English, baby!

improve your English writing in 5 minutes

Date: Nov 01 2007

Lesson

How to improve your English writing in 5 minutes

Below is an excerpt from a story, but it is purposefully written in an ugly way. Do you find this excerpt pleasant to read?

((Today , I can understand the beatles very clearly.Each time I hear a Beatles song,I am delighted and proud becouse i have mademy childhood dream come true. I listen to many rock bands , all in English,and I listen every day ,sometimes forover seven hours a day.I ma constantly aware ofmy success with english because i cna understand the lyrics ofthe songs i listen to.and taht gives me pleasure and Satisfaction for many hours every day . ))

Now you can read the original version of the excerpt. It's the same text but it's much more pleasant to read, don't you think?

((Today, I can understand The Beatles very clearly. Each time I hear a Beatles song, I am delighted and proud because I have made my childhood dream come true. I listen to many rock bands, all in English, and I listen every day, sometimes for over seven hours a day. I am constantly aware of my success with English because I can understand the lyrics of the songs I listen to. And that gives me pleasure and satisfaction for many hours every day. ))

There are three kinds of typing errors in the ugly version:

wrong use of spaces (a missing space or an unnecessary space)
incorrect capitalization (lower case instead of upper case or upper case instead of lower case)
incorrect spelling

How to avoid writing in an ugly way

Be careful. Put spaces between words. Use proper capitalization: The first word in every sentence should start with a capital letter. So should every proper name (such as English and The Beatles).
"You" and "I". Remember that the word "I" is spelled "I", not "i", and the word "you" is spelled "you", not "u".
Put a space after every comma and every period; never before it.
The wrong way:
((I listen to many rock bands , all in English,and I listen every day ,sometimes for over seven hours a day . I am constantly aware of my success with English . ))
The right way:
((I listen to many rock bands, all in English, and I listen every day, sometimes for over seven hours a day. I am constantly aware of my success with English. ))

Use a spellchecker. With a spellchecker, you can easily avoid mistakes like becouse, ma (instead of am), cna (instead of can), and taht (instead of that).

Ref : antimoon.com