Okay.
Now let's have a short discussion about common grammar or word choice mistakes.
These are some of the fatal flaws that lower grades.
The most common.
Now, academic writing is much different than other forms of writing, because in academic writing you
don't write the way you speak.
You don't use slang.
Right.
Do not expect the reader to know what you mean.
Sometimes in other types of writing, you might assume the reader knows what you mean.
In academic writing, you don't assume anything right?
When you make assumptions.
Or, as I like to say, when you write in a way that requires inferencing.
If you write in a way that requires inferencing or making inferences, you're about to have a problem
in terms of your score.
Don't write in fragments.
Use complete sentences.
Always use standard written English.
Here are some bad habits to avoid in academic writing.
Don't use you having inconsistent purpose person having inconsistent tense abbreviations using slang
wana ghana.
It's okay to use that in speaking but not in writing.
Don't use etc..
Avoid ending verbs with n or n instead of i and g.
Waiting and watching.
Some of you might think is funny, but I see it a lot.
Be careful with your pronoun antecedent agreement and reference.
Right.
A lot of times students use these pronouns wrong, they use them wrongly.
And so you have to make sure that you're able to write in a way that uses proper pronouns.
Mechanical rules never began a sentence with a number.
Spell it out.
All numbers below 100 should be spelled out.
Those above 100 are optional, but you should be consistent.
Here are some commonly misspelled words you have to be careful with.
Right.
I see this very often.
And you want to make sure that you don't make these simple, basic mistakes.
If there's any slide that you want to spend some more time looking at, just pause the video and you
can look at it a little bit longer.
Unnecessary repetition.
Now, remember, I told you sometimes when being when being for coherence and cohesion, you might have
some parts where you have repetition, but we're talking about unnecessary repetition.
And so if you are being repetitive in your writing, look here, you know, a round circle.
A circle is automatically round.
Refer back.
Right.
The whole entire world.
This is the kind of writing that you have to be kind of careful with because it's unnecessary repetition.
Be careful with some words and phrases to avoid.
You want to try to avoid contractions.
This is difficult, and even sometimes I might make a mistake and use a contraction.
It's difficult sometimes because in many of your your English language schools, they don't tell you
to avoid contractions in academic writing.
And so sometimes it's a really difficult habit to break for, even for even a native speaker.
Avoid beginning sentences with conjunctions.
Right.
There are no such.
Be careful with words that don't exist.
Be careful of capitalizing words that should not be capitalizing.
So these are some of the things that you have to be careful with in terms of words and phrases to avoid.
Is very important that you know your parts of speech and use your parts of speech correctly.
Here are some more specifics in terms of errors.
Fragments.
Oh.
Fragments.
Right.
You've got to be careful with fragments.
Look at these examples of fragments first.
The lack of exercise.
Period.
Well, what about it?
OC.
What about it?
That's a fragment.
What are you talking about?
What?
About what about the lack of exercise, although the number falling.
For example, fast food, sweet things and oily food.
These are fragments.
When it says fragment, it means you have a period and is an incomplete thought.
Very often this happens because a student can't write compound sentences correctly, in complex sentences
correctly.
And when you're not able to do that, you end up writing fragments.
Now, here you can look at these examples and you can see how those sentences will be written so that
they're not fragments.
Comma splices.
Comma splices are a type of run on sentence.
Write their sentences.
They should be separate but are joined with a comma.
Run ons are sentences that should be separate but are joined anyway.
Right?
In the past, people did not have cars they used to walk.
Right?
Why is this a run on?
Right.
Because there is.
There should be something.
There's no proper comma placement.
Heart disease is a big problem and kills thousands of people.
Heart disease is a big problem because it kills thousands of people.
Our modern our modern life is very easy.
Jobs are easier than they were 50 years ago.
Because since.
Right.
So very often in essay writing, I see comma splices and comma splices are a huge, huge grammatical
mistake that you have to stop doing.
Right.
You can go ahead.
And these are some ways that you can fix comma splice problems, right?
You can use a period, you can use a semicolon, you can use a comma and in coordinating conjunction
or you can use a subordinating conjunction.
Your coordinating conjunctions are compound sentences, your subordinate conjunctions, subordinating
conjunctions are complex sentences, right?
But these are four ways that you can practice being able to avoid comma splices.
It all comes from writing sentences correctly.
Now, if you're just using a lot of periods, that's going to make you fall more into the simplistic
type of writing, and you won't get a really high score for it.
You'll be correct, but you won't get a really high score for it.
If you're using method three and method four, you're going to get a higher score for doing it correctly.
These are some examples of how to fix common splices.
So again, if you need to stop the screen right here and take a look at how we fix these comma splices,
look at look at a and then look at the examples of how we fix the comma splices.
Here are a few more common splice examples.
All right.
You can look and see how these things were fixed.
Run on sentences.
A run on sentence is a sentence comprised of two or more independent clauses, not properly separated.
Right.
So again, we're talking about really comma splices again.
It happens because there's a lack of punctuation or conjunctions.
Incorrect punctuation, a comma splice.
A run on sentence is not simply a long sentence.
My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus.
It is very garlicky.
What's the problem here?
Because sense or period.
It is nearly 5:30.
We cannot reach town before dark.
You're missing a conjunction.
So.
I have to go to the store.
I need to buy milk.
You either have to be very simplistic.
I have to go to the store.
Period.
I need milk.
I need to buy milk.
Period.
Or to get a higher score.
Create a use a subordinate in conjunction.
I have to go to the store because I need to buy milk.
These are more examples of run on sentences.
You have example on the left and an example on the right.
Again, if you feel like I'm going through some parts too quickly for you, stop the video.
Take a look and read more carefully.
Sometimes you have to be careful with missing main components of sentences.
Write sentences, have a subject and a predicate.
And very often, students leave out the subject or leave out the predicate.
And when you do that, you're creating a grammar problem.
Subject verb agreement, right?
In order for a sentence to be grammatically correct is subject and corresponding verb must agree.
Right.
They must agree.
So this is a big, big problem for students.
And now for most students, if I ask them the rule, they know the rule.
But what most students have trouble with is performance of the rule.
Now performance of the rule gets better if you're doing focused practice.
Right.
If you're doing folk as the practice, so sometimes you might write a paragraph and if you have problems
with subject verb agreement, you might say, You know what?
When I write this program for this program, when I write this paragraph, I'm going to just focus on
my subject verb agreement.
I'm going to be mindful and focus on my subject verb agreement to make sure that I'm able to get it
correct and perfect my ability to do that.
Here are some examples of subject verb agreement errors.
Look at example one and look at example two.
Right.
See if you can spot the difference.
An important part of my life have been.
Right should be an important part of my life has been.
My life has been not.
My life have been.
They have.
We have.
Right.
He has.
She has.
My life has.
Adding a plural as this is another big, big issue that I see sometimes as students leave off.
This is a grammar mistake that you have to be very careful with everybody.
Pronouns misusing pronouns again.
Big, big grammatical problem.
Stop here and read about this.
You can learn more about misusing pronouns so you can avoid making that mistake.
No comma after the introductory phrase.
Right.
Like while while it Thanksgiving commercial plate.
While a Thanksgiving.
You have to make sure.
That you have your comma.
Right.
So while the Thanksgiving commercial played on the TV.
Right.
That's the introductory phrase.
All right.
While the Thanksgiving commercial played on the TV, that's the introductory phrase.
It's also a dependent clause, right?
So is the introductory phrase and dependent clause.
And that means we need to have a comma after TV.
You must have a comma after TV.
Split infinitives.
This is really, really, really technical here.
Right.
It's not really grammatically wrong.
Is more about style and what sounds better.
Right.
So when you see something where it says here, incorrect is not grammatically incorrect.
It's just stylistically incorrect is stylistically incorrect.
Are your dangly modifiers.
Dangly modifiers are a big problem.
Look at this example down here by studying how our grades will be improved.
Contained.
It contains a dangly modifier because it doesn't identify who will be studying hard.
So look at the revised sentence here.
When students study hard, their grades will improve.
Right dangling modifier means is Hague is hanging there, but it's not being said.
Right.
It does.
It's not there.
It has to be there.
It's missing.
It's a dangling modifier.
Dangling modifier.
Be careful with your word.
Choice, mistakes, misuse words.
Example There were adverse adverse effects and it should be there were adverse effects.
I see a lot of word choice mistakes.
So you have to be careful with that.
Be careful with unwanted connotations or meanings.
I see this a lot.
Example I sprayed the ants in their personal places.
Yeah, that's grammatically correct, but it doesn't have any real meaning.
Right.
You're not spraying them in their personal places.
I sprayed the ants in their hiding places.
Again, those are were those are connotation mistakes.
Connotation mistakes, and sometimes if you only have one of them, it's okay.
But sometimes I read essays and people have 1010 connotation mistakes.
And when you have that many connotation mistakes with word choice, that means that you're having issues
with using the English language properly, and that's what lowers your score.
Complex words where a shorter or simpler word will do.
Okay.
So a lot of times people try to use these big words.
These big, big words.
And sometimes I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm making comments to students and I'm saying, well, I
have no idea what you're talking about.
Right.
Because you're using some big, complex word and you're not using it correctly or as contextually used
incorrectly.
Be careful with awkward word choice mistakes.
Right.
You can take a look at this example, the revision and the reason for the change and get an example
of what I'm talking about in terms of awkward word choice words that are similar to each other but convey
the wrong meaning.
Again, look at the example, the revision, and the reason for the change.
So you can understand what that means.
Words that convey finer shades of meaning.
OC.
This again, this is where it gets a little bit more more technical.
But look here.
Previously, a substantial number of patients with HCP were defined as having previously a substantial
number of patients with HCP or diagnosed as having again, we're defined as having is not really stylistically
contextually correct.
Right.
The word you should be using is diagnosed.
Now what I'm talking about are the things that make a difference between somebody that gets an intermediate
level score right, or a mid range score and somebody that gets a really high level score.
These are the kind of things that make a difference.
And some of you are not seeing the all these things I'm talking about.
These are the kind of things that people are doing that are scoring on the upper scale of the rubric.
If you're not able to do these things I'm talking about and do these things consistently, you're going
to have a little bit of trouble scoring on the upper scale of the rubric.
Right.
So if you want to learn more about avoiding mistakes, right, you can get more help.
There's an attachment.
And if you follow that attachment, there's a link to a grammar diagnostic test.
You can take that grammar diagnostic test and you can learn a lot more about your grammar issues.
And also after you take that diagnostic test, they give you rule advice on how to correct your grammar
mistakes.
So I hope this is I hope this was helpful for you.
Because I talk a lot about your your general English needs to really match your skills that you're learning
in the course, right?
So I just wanted to mention these things briefly.
This is not a general English course, right?
I focus more on the strategies and tactics you need for the exam, but I just wanted to mention some
of these things because these are issues that come up that some of you need to really go out and do
some more investigation and correct within your writing.
So take care.