WRITING SKILLS SUCCESS IN 20 MINUTES A DAY!

Hello everyone!

Here I've brought to you a PDF, called "WRITING SKILLS SUCCESS IN 20 MINUTES A DAY"… It is great for those who want to develop their writing skills..

=================================================
 This is the Contents:-

INTRODUCTION vii

PRETEST 1

LESSON 1 Capitalization 13
General rules, specific rules regarding proper nouns and adjectives

LESSON 2 Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points 21
Ending a sentence, alternate uses for periods

LESSON 3 Avoiding Faulty Sentences 27
Sentence fragments, run-on sentences, comma splices

LESSON 4 Commas and Sentence Parts 37
Relating commas to clauses and phrases

LESSON 5 Commas That Separate 45
Independent clauses, items in a series, items in a date or address,
two or more adjectives preceding a noun, contrasting elements and words

LESSON 6 Semicolons and Colons 53
Introductions, subordinate relationships, common confusions
with punctuation

LESSON 7 Apostrophes and Dashes 61
Using apostrophes to show possession or omission; dashes to emphasize

LESSON 8 Quotation Marks 69
Dialogue, direct quotations, other punctuation, double and
single quotation marks

LESSON 9 “Designer” Punctuation 75
Hyphens, parentheses, brackets, ellipses, diagonal slashes

LESSON 10 Verb Tense 81
Present, past, future tenses; switching tenses; subjunctive mood

LESSON 11 Using Verbs to Create Strong Writing 89
Capturing a reader’s interest; using active voice

LESSON 12 Subject-Verb Agreement 97
Matching subject and number, special singular subjects,
singular and plural pronouns, compound subjects

LESSON 13 Using Pronouns 105
Antecedents, the cases of pronouns, ambiguous pronoun references,
reflexive pronouns

LESSON 14 Problem Verbs and Pronouns 111
lie/lay, sit/set, rise/raise, its/it’s, your/you’re, whose/who’s,
and other problem pairs

LESSON 15 Modifiers 119
Adjectives, adverbs, phrases acting as modifiers

LESSON 16 Easily Confused Word Pairs 127
Confusing words that sound similar

LESSON 17 More Easily Confused Words 133
Small but tricky words that are often used and misused; killer a’s and al’s

LESSON 18 Diction 139
Wordiness, the passive voice, redundancy, precise language,
abstract vs. concrete, clichés, jargon

LESSON 19 More Diction 147
Colloquialism, loaded language, consistent point of view,
parallelism, gender-neutral language

LESSON 20 Communicating Your Ideas 157
A piece of writing as a whole, developing ideas effectively,
focusing on the purpose of writing

POSTTEST 163

APPENDIX A How to Prepare for a Test 175

Making a study plan; strategies for success on the exam

APPENDIX B Additional Resources 181
=================================================

I wish you all the best.. Show me your comments

Click to Download

Becoming fluent in speaking and writing English.

 If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice: There are four skills in learning English which are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must bear in mind is that reading and listening are inputs whereas speaking and writing are outputs. In other words, if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening. There are some ways that you can do so, which I will try to summarize.

1) Reading

Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the structure, unfamiliar words etc as you read. There is no need that you stick to some complicated grammar structures or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them for example in other passages or books is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or structures in it. To begin reading, I recommend the Penguin Readers books. They are classified by level of difficulty.

2) Listening.

 As for listening, there are two options:

a)Aside from reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes.

 b)You can only concentrate on your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening....

 I myself prefer the latter because when you are skillful and native-like at reading, your listening skill grows automatically. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening. For listening I recommend cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy and do not contain complicated phrases or slang terms. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to Englishbaby lessons, VOA or BBC programs broadcasted every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes. If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect

Improve Your pronounciation wit a poem!

Hi guys I found this poem .. It teaches you pronunciation!!

Have fun 

English is tough stuff 
Dearest creature in creation, 
Study English pronunciation. 
I will teach you in my verse 
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. 
I will keep you, Suzy, busy, 
Make your head with heat grow dizzy. 
Tear in eye, your dress will tear. 
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. 
Just compare heart, beard, and heard, 
Dies and diet, lord and word, 
Sword and sward, retain and Britain. 
(Mind the latter, how it's written.) 
Now I surely will not plague you 
With such words as plaque and ague. 
But be careful how you speak: 
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; 
Cloven, oven, how and low, 
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. 

Hear me say, devoid of trickery, 
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, 
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, 
Exiles, similes, and reviles; 
Scholar, vicar, and cigar, 
Solar, mica, war and far; 
One, anemone, Balmoral, 
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; 
Gertrude, German, wind and mind, 
Scene, Melpomene, mankind. 

Billet does not rhyme with ballet, 
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. 
Blood and flood are not like food, 
Nor is mould like should and would. 
Viscous, viscount, load and broad, 
Toward, to forward, to reward. 
And your pronunciation's OK 
When you correctly say croquet, 
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, 
Friend and fiend, alive and live. 

Ivy, privy, famous; clamor
And enamor rhyme with hammer. 
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, 
Doll and roll and some and home. 
Stranger does not rhyme with anger, 
Neither does devour with clangor. 
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, 
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, 
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, 
And then singer, ginger, linger, 
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, 
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. 

Query does not rhyme with very, 
Nor does fury sound like bury. 
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. 
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. 
Though the differences seem little, 
We say actual but victual. 
Refer does not rhyme with deafer. 
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. 
Mint, pint, senate and sedate; 
Dull, bull, and George ate late. 
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, 
Science, conscience, scientific. 

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, 
Rachel, ache, mustache, eleven. 
We say hallowed, but allowed, 
People, leopard, towed, but vowed. 
Mark the differences, moreover, 
Between mover, cover, clover; 
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, 
Chalice, but police and lice; 
Camel, constable, unstable, 
Principle, disciple, label. 

Petal, panel, and canal, 
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. 
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, 
Senator, spectator, mayor. 
Tour, but our and succor, four. 
Gas, alas, and Arkansas. 
Sea, idea, Korea, area, 
Psalm, Maria, but malaria. 
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. 
Doctrine, turpentine, marine. 

Compare alien with Italian, 
Dandelion and battalion. 
Sally with ally, yea, ye, 
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. 
Say aver, but ever, fever, 
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. 
Heron, granary, canary. 
Crevice and device and aerie. 

Face, but preface, not efface. 
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. 
Large, but target, gin, give, verging, 
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. 
Ear, but earn and wear and tear 
Do not rhyme with here but ere. 
Seven is right, but so is even, 
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, 
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, 
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. 

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! 
Is a paling stout and spikey? 
Won't it make you lose your wits, 
Writing groats and saying grits? 
It's a dark abyss or tunnel: 
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, 
Islington and Isle of Wight, 
Housewife, verdict and indict. 

Finally, which rhymes with enough -- 
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? 
Hiccough has the sound of cup. 
My advice is to give up!!!

What a great way to learn Pronunciation !

Coordinating conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions join together clauses of equal importance.

Some examples of coordinating conjunctions are - and, but, or, Use of 'and'

'And' is used as a conjunction when the words or phrases are of equal importance and both conditions exist. Other words that can be used in place of and are: moreover, in addition to, along with, plus, as well as, further more

• Tom and Harry play hockey.
• A lion and a fox live in this cave.
• We need some gloves and a ball in addition to bats.
• The soldiers rose moreover they cheered the leader.
• We found the thief along with the bags.
• The gurgling stream along with the howling wind added to the charm of the place.

Use of 'but'

The conjunction 'but' is used to show a contradiction between two phrases. Let's say the first phrase leads you to expect a certain event and the second phrase tells you quite a contradictory outcome. In such an event, but, is used.

Other words like: nevertheless, yet, however, can be used in place of 'but'

• He ran, but he missed the bus.
• She studied hard but could not score well in the test.
• The hill was very steep but the old man could climb it easily.
• Sharon fell from the horse nevertheless she did not cry.
• He is from England however he speaks Chinese very well.

Use of 'Or'

When we need to express a choice between two words or phrases we use 'or'. Here only one of the two conditions exists.

Example:

Would you take a cup of tea or coffee?

Shall we buy a book or a toy?

Sit on the bench or on the grass.

Are you tired or shall we go out for a walk?

We can learn to talk English or we can depend on sign language.

Correlative conjunctions:
Conjunctions used in pairs are correlative conjunctions
Either..... or Either Peter or John has taken the book.Neither.....nor It is neither hot nor tasty.Both.....and My sister is both smart and intelligent.Whether..... or Tell me whether you know the route or not.Not only..... but also Not only is she stupid but also stubborn.
Compound conjunctions

Compound conjunctions are groups of words that behave like conjunctions.

In order that, on condition that, provided that, as soon as Conjunction order that I bought all the books in order that you may study On condition that The teacher excused him on condition that he would not repeat the mistake.Even if Sarah would not marry him even if he proposed to her.So that I kept away my work so that I could spend time with my daughters Provided that You can take leave provided that you work overtime later As though Rex behaves as though he is the boss.As well as Monica as well as veronica was present there As soon as Mr. Ford plans to pay off his loan as soon as he gets his bonus.As if It looks as if there is going to be a storm.
Subordinating conjunction

A subordinating conjunction joins a clause to another on which it depends for its full meaning. The chief subordinating conjunctions are after, because, if, that, though, although, till, before, unless.

• I will not go to the market if it rains.
• The situation 'I will not go to the market' is dependent on the condition 'if it rains'.
• You could go and play after you have done the dishes.
• King Midas was unhappy because his daughter turned to gold.
• You must dig the earth till you find water.

Observe the use of connectors in these sentences.

• Lydia likes to sing and dance when she is happy.
  
• We can paint our house red or white butte must select a good painter.
  
• Harry is intelligent however he is lazy. He must wake up orhe will regret it.
  
• I left the party because I was bored, moreover it was quite late.
  
• He was sad and tired along with being very hungry whens wizard appeared and offered him food however he laid down some conditions.
  
• He is cheerful though he has worked the whole day.
  
• I allowed him in as I thought he was a friend bathe tried to rob me.
  
• You will do well if you study hard.
  
• My daughters either watch TV or sleep on Sundays.
  
• Susan is very fat buttery active.
  
• I met by friend in the park and invited her to tea.
  
• A student must obey ore may leave.
  
• Jane and Peter have been chosen to receive the guest.
  
• After the trip Sam came to work bathe was very tired.
  
• Bring some sandwiches or you will be hungry.
  
• They jumped over the stream and ran home.
  
• The dog ran after the rabbit but could not catch him.
  
• My aunt is ill soI will visit her tomorrow.
  
• The show started as soon haste chief guest arrived.
  
• You will enjoy the concert since you love music.
  
• This horse will take you to the village you evening is tired.
  
• He was rowing the boat while I slept.
  
• The bridge fell thought was made of stones.
  
• You will pass if you work hard.
  
• He will not try unless he is forced to.
  
• We will come after we complete the work.
  
• The old man cared for the puppy as though she was his baby.