5 tips to improve your writing
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hi there my name is Emma and in today's video we are going to look at five ways
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to improve academic essay writing
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ok or TOEFL writing I'll trading this doesn't have to do with when you write a
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letter to your friends
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ok we're talking specifically about formal writing maybe business writing or
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academic writing
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ok so let's get started my first tip on how to improve writing is do not use
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contractions
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ok and again this is for academic writing so what is the contraction don't
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can't shouldn't couldn't wouldn't isn't haven't hasn't
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ok so it's the short form of for example don't is the contraction of do not
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ok so it's better to actually write out the word in full and academic and formal
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business writing
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so instead of don't use do not instead of can't use cannot
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and notice how would do not it's actually two words cannot is just one
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word shouldn't comes should not couldn't becomes could not wouldn't would not
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isn't is not haven't have not hasn't has not
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ok so don't use these use these
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ok so now let's look at tip number two
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so tip number two is avoid there is or there are ok so why do we avoid there is
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or there are well one of the reasons is when we write we want to write our ideas
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clear and concise meaning we don't want these long sentences
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we want our sentences to be to the point
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there are ads extra words that are not needed
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so let's look at some examples a there are many issues that students face at
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university so that's an ok sentence but if i wanted to make it a better sentence
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that is more appropriate for academic writing
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I would change it i get rid of there are and i would say instead students face
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many sorry the students as many issues at university so you don't need there is
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or there are a second example there are many development projects that the UN
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supports ok
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again we don't need there are we can just change it to the UN supports many
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development projects by getting rid of their is in there are your sentences
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become stronger and to the point
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so tip number three is avoid words so don't use words and academic writing
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such as really vary a lot i'm going to add another one
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so okay this weekend's you're writing your writing isn't as strong if you use
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these types of words
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so let's look at some examples
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many students think university is very hard is a now we have very
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how could I improve the sentence one set of using very hard
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just use a stronger word in the first place
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say
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many students think university is difficult okay
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there are many cars well there I just broke rule sorry
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many cars speed very fast you get rid of the very in that sentence
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come up with a stronger word for it
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so let's look at number B sentence be
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bill 399 is very
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oh sorry is really controversial
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so again an academic writing avoid the usage of really we get to say built 39
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is controversial
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the sentence sounds better it sounds more formal him see a lot of the
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students
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I didn't finish the sentence I could say a lot of the students live on campus now
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instead of using a lot
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we could use the word many students so we use many if we can count the noun if
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it's countable
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instead of using a lot use many or if our noun is not countable if it's a
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non-count noun
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we can use much
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get rid of a lunch instead of a lot of the students now we have many students
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many students face problems in their first year of University much time is
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wasted because of procrastination
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ok so many and much are both words that are better to use than a lot and again
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the rule is avoid the usage of really vary a lot and so so our fourth tip when
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it comes to academic writing is unless so if you are in the sciences
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it's ok to use the passive don't use it too much but it's it's okay and normal
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to use the passive voice and i'll explain what that is in a second but if
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you are studying the humanities social science history psychology these types
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of subjects do not use the passive voice use the active voice so for most
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University Writing we use the active voice
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so what is the passive voice and what is the active voice
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so here is an example of the passive voice health care reforms were
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implemented by Obama
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ok so notice first we have a form of the verb to be and then we have the past
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participle of implement in this case implemented C and E and then oftentimes
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we have the word by someone so this is
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an example of a passive voice sentence health care reforms were implemented by
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Obama
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so what is the problem with using the passive voice well it takes away the
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fact that Obama is the one who implemented the reforms
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the sentence is sort of weak a little bit awkward it would be much better if
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we had the actor who is Obama's of the person the verb and the object
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Obama implemented health care reforms
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so this is the active voice ok so if you can have the subject and the verb than
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the object instead of the passive voice
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so here is another example of this if I wrote in the passive voice I would write
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the war was over here we have the form of the be verb 1
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here's the past participle a win by another keyword the French the war was
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won by the French
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so this is again a passive voice sentence in the passive sentence but
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it's still a little bit weak in academic writing we want strong scent and food
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and a strong sentence has the actor or the person performing the action at the
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beginning of the sentence
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so instead a better sentence would be the French won the war
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so the final tip in this video is when you write academically use strong verbs
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ok so what is the strong verb and what is a week
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herb i'm going to give you an example I could say he gave assistance to my
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friend
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ok this is a very weak way of saying he gave assistance to my friend and a
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stronger way I could instead just say he assisted my friend
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so what is the difference between these two sentences
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well in this sentence assistance is a noun
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so a better way to write this sentence
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anytime you have a verb a noun and you look at the noun and it could be its own
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verb use this in a verbal form instead
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so for example he gave assistance should become he assisted
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ok so this is stronger let's look at another example
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so
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I have a week verb made an objection
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he made an objection ok so again we have a verb and then a noun
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objection but objection can be its own verb
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so to make it stronger we get rid of made and we turn
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objection into its verbal form objected he objected so he objected is better
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than he made an objection
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hey another example here we have our example of the week verb
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she conducted an investigation
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she conducted an investigation but when I look here I see the word investigation
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and i think does investigation does this town have a verb form
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well yes it does investigate
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so instead of saying conduct an investigation
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she investigated something a lot better it's stronger
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ok finally for a fourth example the week
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verb is did an audit
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they did an audit on Wesley Snipes I don't know important maybe they did an
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audit on someone
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so again I see the word audit
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so here's a verb and here's a noun
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I look at this now and I think audit is there a verb form of the word audit
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yes there is Wesley Snipes was audited
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but again I told you not to use the passive so i could say
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the government audited Wesley Snipes
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ok so there you have it five tips that will quickly improve your academic
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writing so if you would like to practice some of these tips
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come visit us at our website at www.engvid.com until next time
