i Expert writing Linking devices Ina coherent piece of writing, al the ideas are relevant to the main point and are presented in a logical sequence A cohesive piece of writing uses linking devices to signal the relationship between the ideas clearly and to avoid unnecessary repetition, Logical links 1 Expressions which link ideas within a sentence (conjunctions) + Addition: and, as weil as + Time: after as, as soon as, before, ance, since, until, when, while + Contrast/change of direction: although, but, despite, ‘even if even though, in spite of, while, whereas + Reason/result: as, because, since, so + Purpose: (in order) t0, so that Note: and, but, so usually only go in the middle of the sentence. Allthe other conjunctions can go either in the middle or atthe beginning of the sentence. 2 Expressions which link ideas across sentences (adverbials) + Addition: also, as well, besides, furthermore, in addition, moreover, too, what's more + Time: afterwards, beforehand, eventually, finaly, fist, in the end, lastly, later, meanwhile, next, secondly + Example/lilustration: for example, for instance + Contrast/Change of direction: even so, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, on the other hand, still, yet + Reason/Result: as a result, because of this, consequently, that's why, therefore + Conclusion: in conclusion, in summary, last ofall, to conclude Notes 1. Aswell,to0 go at the end of a sentence 2 Finally later, eventually, ako, therefore, consequently usually goat the beginning ofthe sentence. 3 Allthe other adverbs normally go atthe beginning of the sentence. Grammatical reference links 1 Reference words + Personal pronouns (he, they, her, their, its, etc.) I1met your father. He's very young. + Articles (the, a, an) He's got two children. The son is a doctor and the daughter is a teacher. + Determiners (this, chat, these, hose) That idea was very original + Relative pronouns (who, which) I1met your father, who is very young. 2 Other substitutions + there, then The Ritz isa good hotel. We stayed there last july. It was very busy then. + one, ones We missed the bus so we got a later one. They will be the ones (= the people) who will benefit bs (dovoes/id, haverhad, can/could, etc) He was very this) is nar Aegepea! + if so/ifnot Do you eat meat? chicken. If not vegetable stew. + Relative clauses 1 sat out in the sun without wealfhig sunset which was very stupid of me. (which ref 1S whole of the previous clause) 3 Omi Sometimes, we can omit words altogether. We could stay in, but I prefer not to stayin, He never offers to clean or he-never offers to wash the dishes, Sally likes tea but not (= she doesnt like) coffe. Lexical reference links ion Parallel expressions ‘Science fiction is full of descriptions about how humans ‘might look in the future. lt may seem rather far-fetched to think we will have electronic arms and legs, laser vision or bbe able to fly, as the genre (= science fiction) would have us believe.Punctuation 1 Capital letters + To begin a sentence: We saw him yesterday. + For the pronoun J, names, tiles, countries, nationalities, streets, cities, days of the week and months (not seasons) of the year: MrJones, the Welshman, Oxford Street, last Friday, last spring, in May 2 Full stops + To mark the end of a sentence: !m very homesick. + For abbreviations: Prof (= Professor, a.m. (= in the morning) + With decimals, prices and time: At 4.30 the price rose 3.3% to £4.99. Notes 11 Ful stops are not used with abbreviations where the last letter of the abbreviation is also the lst letter ofthe word -Mrfor Mister, Dr for Doctor. 2 With some abbreviations, full stops are a matter of style and ate sometimes omitted: 6 am, the UK 3 Apostrophes + To indicate possession: my brother's house (= one brother): my brothers’ house (= more than one brother); my parents’ house + To indicate a contraction (a shorter form of aword ‘or words): havent is a contracted form of have not, wont is a contracted form of will not Notes 1. When a word ends in -s, a second -s is not necessary: + To separate 1 bought apples, Ns + To separate an inffoducto} Happily, the weather was fine in the In my view, smoking should be barn When it rains, | take an umbrella If youte thirsty, have a drink of Being a nice person, he offered to'Felp. + Around inserted phrases and clauses: John, as we all know, is lazy. He is, however, very intelligent Sue, whe works in a bank, isa friend of mine. or clause: The wornan, hungry ofter a long journey, started to eat. Expert writing i + To separate some final elements such as question tags and participle clauses: Youte tired, aren't you? J didn't go, not being interested in such things. + Indirect speech: ‘ts lave’ he said. He said, t's late” + Optional before and, or, but: Tom tries hard{,) but Sue doesnt. "Note: the use of the comma before and in a list is much more ‘common in American English than in British English. 5 Speech marks + To separate direct speech from the rest of a sentence. Notes 1 Acomma is used to set off a direct quotation from the rest of, the sentence, and a capital lll to stat the quotation: John shouted, Come out ofthe water now!” 2. ifa.quoted sentence is spit up, the second part does not begin wit a capita ‘That! he said, is my house’ 3 Commas or full stops at the end of a quoted speech are inside the speech marks, 6 Other punctuation + Colon () ~ to introduce a list: The hotel has everything: a gym, a sauna, . ~ before a phrase that gives more information or an example: He got poor marks: not surprising when you consider ‘how little work he did. = to introduce a quotation. As Shakespeare said: ‘All the world's a stage.’ + Semi-colon () ~ to separate two main clauses that are closely linked in meaning, so that a full stop would be too strong a break between them: He was once poor at English; now he's a Professor of English. + Dash) ~ in informal writing, to separate a part of a sentence which adds extra information: The second man - Tom Jones ~ was well known to the police. ‘We been to Paris - in fac, | went there last year.a ee ee Spelling Spelling changes 1 Words ending in ch, -sh, -s, + Add ~es instead of -s bunches, washes, addresses, coaxes, buzzes 2 Words ending in consonant +-y + Nouns/verbs change -y to -ie when a suffix is added: enquiry —* enquiries fly — flies, tidy — tidier + But -y doesnit change before -ing camy -* carried -» carrying + Change -y to -ifor other suffixes: mystery —> mysterious, pity —» pitiful, busy —* busily, heavy —* heaviness 3 Words ending in vowel +-y + Add -s: journeys, pays + But or past participles, change -y to -iand add -d lay laid + Note these adverbs: day + daily, gay —> gaily 4 Words ending in -f-fe + Adds: gulfs, chiefs + But note: thief — thieves. Also: self shelf. loaf leaf. knife, wif, life, half 5 Words ending in vowel +-0 + Add -s: radios, shampoos 6 Words ending in consonant + -o + Add es: potatoes, tomatoes, heroes + Note that loan words and abbreviations add -s: cellos, photos 7 Words ending in -e + Drop silent -e after a consonant and before a vowel: stride—> striding, inte ~* invitation + But keep -e in words like like -> likeable, dye — dyeing and -ee words: seeing, agreeable 8 Words ending in-ie + For-i suffixes, eg. -ing, change-ie to -y die» dying, tie» ying + For-e suffives, drop one -e: died, lied 9 Words ending in -c + To keep the /k/ sound, add -k panic —+ panicking + Add -al to -ic words for -fy words frantic > frantically 10. Words ending in a consonant + For words ending in a vowel + a consonant, with the last syllable stressed, double the only or final consonant: fit» fitter, prefer -» preferring, occur» occurred + In British English, words ending in -I or -p normally double the consonant even ifthe stress is on ather syllables (travelling, handicapped) — + Sis sometimes doubled: focused or focussed + Don't double the final consonant of ~ words with two vowels before the final consonant: plain -* plainer = words with two final consonants: fast — faster ‘Some useful rules + ~ise (verbY/-ice (noun): advise/advice Exception: fri Hyphens Hyphens are used to jal nouns or adjectives and to important in + numerical expressions: a five-st walt + compound adjectives which come beforeffhehoun: blue-eyed, up-and-coming + affixes to help pronunciation (co-operate) or to avoj confusion: resent/te-sent. Endings often misspelt + Adjectives -ible/-able: visible, irresistible, responsible, lovable, valuable, advisable ful: cheerful, handful, successful -ent/-ant: permanent, confident, ignorant, observant ~ous/-eous/-ious: marvellous, courageous, anxious + Nouns ence/-ance: influence, difference, corespondence, assistance, attendance, appearance -al/-le/ek: proposal, circle, quarrel -er/-o1/-ar- officer, solicitor, factor, burglar -ary/-ery/-ory/-ry: library, robbery, directory, factory, Poetry -tion/-sion/-ssion: relation, occasion, possession + Verbs -cede/-ceed: precede, recede, exceed, proceed ‘Commonly misspelt words ‘accommadation, approximate, because, biscuit, building, business, campaign, compare, desert/dessert, development, different, disappoint, disguise, embarrass, exhaustion, familiar, follow, frequent, guarantee, guilty, immediately, immigrant, individual, interest, leisure, medicine, mountaineer, necessary, occupation, pastime, pleasant, professional, pronunciation, receipt, separate, scissors, similar, surface, technical, throughAttitude clauses and phrases Attitude, or comment, phrases are not an integral part of the sentence, but indicate the speaker’s/writer's attitude to the action or event, or a comment on its truth 1 Finite attitude clauses ‘As far as | know, she's coming next week. As I said, we will need to leave very early John is leaving, as you know. ‘As we shall see, this decision was to cost him his life I can't help you, I'm afraid, Believe it or not, he passed all his exams. As it turns out, she didn't need to come. You know, it might be a good idea to go by train I can't be the driver. You see, | don't know how to drive. The truth is, nothing has changed since the election 2 Non-finite attitude clauses ‘These include participle and to-infinitive phrases: All things considered, weve done very well Considering (the problems we've had), weVve done very well. We've done very well, considering (the problems weve had). Taking everything into consideration, | think we've earned a break: Generally (speaking), women earn less than men. To be honest, | didn't realy lke the book. Judging by his recent performance, he should win the cup. Speaking from memory, 1 say it's about ten miles from here. Strictly speaking, we shouldn't be here. To tell the truth, fd forgotten all about it Is Or to put it another way, dont try this on Expert writing i 3 Sentence adverbs A Giving your opinion about/reaction to some event annoyingly, funnily (enough), hopefully, luckily, naturally, oddly (enough), righdy, strangely, (not) surprisingly, understandably, worryingly Hopefully, the government will change its mind. daly enough, someone asked me the same question only yesterday. There's a lot of tlk, quite rightly, about the dangers of smoking. B Commenting on the truth or likelihood of some event actually, arguably, certainly, clearly, defintely, doubles, evidently, obviously, presumably, really, surely, as a matter of fact, in fact, of course Actually, what happened was that . Doubtless he will be promoted before lang. Of course, his father isthe managing director. Surely you dont mean that? Emphasising what you have said indeed, as a matter of fact, in fact | don't mind at all. indeed, 'm pleased to be asked. D Admitting something is true admittedly, granted Her technique needs improving, granted, but she puts great feeling into her performance. E Explaining how you are speaking frankly, honestly, personally, seriously Personally, | think it's a terrible idea. I dont like him, quite frankly. F Generalsing as a rule, by and large, in the main, on the whole Asarule, | don't have breakfast at weekends. By and large, the conference went very well. In the main, the climate is very mild. On the whole, things turned out for the best.Expert writing Sentence structure 1 The main sentence patterns of English A Main clause: subject + verb (+ complement/object) Assentence in English must have at least a subject + averb. The shop is closing. (S+V) Coffee bars are a favourite with customers. (S+V+C) Some stores employ a number of entertainment techniques. (S+V+O) The subject always comes before the verb, except in questions and some special cases for style or emphasis. > See Grammar reference pages 183 (cleft sentences) and 184 (ro inversion). B Main claus cen ing.conjunction (and, or, but, so) + mal Shopping is someting o) but many people go shopping fst f Note: A comma is optional Befor ction in British Engisn C1 Main clause + subordinate Jove going to parties as 'm a very sociatie per 2 Subordinate clause, + main clause Although I enjoy lying on the beach doi nothing, | couldn't do it for very long. Note: A comma is used when the subordinate clause comes first. D Main clause + inserted information Unfortunately, there isnot a lotto do in the evenings. To tell the truth, most evenings | prefer to stay at home and read a book, Going to work, believe it or not, is some people's idea of good time. Not finding it easy to relax when | come home from work, F usually watch TV. ‘My father enjoys life to the full, which is amazing for someone his age. E Main clause. Linking expression + main clause only enjoy myself when I'm with people | like. That's why I only go oust with friends. Taking part in online auctions can be fun. What's more, ‘you can find some real bargains. The basic sentence patterns can be combined into complex sentences containing more than one clause. Stroling through a town centre on a Saturday, the country’s busiest shopping day, you might come across such things as drama workshops, a fairground ride or even a brass band raising money for charity, all of which are part of a campaign to encourage people to visit town. 2. Fragments A group of words that does not contain a subject and verb and does not express a complete idea isa fragment. She decided to study French. Because she loved the language so much. x We can attach the fragment to the previous sentence: She decided to study French because she loved the language so much. John promised to pay me back the money. Which he didn't do, x John promised to pay me back the money, which he didn’ do. 7 ‘We can add a subject to the second sentence: John promised to pay me back the money. He didnt do so. 3. Run-ons When two complete, independent clauses are run together with no adequate punctuation to mark the break between them, this isa run-on sentence ‘My job is very time-consuming, | have no time for a social life. x ‘Acomma alone is not enough to join two independent clauses. ‘My job is very time-consuming. | have no time for a social life. {the ideas into two separate sentences with a full stop. ly job is very time-consuming; | have no time for a social life. 7 A semi-colon is also possible.