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Learn English Fast - How To Improve Your English Writing Skills ✔
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Apr 9, 2025
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0:05
well hey this is Jan at learn English
0:08
with B Global and today we're going to
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be looking at how to improve your
0:14
English writing skills specifically
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we're going to be talking about an
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academic paper um not an email that
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you're writing to your friends or family
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um we're going to talk about some good
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writing habits that you can form and
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then we'll give you some tips for
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writing an actual paper all right so
0:37
we'll start off with the first habit and
0:40
that is
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journaling um journaling comes easy to
0:46
some people but for other people it's
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kind of a hard discipline um but if you
0:52
do this every day I think that you will
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start to see some of the benefits of the
1:00
multitasking aspect of journalis uh of
1:05
journaling so for those of us who feel
1:07
like journaling is kind of a waste of
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time H it helps to keep in mind that
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writing in English will help you improve
1:17
your writing as you're just trying to
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express your thoughts regarding what's
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important to you um and like I said if
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you love multitasking like me here are
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some things you can do to improve your
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English writing skills when you Journal
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each day even if it's just for 15
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minutes when you Journal check your
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spelling uh develop into an expert
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speller uh while you're journaling then
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you don't have to look up words so often
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and you can save
1:53
time uh the other thing is to bulk up on
1:58
your vocabulary
2:00
now I've I've uh drawn A Little vocab
2:04
man here he's he's really bulky and if
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you think about him um you want to have
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really strong vocabulary and you want to
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be able to flex your vocabulary muscles
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so how do you do that well if you
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haven't already made good friends with
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the
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thesaurus um the time is now the the
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sorus is wonderful for helping you bulk
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up
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on your vocabulary um you want to be
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able to find words to
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express what you think is
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important uh more than the words you
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would normally be using so this
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journaling practice is a good time to
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kind of look some of those words up
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there's another
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resource that's called a
2:56
collocation and we will talk about that
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in a moment I I will describe that but
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that is also a resource for bulking up
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your
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vocabulary okay so let's talk about
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collocations so it's just a big word and
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all it means is it's a group of words
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that usually go together in spoken
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English or written English some
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examples of a collocation are building
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blocks right
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idea talk freely or heavy
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rain um I suggest you add these phrases
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to your bulking up of your
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vocabulary um
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because you will be able to communicate
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better if you understand that English
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speakers use collocations all the time
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and with very specific
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ways
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so one of the
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uh one of the examples I used was
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building
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blocks okay
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so when I say A
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collocation is a building block of how
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we speak English how we speak in English
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um you can know that those two words
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normally go together or often go
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together you you won't hear building
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squares or building sticks you'll hear
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building
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blocks um so uh a building block the
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definition is uh it means that Parts
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come together and make it possible for
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something bigger to exist so these
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collocations come
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together and they make up
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um a lot of the English language a lot
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um so you can probably find a word and
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connect it to another word um almost
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every time so let's look at this other
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example down here of heavy
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rain uh Heavy Rain is something we say
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in English uh you could describe a lot
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of rain by saying big rain
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or a strong rain and you would be okay
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in saying that um but they don't really
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fit into the English speaker's mind it
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doesn't it doesn't make sense to me if
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you say big rain there's no category for
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that we just say Heavy Rain if it rained
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a lot we said what it's heavy rain for
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example uh I might say to my husband uh
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it looks like we had heavy rain last
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night because the yard is still very wet
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all right so that's how we would use
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that so that's a
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cocation so I would invest in a hard
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copy of a collocations dictionary if you
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can or you may want to uh go to a
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library and just take a look at it and
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see what it looks like and see if it can
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help you and if you can use that when
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you're writing your papers there may
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also be some online resources four
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collocations that you can find as well
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but I I think this is a a nice tip for
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improving your English writing skills
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and also your spoken
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English so again why use collocations to
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bulk up your English
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vocabulary um well it
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expedites learning English as opposed to
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just learning vocabulary in single word
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so that's when you're you're writing in
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your Journal remember you want to use a
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thesaurus or use a a collocation
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dictionary you want to check your
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spelling become an expert at checking
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your spelling and then
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also when you write in your Journal
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practice writing in the present tense um
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and that helps uh you to have active
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verbs and uh when you do that when you
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describe whatever happened in your day
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when you write in the journal try to
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find some attention grabbing verbs uh
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the fourth thing you can do you can
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multitask while you're uh doing your
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Journal writing is to make your
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sentences
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short um short
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sentences um show that you know what
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you're
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saying um I've edited a lot of papers
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I've written a lot of papers that have
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been edited and one way you can make
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your teacher your editor happy is write
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short sentences don't don't try to write
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a big long sentence unless you're
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absolutely sure uh you know where you're
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going with that and even native English
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writers and speakers we we try to uh be
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as concise as possible so short
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sentences make what you're trying to
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express very clear in addition to
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journaling another half habit you might
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uh get into if you aren't already is
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reading on a regular basis you can read
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newspaper articles for examples of
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brevity of short
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sentences I also recommend reading some
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good books with great descriptions
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that's another way to bulk up your
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vocabulary to learn how they're saying
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things what adjectives are they using
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right now I am rereading an of Green
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Gables and uh the description and the
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overall vocabulary it's just delightful
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um and it sharpens my mind it helps me
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be a better communicator and a better
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writer so I recommend reading um various
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types of writers as you're trying to uh
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increase your English writing
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skills okay so what if you get an assign
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assment to write an academic paper um
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how do you write a good paper one of the
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most common academic papers is the
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research paper so we're going to use
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that as our example
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today what do you do
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first well the first thing you need to
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do is find a topic right find a
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topic um you often get a choice uh in
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your paper's topic so so finding the
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topic that interests you will make the
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writing process so much more fun and
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enjoyable so if you don't know where to
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start with this topic search um you can
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always just go online and just uh
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search find a topic well there are quite
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a bit of interesting issues out there
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upon which to write
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so once you found your
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topic we don't want to make it too broad
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right that's our second Point we've all
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tried to write papers with a topic that
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is too
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extensive and then later discovered
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after a lot of unnecessary
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research that we should have narrowed
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our
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Focus so we're going to look at some
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samples
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of how to narrow your Focus say for
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example
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you uh want to write you like to write
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about writers in Ireland so maybe your
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your topic is writers in Ireland uh
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that's way too big right so you could
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instead do something like Oscar Wild's
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last day so it's a lot smaller
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um thing for you to research church and
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write um another uh thing you may want
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to write about our big cats in
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Indonesia too big too big uh how about
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instead the daily life of the Sumatran
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tiger that's small enough for you to
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write a paper and me too right or uh
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you're interested in archaeology
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archaeology in the Middle East okay
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that's a little that's a little bit more
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focused but it's still way too big right
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I mean it's
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archaeology instead how
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about why is the discovery of the Dead
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Sea Scrolls so important in
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2015 okay so that's I think you get the
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picture with that we want to just um
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have a topic that is
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manageable all right so we've chosen our
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topic and we've narrowed it
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and the third thing you need to do when
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you're writing a research paper is to
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create your purpose statement or some
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people call it a thesis statement but
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we'll just say it's a purpose statement
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that seems to communicate uh more
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clearly a purpose statement is just the
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main idea of what you want to say it
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keeps everything else in your paper back
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directed to to the main point your big
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idea knowing your big idea at the start
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writing it down will save you time when
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you edit at the
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end think of your purpose
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statement as the trunk of a
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tree everything
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else that you write about in your paper
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should naturally connect to the trunk of
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the
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tree uh maybe that
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helps so with the Oscar wild example I
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gave
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before your purpose statement might
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be uh this paper will
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explore why Oscar wild was
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surprisingly
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remorseful of his life
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choices at the end of his life
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now I know I said before we want to keep
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our sentences
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short uh and we need to do that the
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purpose statement is saying a lot so
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it's really something you need to work
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on at the beginning it may not be as
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short um as other ones but your purpose
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statement needs to
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have something interesting in it um it
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even needs to be some might say it needs
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to be debatable um you're not going to
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say the sky is blue and no one no one's
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going to read that but if you write
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something like Oscar wild was
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remorseful at the end of his life this
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this party
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guy uh I want to read this paper because
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I want to know if it's true or not so
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that's that's kind of the idea and once
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you've done that you've got it right
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here like on your
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trunk and you're committed to that idea
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so you need to decide what idea you want
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to commit to and then everything else in
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your paper needs to surround and support
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that idea
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so pick a topic narrow the topic then
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write a purpose statement what are you
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trying to say in your paper then you
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have these supporting limbs uh and
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leaves that are around there and those
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are your evidences and you know you can
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cut some of them out or you can add some
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more but you still have your purpose
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statement so I hope that gives you an
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idea of why the purpose statement is
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important and I hope it's fun for you
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don't don't look at it as something
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negative because then eh you won't like
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to do it so if you don't have a purpose
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statement
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and you only have these ideas there's no
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trunk then they're just a bunch of
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thoughts evidences lying on the ground
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there's no cohesion there and you really
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want cohesion in your papers your
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teachers want you to have cohesion as
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well um our fourth tip is H is to make
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an outline before you
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start um you need to know it's it's
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helpful to know which branches you want
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to stick on the tree what evidences
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support what you're saying what examples
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you want to use to support your purpose
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statement so having an outline before
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you start will help you so much so
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making an outline is really just
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creating a template for yourself that
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you can just fill in so it feels like a
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little less work in that in that way um
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of course you're going to need to have a
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conclusion and you're going to have to
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work on a solid conclusion as well um
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but the final a tip I have for you is to
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always edit your paper before you submit
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it and maybe you think that's obvious
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but I know a lot of people who ride
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their papers late into the night they
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turn it in nobody looks at it and they
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could have had a
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really great paper if they just had
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started
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earlier and um had someone look at it so
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we have a saying in the US uh and it
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goes like this get a second pair of eyes
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so what does that mean well it means uh
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always have some other person's eyes
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look at your paper before you submit it
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or your blog maybe um of course of
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course uh it helps if this second pair
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of eyes this other person uh is um a
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good English writer or
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speaker um but I've also heard that
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there are some free online web pages
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that are willing to do some uh free
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Corrections for you so that's something
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to investigate as well and I would take
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advantage of that sometimes it's easier
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to have someone you don't know edit your
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paper right um I know having someone
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proofread or edit your final paper can
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be time consuming and maybe feel painful
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but uh remember they're they're not
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editing you they're editing your paper
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so with editing you're going to have to
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plan ahead um as I mentioned
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before as soon as you get your
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assignment I would start writing down
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down ideas and notes if you wait until
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the last minute to write your paper then
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no one is going to edit your paper in in
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the short amount of time um it's good to
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plan ahead with that so I'm going to
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give you another eye idiom for free it's
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called Fresh eyes and uh what we will
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say is we look at a paper with fresh
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eyes well what does that mean uh well
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once you write write your paper the best
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advice I ever got was write your draft
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put it
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aside go do something take a nap the
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best thing is just to sleep uh I mean
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just let it let it cool overnight is
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what we would say and then in the
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morning when you go back to it you look
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at it with fresh eyes uh eyes that are
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not tired eyes that can see simple
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mistakes that would maybe make a
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difference in the grade or so having
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fresh eyes when you look at your paper
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uh will maybe make a difference between
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an A and A B or something like that um
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so get a second pair of eyes have them
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look someone else look at your paper and
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also edit your paper with a fresh pair
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of eyes uh
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yourself so those are some of my top
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tips for how you can improve your
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English writing
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skills and I know you will do great
20:36
thank you for watching and if you like
20:39
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