Modals verbs for giving advice: Should, ought

to, had better…

There are three auxiliary verbs that you can use to give advice. They are should, ought to,
and had better.

You should put cool water on a burn.

You ought to put cool water on a burn.
You had better put cool water on a burn.

Although all three have the meaning of should, "had better" is stronger because it implies
a negative consequence if you don't follow the advice. Another difference is that
usually ought to and had better are not used with questions.

Should I put cool water on a burn?

Ought I to put cool water on a burn?
Had better I put cool water on a burn?

To understand better how to use the modals verbs for giving advices, see these examples.

We use ‘should’ when we want to give advice, make suggestions or say that something is

the right thing to do. We NEVER use ‘to’ after should:

We should get together more often

The negative is ‘should not’, which we frequently contract:

You should not leave your car in neutral

They shouldn’t eat so much sugar

In the question, we invert ‘should’ and the subject:

Should they charge for emergency room visits?

In this way we can also use ‘ought to’ but with the following limitations. We don’t really
use it in negative or questions, and we normally only use it in present:
 1. I ought to do more exercise
2. You ought to study a little more

Because we say ‘ought to’ it often confuses students and tempts them to say ‘should to’.
Remember, we DON’T say ‘should to’. It is often used in informal English, and often said in
a very compact way:

I [ought to] go

‘Had better’ is used for a threat or a warning.  It is stronger than ‘should’ and implies

consequences if the action is (or is not) carried out:

 ‘You had better be at the meeting’ implies there will be problems – you will be fired? – If
you are not

Often we use ‘or else’ or ‘otherwise’ to introduce the consequences:

You had better pay the fine or else it will double

He had better close the garage; otherwise somebody will steal his bicycle

The negative is ‘had better not’.

You had better not cross the train tracks when the barrier is down

Like with ‘should’ we don’t use ‘to’ after ‘had better’. For some reason, students often use
the affirmative correctly, but then add ‘to’ in the negative.