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

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