BB Essay Lesson 2 - Language & Common Mistakes (6V)

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Essay Writing

Lesson 2: Language & Common Mistakes

What language do you need to use?

How to avoid making the most common

mistakes?

Homework

If all is well; you have brought with you a finished essay. 

It will be your first try, so it's probably not going to be perfect, but if you paid attention in the last lessonup it will have:

- 5 paragraphs

- A clear thesis statement

- Topic sentences

Hand in a picture/screenshot of your first essay here.

Improving

Make sure you have your essay in front of you.

This lessonup we're going to look at language and you're going to underline (onderstrepen) and highlight some things.

Formal Language

When writing your essay you want to use formal (formele) language. 

You would not talk to your boss  the same way you would to a friend. So you want to pay attention to the following things...

Formal Language

Highlight the following words if you find them in your essay:

I, me, myself, my

you, your, yours

We, our, ours

This essay

Then continue with the next slides to see why these words are important.

Formal Language

In formal writing you want to refer to yourself as little as possible, maybe once or twice.

Which thesis statement sounds stronger? 

1) I think school uniforms should not be used in The Netherlands.

2) School uniforms should not be used in The Netherlands. 

You don't need to tell the reader it is just your opinion. It saves you words to leave that part out.

Formal Language

You never want to mention your audience. 

"You wouldn't have to wonder what to wear to school in the morning anymore."

You don't know who is reading. So a sentence like the one above would not make any sense if the reader isn't a student. Instead replace the word with a word that describes the people you're talking about. 

"Students don't have to wonder what to wear to school in the morning anymore."

Formal Language

"In this essay I am going to talk about why school uniforms should not be used in The Netherlands."

Maybe you have something like this in your essay, but ask yourself: is it really necessary to mention that this is an essay? If you've written a proper introduction you don't need a sentence like this. You can just use your thesis statement and save yourself some very valuable words.

" School uniforms should not be used in The Netherlands."

Improve

Change the sentences that have the following words so that they're more formal:

I, me, myself, my

you, your, yours

We, our, ours

This essay

Highlight these words (the blue ones) if they appear in your essay like this.

Highlight the following words if you find them in your essay:

.

Formal Language

In formal writing you never want to use contractions (samentrekkingen). So the simple solution is to pull them apart and write them as two words.

Don't --> Do not

They've --> They have

Exception Alert: Can't is not two words but one word. 

Can't --> Cannot

Exception Alert: It's (It is) and its (possessive) mean two different things. Make sure you use the right one. 

Now improve your essay by writing these more formally.

Highlight the following words if you find them in your essay:

.

Formal Language

Highlight the following words if you find them in your essay:

Gonna 

Wanna

Gotta

Dunno

Kinda 

u / U

That's not proper English!!

If you found any of these words in you essay... Forget they exist and never use them again.

These all have proper alternative:

Gonna --> Going to       Wanna --> Want to

Gotta --> Got to       Dunno --> Don't know

Kinda --> Kind of      u / U --> You

Improve this right now, before your teacher sees.

Formal Language

Formal language also means proper punctuation (leestekens).

Are any of these in your essay?

! !! !!! !? :)*

Remove them and replace them with a full stop (.) or question mark (?). 

*Smileys don't have an alternative. There is no way to make them formal, so don't use them.

Being fancy with formal language.

What is fancy language?

Kids --> Children

Say sorry --> Apologize

Bad/Good --> Negative/Positive

Smart --> Intelligent

Etc. 

It basically means using a more difficult version of some words wherever you can, to show off what you know. This also makes your essay more formal, so give it a try.

Are there any words in your essay that could use an upgrade?

Use this link for inspiration.

Common Mistakes

What lots of students do wrong and you will now always do correctly.

Spelling

Can you spot the spelling mistakes in the next couple of pictures

AND

give the correct spelling?

What's the correct spelling of the word?

What's the correct spelling of the word?

What's the correct spelling of the word?

What's the correct spelling of the word?

What's the correct spelling of the word?

In short

Pay some attention to your spelling. It's easy to make mistakes if you work fast and are focussed on just getting your thoughts on paper. Always read your essay once more (and slowly) before turning it in. 

BUT, OR, AND, BECAUSE

Very useful words, but check your essay to see if any of your sentences start with one of these and highlight them. 

These words are not meant to be at the start, they should be in the middle, connecting two bits of information. If you find them at the start you have 2 ways of fixing this. 

BUT, OR, AND, BECAUSE

1. Replace it with a good linking word.

Option 1: But this is not a good enough reason to keep using school uniforms.

However, this is not a good enough reason to keep using school uniforms.

2. Connect it to the previous sentence (if that one isn't super long already). 

Option 2: You won't be able to tell who has a lot of money. And this leads to more equality among students. 

You won't be able to tell who has a lot of money and this leads to more equality among students. 

Optional: Extra Practice

Do you want to learn more linking words? Or learn how to connect sentences better?

Use the links to the two lessonups below:

Sentence Structure & Linking Words: Basics

Sentence Structure & Linking Words: Advanced

Ask your teacher to share these if the links don't work. 

Other common mistakes

1) Make sure you have capital letters (hoofdletters) where you need to. 

Cities, Countries, Names of businesses and people, the "I" if you mean "Ik", but also months and days of the week. 

2) Make sure you use the correct verb tenses. Think of the SHIT-rule.

School uniforms has have...

3) Don't mix up any of the words on the next slide:

TO DO

Check your essay and improve all the mistakes you can find / have found. 

Add or replace some of the words with fancier alternatives. 

Rewrite the essay if you need to so you have a better second version. 

Bring this second version to class next lesson.