How to write correct English

Presentation video
Hello. Welcome.
This course is called How to write correct English, and in it Im going to show you
how to write correct English. How to write English that you know is correct.
This is a course for Intermediate level students of English. It is a course for students
who are at about B1 level of the Common European Framework and who want to write
at level B2 and above. There is a big difference between writing at level B1 and writing
at level B2. Basically, and Im not simplifying much, at level B1 you are allowed to
make some mistakes. But at level B2, if you have time to plan and the time to check
what you write, you hardly make any mistakes. At level B2 the Common European
Framework talks of good grammatical control and suggests that errors are rare.
What does that mean? Well, it means that at level B2 you should try to make sure that
there are no mistakes in your writing; it means, for example, that if you write january
with a small j instead of January with a capital J, or if you write He walk in the park
every day instead of He walks in the park every day, then you are in trouble. And at
levels C1 and C2 standards are even higher of course.
If you are a student preparing for an exam, this course will help you eliminate mistakes.
If you have a job in which you need to write in correct English, this course will help
you.
The good news is that this course may help you a lot. The bad news is that you will
have to work very hard I cant learn English for you. If you are hungry and I eat,
then you are still hungry; I cant eat for you. And I cant learn English for you.
Take a moment and ask yourself: how many of your essays have been thoroughly
corrected by a teacher? How many essays have you written and given to a teacher and
the teacher has spent 15 minutes carefully detecting and correcting all your mistakes?
Teachers work long hours. If they have 30 students in a class, and it takes 15 minutes to
read an essay, find all the mistakes and make the corrections, then that is seven and a
half hours of extra work for the teacher. So not surprisingly there is a tendency for
teachers not to ask their students to write essays. Thats a pity because writing and then
seeing all the mistakes you make and how to correct them is a very, very, very good
way of learning English. Mistakes are learning opportunities. You probably should be
writing two essays a week and learning from all the mistakes. In this course you will
take advantage of those learning opportunities. You wont depend on a teacher. You
will depend on yourself. So you can write as much as you like. And I hope to show you
that the best correction is self-correction.
I will help you. Your course companions will help you. But you will have to do the
work. And you will probably have to work in new ways. This course is not more of the
same. It is very different and it has an unusual methodology I will be showing you
some exciting tools and innovative methods that I hope will help you a lot

In fact Im going to make a number of suggestions and give you a number of ideas.
Youll probably find some more attractive than others you may like some and not
others. Thats fine. If theres just one useful idea that really helps you, then the course
has been useful. If theres nothing for you, then Im sorry its the best I have.
As you can see, Im going to speak in English. The transcripts of all these mini-lectures
are available all in one document.
And dont be pessimistic: maybe you dont feel you can write English with no mistakes
but I feel you can!

So why do mistakes matter?

Years ago when I started teaching English, I saw some graffiti on the classroom wall. It
said, Little mistak is not mistak!
Hmmm well, I understand the feeling but the thing is mistakes are mistakes.
Imagine if you write:
I saw Mary in several occasions.
Can you see the mistake? Hmm It should be:
I saw Mary on several occasions.
Now, it seems only a little mistake, doesnt it? One little word one little letter
And the meaning is clear And after all, language is about communication so if the
meaning is clear, then whats the problem?
Well, the problem is that mistakes draw attention to themselves. Mistakes distract the
reader from your message. If I am reading your essay and I come to the sentence
I saw Mary in several occasions.
then I stop thinking about your message the information about seeing Mary that you
want to communicate and I start thinking about your use of prepositions. I think,
Hey, wait a minute thats wrong Its not in several occasions, its on several
occasions. Yes, its on not in I wonder why we say on not in there ? And as you
can see, Ive stopped thinking about your message and Ive started thinking about your
mistake. Im not thinking about you seeing Mary; Im thinking about prepositions. So
communication suffers.
OK, at lower levels little mistakes are permissible but at Upper Intermediate and
Advanced levels, at levels B2, C1 and C2 no. No.
And examiners love it when you make mistakes. They love it. Ah hah, got you! Why
do examiners love it when you make mistakes? Well, it makes their lives much easier.
They have dozens, scores, hundreds of exams to mark They want to decide quickly
what mark to give And mistakes make the job easy. Mistakes are easy to find they

draw attention to themselves and they are objective. A mistake is a mistake is a

mistake. If you make mistakes and the examiner fails you and you complain, you dont
really have a leg to stand on.
So why do mistakes matter? Because they interrupt communication and because they
cause you to fail exams.
And there are other reasons for avoiding mistakes. Good reasons. A lot of people simply
like to do things properly After all, if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing well

Module one video

When youre going to write an essay, you first need to get lots of ideas. Lots. You dont
have to include all these ideas in your essay. You will only include those you want to of
course. But first get as many ideas as possible good and bad. The best way to get good
ideas is to get lots of ideas
Imagine the essay title is:
Zoos are cruel and should be prohibited. Do you agree?
Well, youre going to need ideas in favour of zoos and against zoos I spent a few
minutes thinking and I came up with these ideas in favour of zoos
Pro-zoo ideas
-

much safer than in wild: not hunted by other animals or humans

food and water guaranteed excellent quality
protection from parasites
vets if ill
prison is a human idea animals dont think like that
animals have territories like in the wild and less stress about defending them
people learn about animals more memorable than TV documentary
zoos preserve animals that might become extinct
visiting zoo is traditional family activity

OK. There are nine pro-zoo arguments. And now I need to think of as many antizoo arguments as possible. But you can see that I already have plenty of material for
the pro-zoo part of my essay getting ideas before you start writing is like putting
fuel in the tank before you start a car journey.
What has all this to do with avoiding mistakes? Simple. If you find that one idea is
difficult to express in correct English, then you can omit that idea and use another one
instead provided you have plenty of ideas. But if you only have a couple of ideas then
you have to use them and thats when you might run into problems. So, get as many
ideas as possible.
OK, now its your turn: your task is to think of as many anti-zoo arguments as you can

Module Two Video

One useful skill is the skill of knowing when we dont know; its very important to
distinguish between what we know and what we dont know. Now, I dont want to get
philosophical about this I just want to be practical. Im not very good at French but I
do know a bit and I find basically that I can divide phrases in French into three
categories:
1 Phrases that I am sure are correct
2 Phrases that I am sure are incorrect
3 Phrases that I am not sure about
I expect that is the case with your English too. For example:
Her name is Ruth.
She was born in London.
I am sure those are correct and I expect you are too. In the case of
He studied two books very interestings.
I am sure you know that is incorrect. In English, adjectives go before nouns and they
dont have plural forms. It should be
He studied two very interesting books.
But you know that!
What about this one?
She asked me them whether they would do the dishes or not.
Is that correct or incorrect? Are you sure? Or would you say that you arent sure?
Correct? Incorrect? Or you dont know? Let me put the question another way: would
you be happy to have that sentence in one of your essays?
Ill give you five seconds to make up your mind
Well, if you decided that it is correct. You are right. But if you decided that you didnt
know and so would not include it, then thats good too. Dont include anything unless
you know it is correct.
So, my point is very simple and very obvious: only include in your essays phrases
which you know are correct. The problem is its very easy to include phrases which
really you are not sure about. Shakespeare said, The wish is father to the thought.
Hoping that a sentence is correct might sometimes cause us to think that it is correct
The skill is to know what you know and to know what you dont know and to limit
yourself to what you do know. Some students are very good at this and some arent. If
you are good. If you arent, then this is a skill you can acquire.

I am going to give you a list of eight phrases. The sentences are in the attached
document (in the transcription of these videos). Some are correct and some are
incorrect. When I say some are incorrect I mean that they contain at least one mistake
You have to decide which of the eight are correct and which are incorrect. If you say
a phrase is correct and it is correct, then you get one point. If you say a phrase is
incorrect and it is incorrect, then you get one point. So the maximum number of points
is 8: if youre right about every sentence you will get eight points. If you cant decide
then you get no points. But if you make a mistake you lose three points: you say theres
no mistake and there is a mistake, you lose three points; you say theres a mistake and
there is no mistake, you lose three points. So the minimum number of points is minus
24: if youre wrong about every sentence you will get minus 24 points. Study the
sentences (in the transcription of these videos) and use any reference tool you like
dictionaries, grammars, internet But dont ask another person do it yourself. See if
you can get the maximum number of points. Good luck!
By the way, detecting mistakes in other peoples writing is a valuable professional skill
for teachers and editors for example.

Eight sentences: are they correct or not?

1 I met my boyfriend when I was in my third year at university.
2 The tennis match has been postponed indefinitely due to the bad weather
3 He dreamed with becoming an engineer.
4 There were twenty of us at the party.
5 He walked until Johns house and then stopped.
6 Always she is bossing me around.
7 We didnt see each other again until the following year.
8 It is one of the highest mountains of the world.

The answers to this exercise are at the end of this document. No cheating!

Module Three Video

When you write an essay the first thing is to get lots of ideas then the second thing is
to decide which ideas you are going to include and in what order But then comes
the difficult part! Now you have to express the ideas in correct English. And thats hard.
Well, now Im going to show you a technique that Ive used myself for years and which
lots of my students have adopted with excellent results Its a simple technique which
you can try yourself. It takes a bit of practice but after a while it gets easier and easier
and soon it becomes second nature And by that stage youve taken a quantum leap
forward as a language learner
First I want to show you a few lines from a story by Saki. Saki is one of Englands most
famous short story writers. A wonderful writer. And of course a professional writer. The
story is called A Holiday Task. It starts like this:
Kenelm Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in the full crush
of the luncheon hour. Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional tables
had been brought in, where floor space permitted, to accommodate latecomers,
with the result that many of the tables were almost touching each other. Jerton was
beckoned by a waiter to the only vacant table that was discernible, and took his
seat with the uncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that nearly everyone in the
room was staring at him. He was a youngish man of ordinary appearance, quiet of
dress and unobtrusive of manner, and he could never wholly rid himself of the idea
that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him as though he had been a notability
or a super-nut.

Now thats a professional writer at work in his mother tongue English. He uses
sophisticated vocabulary and complicated sentence structures. Perhaps you can write
like that in your own language, but you are not expected to be able to write like a
professional story writer in English.
So what could you do if you wanted to describe that scene? Well, heres my version in
simple English:
Kenelm Jerton entered the restaurant of the Golden Galleon Hotel. It was nearly full
and there was very little space between the tables. A waiter showed Jerton to the
only free table. Jerton thought, wrongly, that everyone was watching him. He was
young and he looked normal; his clothes were normal but he always thought that
people were looking at him as if he was famous.

Well, that does not have the sophistication and elegance, nor the complexity and the
subtlety of Sakis original. But it is a very decent paraphrase. If you were asked to write
a description of a person entering a restaurant in an exam and you wrote that, youd be

doing fine: you arent expected to write like Saki especially in a foreign language.
And please notice how very simple the English in which it is written is. Except for
waiter, all the words are amongst the two thousand most frequently used words in
English. And look how simple the grammar is. Look at the phrase everyone was
watching him. That is one of the very simplest grammatical structures in English:
subject + verb + object The man saw the dog. And that structure is repeated several
times: Kenelm Jerton entered the restaurant people were looking at him. A very
simple grammatical structure which I know is correct A very simple grammatical
structure which you know is correct
In fact, it would be better if you could make the passage linguistically richer. You are
probably good enough at English to write something that starts like this:
As Jerton entered the restaurant, he noticed that it was very crowded indeed;
almost all the seats had been taken and extra tables had been carried in so that
even more people could fit in .

And so on
But you must only write English which you are sure is correct. The better your English,
the more linguistically rich you can make your writing. But dont overreach it is much
better to keep it simple and avoid mistakes than to try to be clever and to end up making
mistakes
And that is my point: write English which you know is correct. When you express your
thoughts in your language, you can use sophisticated vocabulary and complicated
grammar because you know they are correct. Well, when you express your thoughts in
English you should only use words and structures that you know are correct and that
probably means using simpler words and structures than you use in your mother tongue

You can do this exercise yourself. Take a passage from a novel or a story or a
newspaper or a magazine written in your language and write a simple paraphrase not a
translation but a simple paraphrase of it in English, something that expresses the general
ideas in correct English Make sure that you can guarantee that the English is correct.
Imagine there is a prize, say a million euros, if there are no mistakes at all in the
English. You will want to be able to justify every word There are sentences in
English which you know are correct, and there are sentences in English which you hope
are correct. In your paraphrase you will only use sentences in English which you know
are correct.
Practise that technique with different kinds of writing fiction and non-fiction,
descriptions and narratives and arguments and discussions And youll soon find that
you can express almost any idea in simple English which you know is correct. And
thats when youll get the top mark for your essays!
Remember the more you practise, the better you will get.

Module Four Video

Now Im going to show you another way of writing correct sentences and at the same
time of enormously improving your English.
Look at this sentence
John doesnt like potatoes

I found that sentence in a book about English grammar. An English grammar book. The
grammar book explained that we dont say
John doesnt like the potatoes
because we are talking in general terms. We are not talking about some specific
potatoes that John doesnt like the potatoes they sell in one shop, for example. Rather
we are saying that John doesnt like potatoes in general.
OK. So we have a sentence
John doesnt like potatoes
Now, the really interesting thing is that we know that sentence is correct. Its in a
Grammar book and we know it is correct. Lets analyse this correct sentence
John = SUBJECT

doesnt like = VERB potatoes = OBJECT

Now we can use that analysis to make another sentence also with like with the same
structure
My mothers friends used to like westerns
Can you see it has the same structure?
My mothers friends = SUBJECT

used to like = VERB

westerns = OBJECT

And we have avoided the mistake of writing the westerns. Because we copied the
structure of a correct sentence, we didnt fall into that error.
The meaning of the new sentence is completely different, but the structure is the same.
Instead of John we have My mothers friends, instead of doesnt like we have used to
like, and instead of potatoes we have westerns.
Actually, we could make lots more sentences about hundreds of different subjects.
So my message is very simple: use sentences which you know are correct as models
for writing your own sentences.

A book about English grammar is the perfect place to find sentences which you know
are correct. For Spanish speakers I recommend this grammar Gramtica Inglesa para
Hispanohablantes. An English grammar for Spanish speakers. The explanations of the
grammar are in Spanish, there are hundreds of English sentences illustrating the
complete grammar of English and they are all translated into Spanish. So I recommend
that you use a Grammar of English written in your own language with all the English
sentences translated into your language.
Then you use the English sentences sentences which you understand (you have the
translation) and which you know are correct (theyre in the book) to write your own
sentences using the same structure.

If you have created your own sentence with a new structure or phrase, you are much
more likely to use that structure or phrase, and much more likely to use it correctly.
You see, there is big difference between just reading about grammar and actually using
the grammar to make a sentence. There is an enormous difference between looking at a
sentence in a book and using that sentence to make a new sentence your own
sentence. When you make your own sentence, you are internalising the grammar.
If you used every sentence in the grammar book as a model for making a sentence of
your own, your English would improve enormously. You would have the whole range
of English grammar internalised and ready to use correctly. Ill say that again: you
would have the whole range of English grammar internalised and ready to use
correctly.
OK, so your turn. Find a grammar book and use the example sentences to make your
own sentences: the more you do, the more youll learn.

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Module Five Video

So
When you write in English, you naturally think that what you are writing is correct
otherwise of course you wouldnt write it. Nobody makes mistakes on purpose.
However, once you have finished, you need to check what you have written with
scrupulous care; now you should take the view that what you have written is probably
incorrect. So, when youre writing it, you think its correct. But when you check it, you
assume that its not correct.
Lets say Pablo wrote this sentence
It depends of the weather.
Now obviously Pablo thinks that is correct. He isnt going to make a mistake on
purpose. But is it correct? Pablo thinks so, but he also knows that he sometimes makes
mistakes when he writes in English. So now he assumes that there may be a mistake
or mistakes.
First Pablo asks himself: are the words all correctly written English words? Are there
any spelling mistakes? He uses the spell checker on his word processor. All clear.
Now, a bit more complicated Are the words correctly combined? Are the word
combinations correct? Hmm Pablo breaks the sentence into pairs of words. Thats
four combinations:
1 It depends
2 depends of
3 of the
4 the weather.
Pablo wants positive evidence to prove that each combination is correct
The first combination is It depends. Paul looks up depend in his dictionary, the
Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. Yes, it means what he thinks it means. The
definition and the example sentences confirm that. Good. And yes, good in fact,
excellent there is a sentence, an example sentence in the dictionary, with it depends.
So the first combination It depends seems to be perfectly correct English. But Pablo
cannot find any sentence that includes the combination depends of the second
combination in his sentence. Hmmm And there are sentences which contain depend
on (for example, it depends on the cost). And then he finds an error box which says:
Common mistake: depend

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Remember, the most usual preposition to use after depend is on. Dont say depend of
say depend on
Ah hah! So Pablo changes of to on. Then he continues in the same way and he finds
positive evidence to confirm that the other combinations are correct. So now his
sentence reads:
It depends on the weather.
And there are two changes not one, two. The first change is on for of. And the second
is that now Pablo knows his sentence is correct. Before he thought it was and he hoped
it was, but now it is and he knows it is. Now, you may say, Yes, but it took him a long
time and thats true, but its also true that he learned something. The word depend is a
word that Pablo likes to use its part of his active vocabulary and in future he will
use it correctly. Pablo hasnt only corrected one mistake hes corrected one mistake
and avoided lots more in the future.
So unless you are absolutely certain that what you have written is correct, use your
dictionary to help you check.
Above all, remember that while this correction procedure is very time-consuming, it
also means that your writing is much more likely to be correct and, most important of
all, that you will learn a great deal of English which, is, of course, the main objective.
You can spend a lot of time correcting like this, but all the time you spend
correcting like this is time well spent because you are evaluating your own English
making sure that the phrases and expressions that you tend to use really are
correct. So in future you will be able to use them with much more confidence; in
future you will know that they are right and you wont need to check them again.
Thats one reason why self-correction is the best correction.
Now its time for you to do some practice. Here are four sentences.
1 Despite of being tired, they were happy.
2 We studied a series of interesting articles.
3 John knows the recipe for this pizza.
4 Always she goes in Sundays.
Are they correct? It may be that they are all correct. It may be that they are all incorrect.
It may be that some are correct and some are not . Its for you to decide. And I want
you to use the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary which is online at:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/
Use the dictionary in the way I have shown you. Check in the dictionary to see if you
can find evidence that the sentences are correct or incorrect. If you decide a sentence
is incorrect then write down the correct version. If you have any doubts, then the forum
is the place to discuss this.

12

Module Six Video

We are going to look now at another way of ensuring that what you write is correct.
Have a look at this essay title from an examination.
There are many kinds of music. Why is music so important? Sometimes it seems
that international pop music is replacing traditional forms of music. Do you think
that is true and if so how important is it? Give examples from your personal
experience to support your arguments.
Write a minimum of 350 words

OK. This is a very typical essay title. The idea is that music is something that most
people have experience of. No specialist knowledge is required to answer this question.
Even if they are not very musical, most people are in a position to answer the question.
Its a bit bland a bit insipid. Frankly, it is just a stimulus to get you to produce some
English. Its important to realise that the examiner is probably not very interested in
your answer. And it is not your job to write the most fascinating essay imaginable. Nor
do you have to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The examiners do
not have polygraphs to detect lies. But they do have language mistake detectors. They
will detect all the mistakes you make and they will penalise every one. Thats who they
are, thats what they do. The examiner wants you to produce some English. You want to
produce some correct English.
Dont think that writing an amusing essay will compensate for your mistakes. The
examiners will laugh at your jokes and penalise your mistakes. Thats who they are,
thats what they do.
When you write an essay in an exam you have to do three things:
1 Answer the question.
2 Write at least the minimum required number of words.
3 Write correct English.
Lets look at those three things
1. Answer the question. When I was at school, just before the exams the chemistry
teacher, Mr Benson, used to say, And remember, if all else fails answer the
question! If the question is about music and you write about sport not music you will
fail. Even if you write correct English, you will fail because you have written about the
wrong subject. Why will you fail? Well, the examiner thinks that you probably
memorised an essay about sport and, whatever the question, you were going to write the
essay about sport that you had memorised. So you havent proved that you can write
correct English; youve only proved that you can memorise an essay about sport.
You need to answer the question and that means constructing a logical argument. Now a
lot of writing courses go into great detail about the structure of an essay. But thats not
really such a difficult matter they often make it sound more complicated than it really
is. Besides a lot of that is transferable from the way you write in your own language.

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Anyway, thats not the purpose of this course. This course is about avoiding mistakes
which is the really difficult thing.
2 Write at least the minimum required number of words. If they ask for 250 words and
you only write one hundred and fifty, you will probably be penalised heavily. You see
one way to reduce the number of mistakes you make is to write less; the less you write
the fewer mistakes there are likely to be. So the rule about writing the minimum
required number of words is an important rule, too.
3 Write correct English. Well, thats what this course is about.
Here is the essay that a student of mine, Susanna, wrote
There are many kinds of music. Why is music so important? Sometimes it seems
that international pop music is replacing traditional forms of music. Do you think
that is true and if so how important is it? Give examples from your personal
experience to support your arguments.
Write a minimum of 350 words
It is undoubtedly true that there are many types of music in the world today. The day
before yesterday I drove all the way from Cornwall which is in the south west of
England to Birmingham and during the journey I listened to the music of Beethoven,
Bach and Mozart, to the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones I listened
to the Cuban singers Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milans, as well as a number of other
musicians, both famous and not so famous. As a result, the journey was interesting and
highly enjoyable.
While it is certainly the case that I did not need to listen to all that music, it nevertheless
made my journey far more pleasurable. Indeed, I think that it is possible to go so far as
to say that while it is never essential to listen to music, a life without music would be
somehow poorer. In the final analysis, it is probably difficult to avoid the conclusion
that a certain amount of pleasure in life is not a luxury but rather a necessity. I would
argue strongly that music is one of those necessary luxuries. After all, as far as we know
there has never been a human society anywhere in the world at any time in the course of
history which has not had music.
It is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that contemporary pop music exerts
a baleful influence in todays world. In my professional capacity as a doctor, I
frequently have to travel to different parts of the world, and I find that I am often
listening to very similar music in Australian supermarkets, in airports in Argentina, and
in hotel restaurants in Tokyo. I cannot help thinking that in many ways it would be
better if I heard traditional music in each of these places, but, if we are honest with
ourselves, we know that that is probably not a realistic option and I do not see any real
point in regretting something that we cannot change. There is, as the proverb so neatly
puts it, no use crying over spilt milk.
(356 words)

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OK. A pretty good essay. It answers the questions. Its 356 words long dont count
them, believe me! And there are no mistakes. No mistakes. Very good.
Now, its not the most fascinating piece of writing Ive ever read, but hey, it does the
job! It does the job very well. It answers the question, it contains more than the
minimum number of words and there are no mistakes. Very good stuff.
And I want to show you something interesting about it Lets look again at the essay
and this time Ive highlighted some of the phrases
It is undoubtedly true that there are many types of music in the world today. The day
before yesterday I drove all the way from Cornwall which is in the south west of
England to Birmingham and during the journey I listened to the music of Beethoven,
Bach and Mozart, to the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones I listened
to the Cuban singers Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes, as well as a number of other
musicians, both famous and not so famous. As a result, the journey was interesting
and highly enjoyable.
While it is certainly the case that I did not need to listen to all that music, it
nevertheless made my journey far more pleasurable. Indeed, I think that it is possible
to go so far as to say that while it is never essential to listen to music, a life without
music would be somehow poorer. In the final analysis, it is probably difficult to
avoid the conclusion that a certain amount of pleasure in life is not a luxury but
rather a necessity. I would argue strongly that music is one of those necessary
luxuries. After all, as far as we know there has never been a human society anywhere
in the world at any time in the course of history which has not had music.
It is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that contemporary pop music
exerts a baleful influence in todays world. In my professional capacity as a doctor,
I frequently have to travel to different parts of the world, and I find that I am often
listening to very similar music in Australian supermarkets, in airports in Argentina, and
in hotel restaurants in Tokyo. I cannot help thinking that in many ways it would be
better if I heard traditional music in each of these places, but, if we are honest with
ourselves, we know that that is probably not a realistic option and I do not see any
real point in regretting something that we cannot change. There is, as the proverb so
neatly puts it, no use crying over spilt milk.

The phrases Ive highlighted in Susannas essay are phrases that she knew were correct.
Youve seen those cookery programmes on television: Heres one I prepared earlier.
These are phrases that Susanna had ready ready to use. In fact, she had a lot more
ready in her kitbag those are the phrases she used on this occasion.
The essay is 356 words long and over 150 of those words are in the phrases Ive
highlighted: nearly half the essay.
What I want you to do now is to write three sentences and in each sentence use one of
Ruths phrases. Then check the sentences are correct use the dictionary in the way we
practised in module five.

15

Module Seven Video

Now in the last module we looked at an essay that Susanna wrote about music. Well,
here is another essay she wrote:
Airplanes make a lot of noise and produce a lot of pollution. One suggestion is that
governments should reduce the number of flights by introducing heavier taxes. To
what extent do you agree?
Write a minimum of 250 words
Lets have a look at that essay:
Airplanes make a lot of noise and produce a lot of pollution. One suggestion is that
governments should reduce the number of flights by introducing heavier taxes. To
what extent do you agree?
Write a minimum of 250 words
It is undoubtedly true that there has been an enormous increase in air traffic over the last
couple of decades or so. It is, furthermore, very difficult to avoid the conclusion that
one of the main reasons for this dramatic increase is the growth in cheap flights. Some
of the results are certainly far from desirable: airplanes are noisy and they contribute to
global warming. As a result, it is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that
governments should make companies such as Easyjet and Ryanair pay more taxes. If
they had to pay more taxes, then they would have to charge their customers more; if
their customers had to pay more, then clearly fewer people would want to travel by air.
It is certainly very difficult to deny that air travel causes environmental problems.
However, it is also important to bear in mind that many people benefit from the current
situation. In my professional capacity as a doctor, for instance, I have recently visited
Australia, Argentina and Japan. Consequently, I have been able to share knowledge,
experience and professional expertise with colleagues in those countries. I would not
have been able to travel to those countries if the cost had been much higher.
In the final analysis then, I think that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a better
solution for this problem would be the development of cleaner and quieter airplanes.
After all, that way we can have the advantages of cheap travel without the
disadvantages.
(252 words)
Now, as I expected you noticed, there are a lot of phrases here which were also used in
the music essay. Recycling!
Both essays are over 250 words long. They are about very different subjects. Each essay
answers a question and the two questions are very different questions. There is nothing
about music in the second essay, nothing about problems caused by air traffic in the
first.
Note that Susanna does not use sentences like: There are several factors which we must
take into account when attempting to answer a question like this. Thats not a good

16

idea. Thats a complete sentence that can be dropped into any essay on any subject. And
the examiner knows that. Its 18 words that dont mention the subject of the essay. Not
a good idea.
Susanna does something different. She writes sentences which contain phrases like this:
a) It is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that contemporary pop
music
b) . it is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that governments
should make companies such as Easyjet and Ryanair pay more taxes.
Now sentence a) is clearly about pop music and sentence b) is clearly about air traffic.
In fact, every sentence in Susannas essays is helping to answer the question. OK the
phrase it is by no means uncommon to hear the suggestion that is eleven words long but
Susanna is using the phrase to build a sentence that helps to answer the question. And
thats good.
This isnt cheating. Its something that good writers often do. When people write
fluently and elegantly, they often dont write one word at a time: The man saw the dog
in the park yesterday. Instead they tend to use ready-made phrases that make their
writing fluent and which help the readers to see where they are and where the essay is
taking them.
Susanna showed me her collection of phrases dozens and dozens of useful phrases.
She told me that she collected them from newspapers and magazines and books that she
enjoyed. When she has finished reading an article or a chapter, she told me that she will
go back and read it again but this time collecting useful phrases.
Ive just collected these phrases from an article in todays newspaper:
The argument for ___________ certainly seems strong
Indeed it has been suggested by _______ that
These are useful phrases. I know they are correct I found them in a serious national
newspaper and they are just the sort of phrases that help build an argument. And notice
the spaces:
The argument for SPACE certainly seems strong
Indeed it has been suggested by

SPACE

that

Those spaces are very useful. You can insert a word or phrase in those spaces. Imagine
for example that the essay title is something like:
Some people say that zoos are cruel and should be abolished. What are the
arguments for and against zoos? What is your personal view?
I could use the first phrase like this:

17

The argument for ___________ certainly seems strong.

could become:
The argument for zoos certainly seems strong.
The second phrase
Indeed it has been suggested by _______ that
could become:
Indeed it has been suggested by naturalists that
In this way, they are entirely relevant to the subject that you have been asked to write
about.
If the subject was Are professional footballers paid too much?
the phrases could become:
The argument for paying footballers less certainly seems strong.
And
Indeed it has been suggested by footballers themselves that

So my advice is that you make your own collection of phrases. Dont use the phrases
Ive shown you here or only one or two of them find your own phrases. Phrases that
you like and enjoy using.

18

Module Eight Video

The problem is that many people have 'fossilised errors': incorrect uses which are
becoming a part of what they write. Here is an example:
"This books are interesting ..."
Probably lots of people seeing that sentence will detect the error immediately (it should
be: "These books are interesting ..."). But this is a common mistake because the words
this and these sound so similar. Thats why this books sounds right to a lot of people.
Its easy to spot the error here because the sentence only contains 4 words and because I
told you that there is a mistake. But how to find a mistake when its in the middle of a
long essay that you wrote?
How can the person who wrote, "This books are interesting ..." spot the error? That's the
problem! After all, that person wrote This books because they think it is correct they
didn't make the mistake on purpose!
After writing an essay of 250 words you might spend perhaps two hours self-correcting
it. You should take the view that a lot of what you wrote might be incorrect. So ask
yourself about each sentence: "Am I sure that is correct? What evidence do I have?"
If your name is Ana and you have written the sentence 'My name is Ana', then you can
be sure it's correct because you have seen sentences like 'My name is Julie' and 'My
name is John' in books that you know are written in correct English. If you think hard
you can feel that you have a good reason it's a very common structure which you
know you know.
That is the important point: use sentences that you know are correct as models for your
own writing. If you have any doubts, where can you find such sentences? In the
dictionary. If you look up the word this in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary, you will find that the entry makes very clear with explanations and
examples that this is used before singular nouns and these before plural nouns. Indeed,
there is even an example which starts like this:
These books are ...
I've chosen a very simple example here. But the same goes for other words. For
example, if you have used a preposition after a verb, is it the right preposition?
(Prepositions are a notorious source of error). If you have used another verb after a verb,
is the second verb in the right form? Should it be the infinitive or the -ing form?
At first it seems a lot of time and it is but it is very efficient use of your time
because you are checking YOUR English, the English you like to use. You will soon
find that you don't need to check so much because you know you know. That is, you
are building up a body of English phrases and structures which you can use with
confidence.

19

Now I want to introduce you to a tool that will help you a lot. The British National
Corpus. The British National Corpus is a huge online corpus of correct English. A
corpus is a large collection of texts which is held on computer and can therefore be
accessed electronically. And in the case of The British National Corpus you can access
it online.
The British National Corpus contains the texts (but not the pictures or photographs)
found in lots of newspapers, periodicals, journals, novels and non-fiction books, letters
and messages, essays, etcetera and the transcripts of lectures, casual everyday
conversations, and radio programmes. All this language (the novels, newspapers,
conversations etc) was produced in the later part of the 20th century. In total the corpus
contains approximately 100 million words.
What can we do with such a corpus?
Well if you go to
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
You will see a box where it says Enter text. There you can write a word or phrase.
Lets say we write depend. We click on Go and then you will see a page that starts
like this:

Your query was

depend

Here is a random selection of 50 solutions from the 3448 found.

And below this notice are 50 examples of depend in sentences from the corpus. There
are 3448 examples of depend and 50 of them are shown to you. They are shown to you
in context in the sentences from books and newspapers for example which form part
of the corpus. Here is an example one of the uses of depend in the corpus:

A64 470 Local involvement in nation-wide politics does not just depend on
intellectual evolution, however, but on the strong conviction that national
affairs affect one's life and so need to be considered.
If you click on A64 you see this.

A64 One step backwards, two steps forward. Pethybridge, Roger. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990, pp. ??. 1797 s-units, 41009 words.

20

This tells you where the sentence comes from. As you can see, it comes from a book
called One step backwards, two steps forward. It is often useful to know where the
sentence comes from. If it is a published book then you know that it has been carefully
written and carefully edited. Thats important for us on this course because we want to
be sure that we are using good models models we can rely on. Reliable examples.
The British National Corpus contains approximately 100 million words but ten million
words of that is spoken English. Now, spoken English is not such a good guide to
written English. In spoken English people make mistakes, they change direction in the
middle of the sentence, they stop and then they start again, they talk in a way that is OK
for talking but not for writing where there are different rules. So remember, if you are
using the British National Corpus to check if a phrase is correct in writing, you need to
find evidence in written texts. Remember you can tell where the phrase comes from by
clicking on the letters and numbers A64 for example which appear in blue on the
left just before the sentence.
If later you repeat this exercise you will get a different selection of 50 examples of
depend. And dont forget that you can also get examples of depends and depended and
depending
And if you want, you can also write a phrase; for example, depends of. If you do that
you discover that the phrase depends of occurs ten times in the 100 million words. Here
is an example:
It all depends of course on what is meant by the feminine.
Ah! Earlier in the course we decided that depends of was wrong and it was wrong in
the sentence we were looking at, but here we see that there are exceptions. And this is
very normal. The British National Corpus contains approximately 100 million words;
thats a lot of language. There are lots of things that you wouldnt have thought were
possible until you see them. For example, if you ask English speakers if you can use
of after depend they will probably say no. Until you say, And what about it depends
of course on the weather?. And then they say Oh yes, I hadnt thought of that .
But remember; just because a phrase in your writing also occurs in the British National
Corpus doesnt mean that you have used it correctly. Ideally, you need to see the phrase
used by two or three writers in just the way you want to use it.
Now here is the task for this module. I want you to look at this sentence:
Then he said us he had always worked as waiter.
Now, there are two mistakes in that sentence. You can probably see them immediately
but finding the errors is not the task or not yet anyway. Now, we can divide that
sentence into pairs of words: Then he, he said, said us, us he, he had, had always,
always worked, worked as, as waiter. Thats nine pairs. Notice that most of the words
form part of two pairs: he is the second word in Then he and the first word in he said,
for example.

21

You can look up each pair in the British National Corpus and see how often it occurs.
For example, the pair Then he occurs 5890 times, and the pair he said occurs 34,737
times.
Your task is to find the numbers for all nine pairs. Which are the two lowest numbers?
Where are the two mistakes in the sentence? As usual, if you have any doubts, then the
forum is the place to discuss this.

(Data cited herein have been extracted from the British

National Corpus Online service, managed by Oxford University
Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. All
rights in the texts cited are reserved.)

22

Module Nine Video

OK, now in an earlier module we looked briefly at how to correct a sentence. You
remember It depends on the weather?
Well, now were going to look at another sentence in more detail Ruth wrote
I work in a big company, but yesterday I decide to have a day free.
Now again, when Ruth wrote that sentence she thought it was correct; she wasnt
going to make mistakes on purpose. But once shed written it, she took the view that
it might contain mistakes it might well contain mistakes. After all, as she said to
me, I often make mistakes when I write in English.
Well, first she checked the spelling. About 16% of mistakes in essays are spelling
mistakes. So thats a good place to start. She put the sentence though the spell
checker on her word processor. No problems all clear. If she hadnt had a spell
checker, she would have looked the words up in her dictionary.
Next she checked the verbs Its easy to find the verb groups in a sentence. Here
there are two:
I work in a big company, but yesterday I decide to have a day free.
The first thing that Ruth asked herself is: do both these verbs have a subject? And
the answer is yes: the subject is I and it appears immediately before each verb.
Good. The second thing that Ruth asked herself is: is each verb in the right tense?
The first verb is in the Present Simple tense. We use that tense to talk about regular
activities and routines. Well, working is a regular activity. Unfortunately. The other
verb, decide, is also in the Present Simple form but it doesnt refer to a regular
activity or routine. It refers to something Ruth did once, yesterday. So it should be
in the past simple, it should be decided.
Next Ruth looked at the prepositions. Prepositions are a big problem, Nearly 10% of
mistakes in essays are mistakes with prepositions. There are two prepositions in this
sentence:
I work in a big company, but yesterday I decided to have a day free.
So, I work in a big company. Is that correct? Yes or no? Now, Ruth could say
Oh, I think its OK. When shes driving, she could go over the traffic lights on
red. A crash isnt inevitable just probable. OK prepositions dont kill people, but
Ruth is careful and she stops at in. She looks up work in the Cambridge Advanced
Learners Dictionary. Notice she doesnt look up in. She looks up work. Thats the
big word, the word with semantic content, which determines the preposition. If
you want to know if you say in Christmas or at Christmas, then its better to look up
Christmas than in and at. In the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary, Ruth
finds these example sentences

23

He works at the local hospital

and
Mike works for a computer company.
Hmmm .. so we have work at and work for That doesnt mean work in is wrong.
But theres no evidence here that its right. And notice that
Mike works for a computer company.
is very close to
Mike works for a big company.
And
Mike works for a big company.
is very close to
I work for a big company.
At this point Ruth could probably opt for
I work for a big company
but she is very conscientious and she wants to learn. So she looks up company in the
Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. She finds these examples
He works for a software company
and
I work for Duggan and Company
Well, that really settles it, doesnt it?
Ruth hasnt found that work in a company is wrong its always difficult to prove a
negative but she hasnt found that it is right, either. Meanwhile she has found that
work for a company is right, and its right in just the sort of context in which Ruth
wants to use it.
So she could simply change her sentence to I work for now. But because shes
very conscientious, she goes to the British National Corpus and puts work in a
company in the search box. No hits. The phrase doesnt appear in the 100-million
word corpus. Then she puts work for a company and gets eight hits. Eight different
writers who write correct English have used it in the way she wants to use it a sure
sign that it is correct.

24

Next she checks decide to in her dictionary. She finds this example:
In the end we decided to go to the theatre.
And the dictionary also makes clear that decide to plus verb is a basic English
structure.
OK, next Ruth wants to check the adjectives. There are two:
I work for a big company, but yesterday I decided to have a day free.
A normal position for an adjective is in front of the noun it modifies. We say a
nice teacher not a teacher nice. Well, big is in front of company but free comes after
day. Ruth looks up free in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. She finds
the phrases free time and free evening. If free evening is correct then surely so is free
day. She looks up free day in the British National Corpus and there are 25 examples:
examples like we have a free day tomorrow. She looks up day free and finds seven
but the examples with free day were much more like what Ruth wants to say so she
changes day free to free day.
Now the sentence looks like this:
I work for a big company, but yesterday I decided to have a free day.
Next Ruth checks conjunctions. Theres only one: but. This is not a complicated
word; Ruth knows what it means, and she knows how and where to use it and she
knows she knows and shes sure its right. Finally she checks on yesterday She
looks in the British National Corpus and finds examples with yesterday at the end of
the clause and also examples where it has a little more emphasis at the beginning of
the clause. She decides to leave it where it is.
So her sentence now reads
I work for a big company, but yesterday I decided to have a free day.
Ruth has made three changes and now she is sure it is correct And shes right!
OK. Write about a hundred words about something you did yesterday. Check what
you have written in the way Ruth checked her sentence. Make sure it is correct

Data cited herein have been extracted from the British

National Corpus Online service, managed by Oxford University
Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. All
rights
in
the
texts
cited
are
reserved.

25

Module Ten Video

Now I want to show you how to get maximum benefit from the British National
Corpus. David has written the sentence
She misses you a lot
and he wants to be certain that it is correct. It is correct but David doesnt know that
and he wants to be certain.
He goes to the British National Corpus and put the whole sentence in the search
box. He is hoping that the exact phrase occurs in the British National Corpus. If it
occurred at least two or three times used by different writers in published writing,
well, that would be excellent. Unfortunately, there are no hits; that phrase doesnt
occur in the British National Corpus. That doesnt mean its wrong of course. There
are lots of perfectly correct phrases that dont occur in the British National Corpus.
But can we get evidence from the British National Corpus that will prove that the
sentence
She misses you a lot
is correct?
Well, next David tries the phrase
She misses you
This time he gets four hits and one of them is
She misses you badly
Well, She misses you badly is a very elegant way of saying She misses you a lot. It
shows just the kind of rich vocabulary that will improve marks in an exam. Good.
David changes his sentence to
She misses you badly
But, because hes still curious, he continues his investigation: can he prove that She
misses you a lot is also correct?
Well, although the sentence She misses you a lot doesnt occur in the British
National Corpus, if David could find, say, John missed us a lot that would also be
proof. If you can say John missed us a lot then you can say She misses you a lot. We
have changed the subject of the verb, we have changed the tense of the verb, and we
have changed the object of the verb but we still have evidence that the structure miss
someone a lot is good English. So David tries lots of phrases like miss them a lot,
missing me a lot, missed it a lot, misses him a lot

26

Lots of the phrases he tries dont occur, but he does find both miss you a lot and
missed her a lot. So now he knows that his original sentence is correct.
Now its your turn. Here is a sentence:
He makes me very happy
It is correct but its not in the British National Corpus. Imagine you didnt know that
it was correct. Can you get evidence from the British National Corpus that will
prove that it is correct?

(Data cited herein have been extracted from the British

National Corpus Online service, managed by Oxford University
Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. All
rights in the texts cited are reserved.)

27

Module Eleven Video

In the last module we used the British National Corpus. Now a lot of students google a
phrase to see if its correct. The trouble with that is that there is a lot of incorrect
English on the World Wide Web. Here's a better way of using the World Wide Web ...
Go to Webcorp at:
http://www.webcorp.org.uk/
Click on 'Advanced Options'. Insert the phrase you are interested in into the 'search box'
and then scroll down and select One concordance line per web site. This avoids too
much repetition. Then scroll further down to 'Add popular sites' and click on 'UK
Broadsheet newspapers' (that means the quality British newspapers like The Times, The
Telegraph ...). Then scroll down to the bottom and click on 'Search'.
When you get the results you can then click on them and see the actual newspaper
articles where that phrase was used.
The domain 'UK Broadsheet Newspapers' is huge but you can of course add other
domains too. Other good domains for this purpose are Tabloid newspapers, the BBC,
British academic, and Wikipedia. If you are writing in American English you will
probably prefer US newspapers, US academic and Wikipedia. Because they are
published writing, the quality is high enough too.
In short, Webcorp enables you to use portions of the World Wide Web as a vast, vast
corpus ...
The advantage of Webcorp for our purpose is that it gives you access to much more
English than the British National Corpus; sometimes you need that, especially for
longer or more unusual phrases. For example, you may have written the phrase She
misses you a lot and you want to be sure that it is correct. That phrase does not occur in
the British National Corpus but it does occur in Webcorp in a reliable source (The Los
Angeles Times) so that you can be confident it is correct English.
The disadvantage with Webcorp is there is so much language that even when you
carefully select the domains, there may be some incorrect English (for example, an
author may be imitating the speech of someone who is not a good speaker of English).
In fact this problem occurs with all very large corpora. So just because a phrase appears
there doesnt mean it is necessarily correct English. Ideally you need to see it used by at
least two or three writers in just the way you want to use it. So my advice is to use the
British National Corpus first. That contains a 100 million words which is often plenty.
If the phrase you want to use doesnt occur in the British National Corpus but you still
think it is correct then you may want more and then you can go to Webcorp and use 'UK
Broadsheet Newspapers', say, and then add other domains one by one if you need to.
Try it out, youll soon get a feel for its potential.

28

Now, I want you to practise using Webcorp. Look at a piece of your writing and choose
some phrases which are three words long and some which are four words long. Then
see if you can find them being used in the way you have used them on Webcorp.
Module Twelve Video
OK, well this is the last module of the course. Weve discussed the importance of:
-

Avoiding mistakes
Knowing when you dont know if a phrase is correct or not
Using only phrases which you know are correct
Using sentences from a Grammar as models to make your own sentences
Using a good dictionary like the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary
Collecting phrases that you can use in lots of essays
Using the British National Corpus
Checking your writing from different angles: first the verbs, then the
prepositions, then the adjectives
Using Webcorp

OK, so you have a lot of advice, a lot of resources Now we come to the big test. Can
you do it? Can you write an essay with no mistakes in it?
Ive provided eight essay titles. The essay titles are in the attached document (in the
transcription of these videos). Choose one and spend about an hour writing the essay.
Then spend between two and three hours making absolutely sure there are no mistakes
in it. Imagine theres a big prize, a million euros, if there are no mistakes in it.
Then send your essay to your partner. When you receive your partners essay, spend
two or three hours checking it. If you there is a mistake, you must give evidence
evidence based on the dictionary, the British National Corpus, or Webcorp for example.
You must have good evidence not just your opinion, but documentary evidence.
Otherwise its correct: innocent until proved guilty.
And of course, if possible, write more than one essay and get it checked. The more you
write, the more youll learn.
Hard work? Yes, but writing well is hard work. Dr Johnston said: What is written
without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Essays
1 Understanding history is extremely important; it should be a compulsory
subject in every year at secondary school To what extent do you agree or
disagree?
2 Daily life has many irritations. Describe in detail something that makes you
angry.

29

3 When they are at secondary school, in addition to academic subjects young

people should be taught practical things such as cooking, first aid, how to make
and repair things, and how to apply for a job. To what extent do you agree or
disagree?
4 Describe someone who is not famous but whom you admire. Explain in detail
why you have such a good opinion of this person.
5 Describe in detail an occasion when you were profoundly surprised by
someone or something
6 Too much of the news in newspapers and on television is about problems,
crises, conflicts, disasters and accidents. The media should tell us more about
all the good things that happen. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
7 Recently a circus visited your town and you went to see it. Your experience of
the circus was very different from that of the journalist who wrote the report that
appeared in the local newspaper the next day. Write a letter to the editor of the
newspaper explaining in detail why you disagree with the report in his
newspaper. Invent any details you wish.
8 Some people say Hollywood is a dream factory. Others say it is an
instrument for cultural imperialism. What is your view?
9 While you were away on holiday a neighbour allowed his children to play in
your garden. Write him a letter in which you try to make sure that this does not
happen again. Invent any details you like.
10 Can it ever be right to assassinate a dictator?

30

Answer Section
Module
Sentences 1, 2, 4 and 7 are correct.
The sentences with mistakes are: 3, 5, 6 and 8.
The corrected versions are:
3 He dreamed of becoming an engineer or He dreamed about becoming an engineer
5 He walked as far as Johns house
6 She is always bossing me about
8 It is one of the highest mountains in the world.

31