Welcome back to Learn Academic English where I teach intermediate and advanced level lessons for
English learners around the world who want to take their English to the next level in today's lesson
I'm going to give you 12 super helpful tips for improving your writing and I'm thinking
specifically about academic writing the kind of writing that you have to do for school or maybe
for your job so before we start I want to mention that i've been teaching writing at the college or
university level for more than 20 years and in my job as an English teacher I help people learn how
to write essays in English so in today's video I'm going to give you a bunch of tips and then
in future videos I'll go through some of the tips in more detail so that you can learn exactly how
to improve those specific tips so make sure you come back and look for more videos in this series
before we get started i'd like to remind you to please give this video a like leave a comment and
subscribe if you want more videos like this one let's get to those tips tip number one
believe in yourself it is super important to know that a lot of people struggle with writing essays
but it is something that you can learn how to do it's a skill just like any other skill
if you get some good lessons and you practice you can learn how to do it I
know this because I have seen many people who can't write well in English at all
but with time and hard work they learn how to do it and they do a great job
tip number two know that your writing doesn't have to be perfect it's okay for there to be some room
for improvement and let your natural self shine through know that your professor will want you to
improve and will help you to write better so don't worry if her writing is not perfect that's
not a realistic goal just do your best number three read and understand the writing prompt
so the writing prompt is the assignment or the question that your professor gives you that you
have to base your writing on and it's really important to take some time to read that prompt
and make sure that you understand it well this is the place where a lot of students get frustrated
or confused they feel like they don't understand the prompt well and then they don't even know
how to get started but take the time to read the prompt think about it if you need to ask for help
maybe show it to someone like a friend or a family member talk about it and then you
can get started with the rest of the process but don't skip that make sure you spend plenty of time
reading and understanding the prompt so that you know exactly what you need to do
tip number four understand the expectations of the assignment most of the writing assignments
are going to have a minimum number of pages or words and there may be other expectations of style
and language so make sure that you understand what those expectations are also you might want to see
if your professor has given you a grading rubric a grading rubric is a handout that shows you exactly
how the professor is going to grade your essay and that's a really important place to start because
it shows you exactly what the professor is looking for some of the expectations you want to check on
are what style of citations do you need to use if your essay includes research you need to know if
it's mla style apa style or another style you also might want to check about language expectations
is it a personal essay where you're going to use the word I to express your opinion
or is it something more formal where you're going to avoid using eye tip number five
brainstorming and outlining so to brainstorm is to get all of your ideas from your mind down onto a
piece of paper and the purpose of brainstorming is that it helps you to collect your ideas and
start to put them together into sections or points that you can use to help you support your ideas
brainstorming is really important because sometimes you look at the prompt and you
say oh I don't know what to write about but once you start brainstorming you can get ideas
and then organize them together outlining is where you take those ideas from brainstorming
and you organize them into a map that is going to help you to stay organized while you write
so a lot of people want to skip these steps they just want to start writing
but it's really important to do them because it's very easy to get lost while you're writing
but if you do good brainstorming which will give you good ideas and then if you do outlining which
will help you stay for focused and organized it will help you to write your essay faster and more
effectively number six once you've done your brainstorming and outlining it's time to start
writing and my tip for starting to write is that you should always start with your thesis statement
now I'm going to do a video all about thesis statements soon but for now you need to know that
a thesis statement is the most important sentence in your essay it is the sentence that goes at the
end of your introduction and it shows your reader what your argument or what your idea is
and how you're going to address that argument what points are you going to make in your essay
that are going to support your idea usually we will have one argument for example students should
wear uniforms to school okay so that might be my argument and then I might have three or four main
points or reasons that would support that argument so my thesis statement might look something like
this students should wear uniforms to school for the following reasons and then I would list
those reasons in a short way and that would be my thesis statement this is a kind of map or guide
for your essay it tells your reader exactly what you're going to talk about and if you start with
your thesis statement then it helps you to stay focused while you're writing tip number seven
use clear essay structure so in the United States we have a very specific structure that we like
to use when we write essays and this structure is expected when your professor reads your
essay your professor is going to be looking for that structure and I have some videos
about that and I'm going to make more videos about that topic but for now you need to know
that your structure needs to follow the way that we write in English so the way that we write in
English is very linear or it's very direct we don't beat around the bush to make our point
instead we go directly to the point we tell the reader our idea in the thesis statement and then
each paragraph that follows that is going to state directly how we are supporting those ideas
the first reason students should wear uniforms to school is that and then we state the reason
and in that paragraph we talk only about that reason in a very direct way so get familiar
with essay structure know what the essay structure is that is usually expected of students and then
follow that structure so that your reader will feel comfortable reading your essay
tip eight write concisely what does concisely mean concisely means in a clear short way so a lot of
students when they are in school they think that the goal of writing at the college or university
level is to write more to write longer but it's important to know that while you have to write
long essays you don't just write more words you should be supporting your essay with good ideas
but you don't want to have too many words to explain your ideas in other words you should try
to explain your ideas in a short clear effective way how can you do that make sure that you choose
the best vocabulary to explain what you want to say and avoid overusing unnecessary words I have a
video all about how to write concisely that I'll link above where you can learn more about this
tip nine don't repeat the same words over and over again so this is usually
a habit of younger writers who haven't developed their vocabulary enough or they just are not
familiar with what's expected at the college or university level but one thing that you should do
is avoid repeating the same words your reader will expect more variety in your vocabulary and will
probably notice if you tend to use the same words over and over again so what you want to do is when
you're done writing your essay read through your whole essay again and look for words that you use
over and over again if you notice that then try to switch out some of them for some synonyms or words
that have a similar meaning tip 10 use academic style using academic style means that when you
write you use a more formal or serious tone this is your persona as a college or university student
that you are informed and that you write in a way that's different from the way that you talk
so there are many tips for using an academic style and I'll link a video for that above but keep in
mind that you want to avoid abbreviations avoid using texting language avoid slaying
and avoid really casual language things like you know what I mean or I'm gonna talk about
instead we want to use more formal or serious style when we write
tip 11 know how to cite sources so in most college or university classes you're going to need to cite
sources what that means is that you're going to use evidence or ideas that are not from your head
ideas that come from a newspaper or a book or some other source you're going to need to use sources
and then put that information in your essay to make your ideas stronger but in the United States
we have some very strict rules about using sources if we use an idea that we read in a newspaper
and we put it in our essay we have to make sure that we show exactly where we got that information
if not we can actually have some serious consequences like getting an f or sometimes even
worse so it's important to follow those rules and I have a guide that explains how to do that step
by step but basically let's pretend that you're writing an essay and you read an article that um
includes some information that obama barack obama the former president said
and you want to put that in your essay so what you want to do then is you're going to say according
to obama comma and then use some quotation marks and put his idea in the quotation marks on the
last page of your essay you're going to make a list of all the sources or articles books etc
that you used in your essay that's the very basic rule but there's a lot more to it that you can
learn as you develop your writing skills finally tip 12 make a strong first impression so a lot
of professors are going to make a judgment about you based on the first part of your essay so you
want to make a strong first impression and I always give my students two main tips for this
first of all think about the format of your essay what does your essay look like your essay should
look the correct way there is a format that we usually use and you want to make sure you follow
that format so that your essay looks good I always tell my students that like just like
if you go to a job interview you're not going to walk in in your pajamas right the same thing with
your essay you want to make sure that your essay looks good the way that it's supposed to look
next start your essay strong so think of a good and interesting title and then make sure that your
introduction paragraph is strong with correct language make sure that there are no mistakes
etc because that's the first part of your essay that your professor is going to read and you want
to make a strong first impression so those are my 12 tips for academic writing it's a lot of
information and keep in mind that I have a lot of other videos about writing and I will be making
more of them to address some of these specific topics if you have a question let me know and
in the comments below also I would love to know which of these tips was new for you or which of
these would you like more information about don't forget to leave a comment give this video a like
and subscribe if you found it helpful thanks so much take care and I'll see you next time!