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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zhao and karina ruth
daario giantini pham srinivas anita
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yoza hello rai
hi everybody thank you for joining us
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
do
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
is
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
so
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
so
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
an
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
so other learners can find today’s
lesson oops sorry i just realized i took
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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
like
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
a
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
so
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
um
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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we are every week wednesday uh eastern
standard time
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make sure you get
this live stream every week let’s look
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
go
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
so
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
go
you can take a screenshot if you like so
this is what we talked about
for today this was the tip for everybody
uh
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
other questions that are coming
in so i will show you the topic for
our next lesson next week i’ll be back
of course next week
september 23rd wednesday september 23rd
10 p.m eastern standard time that is new
york city time
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uh that is all for me so thank you as
always
for joining me live i really appreciate
it that’s super super cool thank you for
your awesome questions and your awesome
example sentences
and thank you for sharing uh and liking
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we really really appreciate it i will
say goodbye so enjoy the rest of your
week enjoy your weekend and i will see
you again
next time bye