How to Improve Your English Writing English Writing Lesson
Hello.
I’m Oli.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about how to
improve your English writing.
Learning to write well is often the most difficult
skill for English learners.
Writing well requires great control of language
and extreme attention to detail.
Even then, it’s not easy, even for native
speakers.
In this video, you can see some advice that
will help you to improve your English writing,
whatever level your English is now.
First, understand your audience.
Before you start writing, you need to answer
two questions.
Question one: who are you writing for?
Are you writing for your friend, your colleague,
your teacher, your manager, an examiner, who?
Secondly, what are you trying to achieve?
Are you trying to give someone information?
Are you trying to convince somebody of your
point of view?
Are you trying to entertain somebody and make
them laugh?
Are you just trying to pass an exam, or are
you trying to achieve several different things?
Thinking about your purpose in writing can
really help you to organize your ideas.
Now these questions: who are you writing for,
and what do you want to achieve, they are
important.
But there’s an even more important question:
what does your reader want?
Remember, when you write, you’re normally
writing for someone else, unless you’re writing
a diary or a journal for yourself, in which
case you can write however you want.
Normally, however, you’re writing for another
person.
Whoever reads your writing will give their
time and their attention to read what you’ve
written.
Why?
Why will someone give their time to read what
you’ve written?
Okay, so for example, if you’re writing an
essay at school or at university for your
teacher, your teacher will spend time reading
your essay to see if you’ve understood the
topic or not.
If you’re writing an email or a letter to
a friend, your friend will probably want to
hear some news about your life and maybe hear
some funny stories.
If you’re writing in an exam, the examiner
will be looking for some specific things which
you do or don’t do in your writing in order
to decide your score.
Understanding your reader, or your readers,
and understanding what they want from your
writing is essential.
You need to think about this from the beginning
to the end of the writing process.
So are you ready to start writing yet?
Not quite.
Next, you need to plan your writing.
If you don’t plan your writing, there’s a
good chance you will miss out some important
ideas, you won’t include them in your writing,
or you might include some unnecessary ideas
that will confuse your reader and make your
purpose unclear.
Have you ever written something and got stuck
in the middle?
You start a paragraph, or you start a sentence,
and in the middle you stop and you think,
“What am I doing?
Where am I going?
What do I say next?
Uh, help!”
Why does this happen?
Often it happens because you haven’t planned
enough.
Imagine that you’re in a new city and you’re
trying to find your way somewhere.
You don’t have a map, you don’t have a smartphone,
there’s nobody you can ask.
Of course, you’ll get lost.
You’ll go down streets without knowing where
they go.
You’ll go around in circles.
If you do find the place you were looking
for, it will just be because you were lucky.
Writing without planning is very similar.
You’ll start sentences or paragraphs without
knowing where they’re going.
You’ll waste lots of time writing things,
deleting them, rewriting them, deleting them,
writing them again.
If you do achieve your goal, it will only
be because you were lucky.
Remember, you’re writing for someone else,
and you’re writing for a reason.
That means you have a goal, even if it’s a
simple goal.
You need to have a plan of how you’re going
to reach that goal.
That means you need to think about these questions:
what are you going to include?
What are you going to leave out?
And, how are you going to organize your ideas?
If you’re writing something simple, you might
just think for a minute or two about what
to say.
If you’re writing something longer and more
complex like a long essay, you might need
to make a written plan.
So what points should you include and what
points should you leave out?
Well, that’s a general question.
If you’re not sure, think about your goal
and your reader’s needs.
Ask yourself, “Does my reader need to know
this?
Will my reader want to know this?
Does including this point, or including this
idea, help me to reach my goal?”
Thinking about these questions will help you
to decide what to include in your writing
and what to leave out.
What about the third question: how are you
going to organize your ideas?
Let’s look.
You need to organize your ideas into clear
paragraphs.
Organizing your ideas into paragraphs is important
for many reasons.
It helps your reader understand what your
main points are.
It helps your reader see where you’re going
and why, and it helps you to stay focused
on your plan and reaching your goal.
So what does it mean in practice to organize
your ideas into clear paragraphs?
Firstly, each paragraph should have one main
idea.
If you’re writing an essay and you have a
list of points to include, put one point in
each paragraph.
Even if you’re writing something shorter or
simpler, you still need to organize your ideas
into paragraphs.
Don’t try to do too much.
Your writing will be much clearer and much
easier to read if each paragraph is only trying
to do one thing.
An extra point: there’s no minimum or maximum
length for a paragraph.
Sometimes when I teach students writing, they
try to make paragraphs longer because they
say, “Oh, this paragraph is too short.
It needs more words, it needs more sentences.”
No, a paragraph should be as long as it needs
to be to make your point.
There’s no minimum length.
Next, you need to decide how many paragraphs
you’re going to have and what you’re going
to put in each one.
Remember, this is still part of planning.
We haven’t even written a single word yet.
Again, you could do this planning in your
head, or you could make some short notes,
or you could make a more detailed written
plan.
It depends how much time you have, what you’re
trying to write, and how important it is.
But the important point is when you start
writing, you won’t have to think about questions
like, “What do I put in this paragraph?
How many more paragraphs do I need?
How am I going to finish this sentence?
You will have thought about all of these things
already.
This will make it much easier to write whatever
you’re trying to write.
Okay, so now you’re ready to start writing.
What next?
Part four: cut empty words and sentences.
There’s a simple rule you can use to make
your English writing better and clearer: write
as little as possible.
Let’s look at some examples.
First, don’t use two words if you can use
one word.
Don’t use three words if you can use two words.
For example, don’t say “very tired,” say,
“exhausted.”
“Very” is generally a weak word, and it should
be avoided.
It doesn’t add much to your meaning.
The same is true for words like “really” or
“absolutely.”
Use these words as little as possible.
They’re very rarely necessary.
Don’t say “as a result” if you can say “consequently.”
Don’t say “on the other hand” if you can say
“nevertheless.”
Use fewer words.
Don’t say, “This will get better in the future,”
say, “This will improve in the future.”
Don’t say, “She gave me a lot of help,” say,
“She helped me a lot,” or even, “She helped
me greatly,” or just cut “greatly” and say,
“She helped me,” if you can.
Use fewer words.
Don’t say, “Maybe this will solve the problem,”
say, “This will solve the problem.”
Words like “maybe” or “perhaps” are generally
not necessary.
If you’re not sure about something, do you
really need to include it?
If you do want to include something that you’re
not sure about, use verbs like “might” or
“could.”
Say, “This might solve the problem.”
Don’t say, “We need to find someone who can
teach our son,” say, “We need to find a teacher
for our son.”
Cut unnecessary words and use as few words
as possible.
You can also look at sentences.
In essays, many people tend to include sentences
like, “There are many advantages and disadvantages
to this.
Of course, there are two sides to this issue.
In this essay, I will discuss all the ideas
relevant to this point.”
What do these sentences tell you?
Do they give you any useful or relevant information?
No, and so they should be cut.
Why is this important?
Well, using fewer words and fewer sentences
will make your writing clearer and easier
to read.
It will also help you to focus on what you
want to say.
Try to look at each sentence you write and
think, “What does this add to my ideas?
What does this give my reader?
How does this help me reach my goal in writing
this?”
If you can’t answer these questions, consider
cutting it, or try to make it shorter.
It’s not easy to write in this way.
You won’t be able to watch this video and
go away and write like this.
Even in this script, there are probably several
places where I could use my own advice!
However, you can try thinking about it the
next time you write something in English.
Over time you can learn the habit of cutting
empty words and sentences from your writing.
Your writing will be much better and much
clearer if you can learn to do this.
Next, let’s look at some more advice to make
your writing clearer and easier to read.
Use short simple sentences where possible.
Shorter sentences are easier to read and understand.
That’s not my opinion, that’s a fact.
There’s a lot of research behind it.
Longer sentences are harder to read and harder
to understand, generally.
If you’re a non-native speaker of English,
writing longer sentences is especially dangerous.
There’s a higher chance you’ll make some grammatical
or language errors which will make your sentence
difficult to read, or even worse, hard to
understand.
How long is too long?
Well, 10 words is a good target length, 10
to 20 words is okay.
Longer than 20 words–this is dangerous.
There’s a high chance your sentence will become
unclear and difficult to read.
So how can you do this?
Well first, remember what we talked about
before.
Using fewer words will make your sentences
shorter and tighter.
Here are some other rules you can use to keep
your sentences shorter and clearer.
First, don’t use the passive voice unless
you have a good reason.
Using the passive always makes a sentence
longer and more complex.
Now, sometimes it’s fine to use the passive,
but not if you don’t have a good reason.
If you want to use the passive, make sure
you know why you’re using it, and make sure
it’s really necessary.
Secondly, start your sentence with the subject
whenever possible.
Thirdly, don’t use relative clauses, with
who, which, that, where, etc., unless it’s
really necessary.
When you use a conjunction, like “and” or
“but,” or “or,” and so on, think, “Do these
two ideas really need to go together?”
If they don’t, consider breaking your sentence
into two shorter pieces.
To be clear, long sentences are not automatically
bad.
Good writers can produce long sentences which
are clear, and focused, and elegant.
If you’re writing about a particularly complex
topic, you might need to use longer, more
complex sentences to express more complex
ideas.
The point is you should only use a longer,
more complex sentence if it’s really necessary.
If you can express the same point in a shorter,
simpler sentence, you should.
Let’s review what we’ve talked about today.
First, you need to understand who you’re writing
for and what they want from your writing.
Secondly, before you start writing, you need
to have a plan.
You need to know what you’re going to include,
what you’re going to leave out, and how you’re
going to organize your ideas.
Thirdly, your ideas should always be organized
into clear paragraphs with one main idea per
paragraph.
Fourth, cut unnecessary words and sentences.
And fifth, use shorter, simpler sentences
where you can.
Follow these points, and I guarantee your
writing will get better.
I’m not just saying that.
I use these points when I write something
or edit something, and I see the difference.
Even now, I’m still learning this.
You’re never finished.
Follow these points, and you will see a difference.
Okay.
That’s the end of the lesson.
Thank you very much for watching.
If you want to see more of our free lessons,
check out our website, oxfordonlineenglish.com.
That’s all.
Thanks again!
I’ll see you next time.
Bye-bye!