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free guidance notes on writing skills and English Language, sample pages, How-to guides, and study resources

free guidance notes on writing skills and English Language, sample pages, How-to guides, and study resources

Capital letters in essays

August 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Capital letters in essays are always placed at the beginning of a sentence, and they are used for all proper nouns:

He slowly entered the room, accompanied by his friend James Bowman.

2. They are used when a particular thing is being named. For instance

days	Wednesday, Friday
places	East Anglia
rivers	the river Mersey
buildings	the Tate Gallery
institutions	the Catholic Church
firms	British Aerospace
organisations	the National Trust
months	April, September

3. However, when such terms are used as adjectives or in a general sense, no capital is required:

the King James Bible BUT a biblical reference

Manchester University BUT a university education

4. Capitals are used when describing intellectual movements or periods of history:

Freudian Platonism Cartesian

The Middle Ages the Reformation

5. They are also used in the titles of books, plays, films, newspapers, magazines, songs, and works of art in general. The normal convention is to capitalise the first word and any nouns or important terms. Smaller words such as and, of, and the are left uncapitalised:

A View from the Bridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge
North by Northwest
The Marriage of Figaro

6. The convention for presenting titles in French is to capitalise only the first or the first main word of a title:

A la recherche du temps perdu
La Force des choses

7. However, there are many exceptions to this convention:

Le Rouge et le Noir
Entre la Vie et la Mort

8. In German, all nouns are given capitals:

Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte

9. Works written in English which have foreign titles are normally
capitalised according to the English convention:

Fors Clavigera Religio Medici

10. Interesting exception! Capitals are not used for the seasons of the year:

autumn winter spring summer

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Case agreement – how to understand it

August 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

free pages from our English Language software program

Case agreement – definition

There must be grammatical logic or case agreement in the links between parts of a sentence.

This coherence is called ‘case agreement’ or ‘concord’.

Examples

The boy is swimming.
[singular subject, singular verb form]

The boys are swimming.
[plural subject, plural verb form]

Use

Agreement may be required in tense, number, or case.

Problems are more likely to occur in writing than in speech.

NB! To avoid such problems in writing, keep your sentences short.

If the subject of a sentence is singular, then the verb form must be singular as well:

The shop [singular] opens at nine o’clock.
On Thursdays the shops [plural] open late.

Sometimes confusion occurs because a statement begins in the singular but then drifts into the plural:

wrong
It can be argued that a person has the right to know when they are dying.

The easiest solution to this problem is to make the subject plural and its verb plural as well:

correct
It can be argued that people have the right to know when they are dying.

Sometimes a singular noun is used to denote a plural or a collective thing – such as ‘government’ or ‘parliament’.

Either the singular or the plural verb form may be used – but the important thing is to be consistent.

wrong
The government prefers to let matters rest, but events may make them change their minds.

correct
The government prefers to let matters rest, but events may make it change its mind.

correct
The government prefer to let matters rest, but events may make them change their minds.

Agreement is necessary in English because the language is ‘uninflected’.

That is, most words are not given separate endings to indicate which part of the statement they represent.

English relies very heavily on grammatical rules and syntax [word order] to make sense.

[In some languages — classical Latin, for instance — word order is not important.]

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Case agreement in essays

August 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Case agreement in essays requires correct grammar. It means that if the subject of a sentence is singular, then the verb form must be singular as well.

Similarly, if the subject of the statement is plural, the verb form must be expressed in the plural as well.

The shop [singular] opens at nine o’clock.
On Thursdays the shops [plural] open late.

2. Sometimes confusion occurs because a statement begins in the
singular but then drifts into the plural:

wrong
It can be argued that a person has the right to know when they are dying.

3.The easiest solution to this problem is to make the subject plural and its verb plural as well:

correct
It can be argued that people have the right to know when they are dying.

4. Sometimes a singular noun is used to denote a plural or a collective thing – such as the government or parliament. Either the singular or the plural verb form may be used – but the important thing is to be consistent.

wrong
The government prefers to let matters rest, but events may make them change their minds.

correct
The government prefers to let matters rest, but events may make it change its mind.

correct
The government prefer to let matters rest, but events may make them change their minds.

5. Indefinite pronouns such as everybody and anyone can make writing with correct subject-verb agreement tricky.

6. You should treat indefinite pronouns as singular nouns that take singular verbs. Keep in mind that every and any are singular concepts.

Every human being is responsible for his actions.

7. If you wish to avoid using the masculine pronoun his or the very clumsy construction his or her – there is a simple solution to the problem. Put the expression into the plural form:

All human beings are responsible for their own actions.

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Categorizing essay topics

August 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Categorizing takes place when you have completed a brainstorming exercise. You will need to produce a logical arrangement of the ideas and items you have written down.

2. Remember that you are doing this in order to generate a coherent plan for your arguments in response to the essay question. You are trying to put the ideas into some persuasive order.

3. Do this on a separate piece of paper so that you free yourself from the randomness of the brainstorming. It should also help you to see more clearly any shape or structure which might begin to emerge.

4. As a first step you should eliminate anything which is completely unrelated to the question topic(s). Be prepared to delete even the most attractive item if it is not relevant. It is no use trying to incorporate material just because you have written it down during the brainstorming stage.

5. When you have eliminated anything which is not relevant, your next task is to look for connections between the individual items. Try to do this as you transfer them from the brainstorming onto your second page. The process should help you analyse the ideas you have produced on the subject and begin to create some form of organisation.

6. The connections between topics might exist because the items are of the same type. For instance cars, trains, and aeroplanes are all forms of TRANSPORT. Alternatively, they might belong in the same category. Banking, taxation, and public expenditure are all FINANCIAL or FISCAL matters.

7. Your task at this point is to identify these general categories. You should then assign to them the individual items from your brainstorming.

8. There may be some items which do not fit easily into any category. Put these to one side. Be prepared to incorporate them at a later stage. Alternatively, if they will not fit logically into the essay plan you are creating, leave them out.

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Checking drafts of essays

August 22, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Checking drafts takes place when you have produced the first version of an essay. You should be prepared to check through it carefully. Make any changes necessary to improve the clarity and effectiveness of what you have written.

2. Do not be tempted to hand in the essay just because you have written the last word.

3. You should eliminate any weaknesses. Check your punctuation and grammar.

4. Correct any mistakes, and even rearrange the order of your paragraphs if it will improve the quality and coherence of your argument.

5. Eliminate anything which is not strictly relevant to the question topic(s) you have been asked to deal with.

6. Use the list of suggestions which follow to check that you have covered what is required.

7. Try to avoid thinking of the first draft as the finished essay, no matter how much effort you have put into its production.

8. Regard it instead as the raw material from which a more considered and well-crafted second draft will be produced. You should be prepared for extensive re-writing.

9. When word-processing your work, edit the final draft on screen.

10. Eliminate all errors and add all your corrections before printing out the final draft.

Checklist

Write out the question accurately and fully at the head of your draft
Answer its specific directions and follow any instructions in the rubric
Cover all the main aspects of the question topic(s) concerned
Answer in a concise, clear, and logical manner
Remain strictly relevant to the question throughout
Stay within any given word limit required
Move smoothly from one point of argument to the next
Provide good illustrative examples and evidence to support your claims
Acknowledge your sources and supply either endnotes or footnotes
Provide a bibliography

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Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook

May 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

best-selling guide to publishers, agents, and outlets

This is the ‘writing for children’ version of the best-selling writer’s yearbook and manual, which has come up with a winning formula. It lists all the resources any serious writer could need – the names, addresses, and contact details for publishers and agents, outlets for freelancers, and institutions which offer help to writers. Woven between these listings (which are updated every year) there are specially commissioned essays and articles by famous authors and illustrators – such as Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo and JK Rowling; top editors and best-selling publishers; leading TV and radio producers, and other experts in the field of children’s media.

These give invaluable first-hand accounts of how the world of professional writing actually operates. Anyone aspiring to write for children will find these invaluable. The latest edition includes chapters entitled: How to Get an Agent; Learning to Write for Children; Writing Humour for Young Children; Do I Have to Have an Agent to Succeed?; What Does an Editor Do?; Eight Great Tips to Get Your Picture Book Published; UK Copyright Law; Writing Comedy for Children’s Television; Children’s Evergreens & Best Sellers; Out of the Slush Pile; Teenage Fiction; Marketing, Publicising and Selling Children’s Books; Illustrating for Children’s Books;

Like many other reference books, this guide represents very good value for money in terms of bulk information – but more importantly it’s information which is reliable, up-to-date, and difficult to locate elsewhere.

If you have any serious intention of entering the commercial market as a children’s writer or someone working in one of the associated creative arts – then this is a book which you will need sooner or later.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, London: A & C Black, 7th revised edition 2014, pp.480, ISBN: 1408195127

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Clauses – how to understand them

August 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

free pages from our English Language software program

Clauses – definition

Clauses are parts of a sentence which make sense independently because they contain a finite verb.

There are main clauses and subordinate clauses.

Examples

There are two clauses in this sentence:

Come in, put your coat on that chair, and sit down.

The main clause is ‘Come in … and sit down.’

The subordinate clause is ‘put your coat on that chair’.

Use

It is natural for language to structure itself into manageable parts which make complete sense in themselves.

As speakers we create comprehensible clauses spontaneously and automatically.

Written language can have a greater complexity of clauses than speech within sentences.

This is because writing can be reconsidered by the reader at any time and at any speed.

Speech on the other hand must be taken in immediately by the listener.

NB! The difference between a clause and a phrase is that a phrase does not contain a finite verb.

The term ‘clause’ belongs to the discipline of descriptive grammar. This approach is very traditional and has been taught in grammar schools for the past few hundred years. It is still considered useful as a term by which to identify the components of a sentence.

Descriptive grammar sets out with a preconceived blueprint of sentence structure and attempts to force all utterances into it.

Recently, the term was introduced into the National Curriculum for the teaching of English in schools. This states:

‘pupils should be given opportunities to develop their understanding of the grammar of complex sentences, including clauses and phrases’

This development illustrates a return to old conventions which has been brought about by conservative values. It is also based on the belief that standards of literacy have been falling due to the lack of basic grammar teaching.

‘Transformational Grammar’, pioneered by the American linguist Noam Chomsky, is an alternative and more functional approach to understanding grammar. This discipline focuses on the relationship and function of parts in an utterance and seeks to accommodate an infinite variety of expression and usage.

For instance, the sentence John is easy to please is identical in structure to the sentence John is eager to please. In terms of meaning however, the two utterances are quite different. This example demonstrates that there is more to understanding grammar than being able to spot clauses.

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Clear thinking

August 22, 2011 by Roy Johnson

analysis, logic, reasoning, and clear expression

What is clear thinking?

Clear thinking is the ability to express ideas in a simple and straightforward manner. It also involves the ability to analyse statements and follow logical arguments. Some people imagine it means being super-clever or having a high IQ. Others think it’s the ability to solve really difficult puzzles or unravel complex statements. But in fact it’s none of these things.

Clear thinking means that you have the ability to

express your own ideas simply
produce valid arguments
think in a logical manner
inspect and analyse ideas critically

Why is clear thinking important?

Clear thinking is a vital part of effective communication – in business, education, and all forms of intellectual life. It’s what’s called a ‘core skill’ which will enable you to think, speak, and write in an effective manner.

Clear thinking is required when you wish to –

persuade other people
develop powerful arguments
become more discerning and precise
reveal the flaws in someone else’s argument

What is required for clear thinking?

Clear thinking is a search for precision, clarity, and truthfulness. You can develop the skills required by breaking down what you say and write into small and simple units. Simplicity usually leads to greater clarity. You also need to analyse arguments and recognise their underlying logic.

Clear thinking requires –

mental effort and discipline
analysing, reasoning, and understanding
recognising logical arguments
patience and diligence

How to do it?

You need to pay very close attention to the small details of what you say, read, and write. The claims you make must be expressed in a clear and logical manner, and should be based on facts or evidence. The claims other people make should be inspected very closely and examined for their truthfulness, their logic, and their validity as arguments.

Clear thinking requires –

precision and clarity of language
using only valid forms of argument
avoiding over-simplifying and generalising
analysing everything in close detail

An example of clear thinking

What follows is an extract from a letter to a newspaper. It’s from a reader protesting about the reorganisation of secondary schools. And it is very typical of the sort of everyday argument you might hear in a pub or on a radio or TV discussion.

Read each paragraph carefully, and give some thought to every one of the separate statements made. Ask yourself – Is this really true? Is this a valid argument? And then compare your conclusions with the comments that follow.

Recently you said that our schools are failing, something that many parents have felt for years. Let this be the start of a campaign to restore educational standards in our schools.

We once had an educational system which was the envy of the world. Now our schools have been ‘kidnapped’ by theorists, reformers, and the political pirates of the far Left.

The first battle of this campaign is already being fought. Parents in Manchester are engaged in a fight against the Labour council’s plans to reorganise secondary schooling, involving the closure of ten of the best schools in the city. These are ones with excellent academic records and traditions which go back beyond the beginning of the last century.

schools are failing
Failing to do what, exactly? This is the sort of expression of complaint you will hear in any saloon bar conversation or read in a tabloid newspaper. Presumably the writer means a failure to educate children properly. But is there any hard evidence that schools in general are worse than they were in the past? After all, exam results seem to improve almost every year. And if you think about it for a moment, most people a hundred years ago were not educated at all, so the general level of education is likely to have risen rather than to have fallen.

restore educational standards
This is part of the same unsupported claim that the quality of education is falling. But it is just as difficult to obtain an ‘A’ level in maths today as it was twenty or fifty years ago – so that is one standard which has not fallen. And the total number of children achieving these qualifications is greater, not less than before – so that is another.

We once had an educational system which was the envy of the world
This is another claim made without any evidence to support it. It is a supposition, or a commonly held opinion which may or may not be true. After all, if it were true, why have so many countries created educational systems organised on lines completely different to ours? Moreover, the ‘system’ the writer refers to was one which only dealt with an extremely small proportion of children, all of whom came from the middle and upper classes.

theorists, reformers, and the political pirates of the far Left
This is what’s called very emotive language. The suggestion being made here is that people who theorise about something lack practical experience and only deal in opinion (though the writer is doing just the same thing). The term ‘reformers’ is being used to suggest making things worse. that politicians of the far Left are going to steal something (which is what pirates do).

traditions which go back beyond the beginning of the last century
The implication here is that anything which has lasted so long must be good and should be left unchanged. It’s true that the traditions may well exist, but that is not necessarily a reason for resisting educational reforms. Nor does it mean that they are necessarily good – just because they have lasted so long.

There are three general points to be made about this example, and which are closely bound up with the discipline of clear thinking.

One
Your first reaction might be that these are nit-picking objections to the arguments in the letter. After all, we don’t expect people who write to newspapers to be professional philosophers, do we? But this is an example of how we should challenge assumptions and arguments (even our own) if we are to develop the habit of clear thinking. The challenge of thinking clearly is to ask of everything Is this really true?. This might seem at first to be a negative attitude to take, and it will probably slow down the enquiry. But it is a necessary first step.

Two
Despite all the observations made above, it is still possible that the letter writer could be correct. It’s possible that the quality of educational provision in the Manchester area is falling. The problem is that the arguments used in the latter are badly flawed and not persuasive. This feature of clear thinking comes under the heading of valid and invalid arguments.

Three
You might notice that the weakness of these arguments are closely connected to a sloppy and imprecise use of language. Terms such as failing, standards, and traditions are too casual, vague, and ambiguous in this context. It’s for this reason that if we wish to develop the skills of clear thinking, we must pay close attention to the way we use words.

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Cliches – how to recognise them

August 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

free pages from our English Language software program

Cliches – definition

Cliches are hackneyed phrases or expressions.

The phrases might once have been fresh or striking, but they have become tired through over-use.

Examples

“He was over the moon about that goal.”
“Yes please. I don’t mind if I do.”
“Far be it from me…”
“I would be the last person to cast aspersions.”
We will leave leave no stone unturned in our search.

Use

Clichés are often used unconsciously in casual speech.

They usually suggest mental laziness or the lack of original thought.

They should be avoided in writing.

NB! Beware. Cliché may sometimes be used consciously for ironic effect.

Clichés circulate in the spoken language very readily, because they save people having to think.

When written down, they appear even more tired and vacuous than when spoken.

Traditional examples are expressions such as it takes the biscuit, back to square one and a taste of his own medicine.

Current favourites (in the UK) include the bottom line is …, a whole different ball game, living in the real world, a level playing field, and moving the goalposts.

Clichés present a temptation, because they often seem to be just what is required to make an effect. They do the trick. They hit the nail on the head. They are just what the doctor ordered. [See what I mean?]

Here is a stunning compilation, taken from a provincial newspaper. The example is genuine, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. [That’s a deliberate example!]

By their very nature cabarets tend to be a bit of a hit and miss affair. And Manchester’s own ‘Downtown Cabaret’ is ample proof of that. When it was good it was very good, and when it was bad it was awful. Holding this curate’s egg together was John Beswick acting as compere and keeping the hotchpotch of sketches and songs running along smoothly. And his professionalism shone through as he kept his hand on the tiller and steered the shown through a difficult audience with his own brand of witticism. Local playwright Alan Chivers had previously worked like a Trojan and managed to marshal the talents of a bevy of Manchester’s rising stars.

It isn’t always easy to see where an idiomatic expression ends and a cliché begins.

The essential difference between them is that an idiom is not being offered as original thought. We say ‘fish and chips’ because people do not normally say ‘chips and fish’ (because it’s more difficult to say). But anybody who says he’s ‘over the moon’ about something has chosen the expression, no doubt thinking that it’s impressive.

A vogue word is very close to the cliché. This is an item of vocabulary whose meaning is becoming blurred, distorted, or inflated [that is, emptied] through over-use.

The term ‘vogue’ implies that the word is currently fashionable.

That’s a fantastic dress! [very nice]
We’re in a war situation. [at war]
It’s a brilliant novel. [interesting]
She’ll get paranoid about it. [become worried]
What a fabulous car! [remarkable]

The use of these terms is very common in everyday speech. They should be avoided in formal writing.

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Close reading tutorials

March 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorials in literary criticism and close critical analysis

What is close reading?

Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words of a text: it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of a language as it is used by skilled writers.

This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

language
meaning
structure
philosophy

Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex. The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work.

A close reading exercise is not a guessing game or a treasure hunt: it is an attempt to understand the mechanisms by which a narrative is constructed and its meanings generated. However, a really successful close reading can only be made when you know the work as a whole.

The tutorials listed here offer a variety of approaches to close reading. Some focus attention on details of literary style; others concentrate on how the meaning(s) of a text are constructed. All of them pay close attention to the language being used.

Charles Dickens – Bleak House

This tutorial looks at the famous opening passage of Bleak House and examines Dickens’s use of language, simile, and metaphor. It argues that whilst Dickens is often celebrated for the vividness of his descriptions, the true genius of his literary power is in imaginative invention.

Close reading – Bleak House.

If you wish to read the complete novel in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

Bleak House (full text)

Joseph Conrad – An Outpost of Progress – I

This is the first of two close reading tutorials on Conrad’s early tale An Outpost of Progress. This one looks at the opening of the story and examines the semantic values transmitted in Conrad’s presentation of the narrative. That is, how the meaning(s) of the story are embedded in even the smallest details of of the prose.