that okay a

dangling

what is this dangling modifiers happen

with

adverb phrases at the beginning

of sentences adverb phrases at the

beginning of sentences

maybe some of you remember a lesson a

live lesson i taught about

adverb clauses like three weeks ago or

you can check that live stream for more

information about

adverb clauses hey there on youtube

uh th s box thanks very much

so check that out for more information

an adverb phrase at the beginning of a

sentence

gives us some information about a

sentence so for example

while i was waiting for a taxi it gives

us information

about the situation yeah or worried i

was going to be late

so we have like some background

information that’s what an adverb phrase

does for us so what’s the problem

the problem is the subject of the adverb

phrase

does not match the subject of the main

sentence

the subject of the adverb phrase does

not match the subject of the main

sentence what does this mean okay

let’s look at an example so here

in this part in these brackets is my

adverb phrase my adverb clause

here is my main sentence let’s read it

running to catch the train a cat

jumped out in front of me so once more

running to catch the train

a cat jumped out in front of me so

this is an example of a problem

the subject of the adverb phrase does

not match

the subject of the main sentence okay

think about this for a second

see if you can find the error hello

on youtube thanks very much uh for

supporting our channel

so did you figure it out the subject of

this clause right here

running to catch the train we don’t

see the subject right this is

grammatically correct

running to catch the train we don’t see

it though who is running

right probably me the speaker the

speaker is running i

probably then in the second part in the

main part

of the sentence what’s the subject a cat

a cat jumped out in front of me so the

problem here

is that a cat is the subject here and a

cat

is probably not the subject here

this is an error that we need to fix

so of course it’s easy to see

when someone is telling you that so here

is how

you can test to see

if your adverb clause and your main

sentence

have the same subject this is a

test you can use so move the subject

of the main sentence to the adverb

clause change the verb to match the

subject

does it make sense okay so this is very

very simple

i have a quick example so i’ve rewritten

here is my adverb clause running to

catch the train

then here is a cat so to test

move this subject to the beginning

of your adverb clause and change the

verb

to match the subject so this becomes a

cat

was running to catch the train but

probably not correct no not correct a

cat

was probably probably not running to

catch the train probably

it’s probably me running to catch the

train right

so how do we fix this

rewrite the sentence so the two parts

have the same subject yeah great some

people are

making their own corrections if you have

a correction for

this error please send it in the chat or

of course

send your own example too i will try to

check

so for example running to catch the

train

i dodged a cat that jumped out in front

of me

so why is this sentence okay because

running to catch the train i i

is now the subject here i dodged a cat

that jumped

out in front of me this is the subject

of the main sentence

and this is the subject of my adverb

clause

the two of them match so this is perfect

now

this is one example of how we can fix

this sentence

so it’s up to you to write the

a correct sentence so you can choose

something here okay um

jeffrey on youtube says i was running to

catch the train when a cat jumped out in

front of me yeah

so another way that you can fix this

issue

is you can put your subject

actually in the adverb clause but in

many cases we don’t include the subject

in the adverb clause we’ve dropped it

here

but when you do that which is actually

very common

make sure these two have the same

subject

that’s the key oh people ask what is

dodge oh

to dodge means to like escape something

so like if someone shoots at you

that’s very dark but we’ll go with it if

someone shoots something at you or your

friend

throws a ball at you and you move

quickly out of the way

that’s to dodge to dodge something

so in this case what did i say i dodged

a cat

that jumped out in front of me so that’s

like saying i was running for the train

and a cat jumped out in front of me i

dodged

the cat yeah so i like escaped or i

moved around

something quickly okay

uh kita says can i put when before

running yeah when running for the train

that’s fine uh i dodged

the cat while i was catching the train

okay

good good good so make sure make sure

your verbs also align i dodged

this is a past tense sentence i did

um yeah some people are rewriting the

sentence so if you decide like you know

what i don’t want to use this adverb

clause

that’s totally okay but remember they

are very common so it’s good to know how

to use them

rafa on facebook said a cat jumped out

in front of me

while i was running to catch the train

that’s fine too

if you have two different parts and you

have all the parts

clearly labeled but who is doing what

fantastic that’s fine what is the

present form of the verb

dodged ah dodge dodge this is past tense

dodge present or infinitive form is

dodge

to dodge so maybe you you know the movie

dodgeball with uh oh my gosh

ben stiller yeah dodge ball is the same

idea like dodge ball is the name of a

game a popular children’s game

where kids throw a ball at each other

and try to

dodge it yeah dodgeball uh can we join

these with a comma yeah so running to

catch the train

comma a cat jumped down in front of me

so a good rule i talked about

in the adverb clauses lesson from a

couple weeks ago

i talked about uh using

a comma after an introductory clause

like this one so we’re introducing we’re

using this to introduce some information

comma after an introductory clause

okay that sounds good to me okay that

was a lot wow and it is time to finish

today’s lesson

so i hope that this was helpful i’m

going to show today’s lesson boards one

more time so you can take a look here we

you can take a screenshot if you like so

this is what we talked about

for today this was the tip for everybody

some words to try to cut to improve your

writing

this is about fixing your lists making

sure your items match

and dangling modifiers making sure

your subjects match uh in your adverb

clauses okay so we will finish there for

today

uh i think that that’s good i don’t see