Easy ways to improve your English writing.

Starting sentences with "it" makes them very weak.

Easy ways to improve your English writing.

What are some simple ways to improve your English writing style? First, don’t start sentences with “there is” and “there are.” When I pointed this out to one student, he understood immediately, and added his own observation "These words are like dead wood::” they added no meaning to the sentence. Though not technically incorrect, using these words only weakens your writing. In fact, using any unneeded words weakens your message by diluting it with irrelevancies. “There is/are” really says nothing except that something exists. Try to leave this out as much as you can.

In conversation, we use this construction frequently so using it in writing is natural. However, when writing we have time to carefully select the words and phrases we use. Any sentence starting with ‘there is” or “there are” can be stated differently. For example:

“There are twenty customers in the restaurant.”       

“Twenty customers are in the restaurant.”

“There is some food in the refrigerator.”

“Some food is in the refrigerator.”

In both cases, the facts can be stated directly, instead of needing the superfluous (extra) words “there is/are.” Sometimes, constructing sentences without these words seems difficult or even impossible. Don’t give up. Discovering the answer is how you can refine your English writing proficiency.

These comments also apply to writing sentences starting with “it is,” as in “It is sunny today.” The pronoun “it” is supposed to substitute for the previous noun but in this case, there is no such thing. Dig deeper and realize that what is sunny is the weather. Then rephrase the sentence: “The weather is sunny today,” or even “Today’s weather is sunny.” When you can express the same thought in several different ways, you can select the best one to suit your intention, to express yourself fully.

Even many U.S.-born writers use these expressions, not realizing the shortcomings. These easy, simple constructions become a habit to avoid having to select a more effective construction. You will note that professionally edited writing, online or in print, uses these constructions only rarely. Government and corporate bureaucrats use "It is" and "There is/are" s a lot, since they often seek ways of saying something without saying anything.

The second easy way to improve your English writing is by avoiding passive sentences. Sentences can be active, such as “The man carried the laptop,” or they can be passive “The laptop was carried by the man.” The second sentence is passive, because the subject (laptop) did not do anything. In fact, the action of carrying is reversed. Both sentences are true, but the passive sentence describes the action from the laptop’s point of view. Some more examples:

                The man flew the airplane vs. the airplane was flown by the man.

                I wash the dishes vs. the dishes are being washed by me.

                He watches TV vs. TV is being watched by him.

                The last goal was made by the youngest player vs. the youngest player made the last goal.

Notice how passive sentences only mention the agent indirectly (by him) while the object acted on is featured as the subject of the sentence. If you are not certain about active and passive sentences, transitive and intransitive nouns in English, reviewing them will help a lot. 

Using passive sentences in your writing only obscures your meaning. Why? This construction makes readers work harder to understand your meaning. Passive sentences actually detract from readability. Standard readability measures, such as featured in MS Word, detect and report the percentage of passive sentences. Though a careful reader will find passive sentences in my writing, I try to avoid them as much as I can. Often writers have trouble converting passive sentences to active ones. As difficult as it seems sometimes, all expressions can be stated actively if you try hard enough.

As a grammar exercise, try thinking of active sentences, like “the man drove the car” and its passive version, “the car was driven by the man.” Try to think of at least ten or twenty examples. Once you have practiced like this, your brain will begin to recognize the symmetry between active and passive. From then on, you can encourage yourself to discover active constructions for all your sentences.

Keeping these ideas is a very basic way to improve your writing style. Try to pay attention to what you read and write, to look out for these constructions. Ask yourself, do they add to the meaning?