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Abstract: How to improve the writing ability of English has remained a problem in English teaching, this paper first point out some grammar errors and then puts forward some solutions on some commonly seen errors by investigating and reaching.Whether the students’ CET writing competence can be raised or not is mainly determined by the teacher’s emphasis on the writing teaching and guidance. While trying to improve the students’ reading ability, the teacher should add more writing knowledge and skills to the class, and bring more writing practices into the class, pay attention to the grammar as well; only in this way we can improve the students’ writing competence to a large extent.
Key words: English writing; writing ability; grammar errors; solutions
1. Introduction
We live in a world of words. Hardly any moment pass without someone talking, writing, or reading. Since we learn English, writing is an essential part. English teaching program and exam program of band 4 and 6 raise some certain demands on English writing. They request that students can use the language points freely,write a composition whose content is coherent and there is no big grammar error according to the fixed title in half an hour. But from the past year’s result of eaxminatios, the score of writing is obviously lower than other parts. Some examinees fail in words spelling; even some examinees fail in using of grammar; some fail in the organization of whole composition; even some examinees cannot use punctuation mark correctly. All those errors are usually seen in many writings. If students wannt to learn English well or just get a high score, they must take these errors seriously. In this paper , there will be some solutions for references.
2. Errors in Writing
2.1 Errors in Punctuation.
Punctuation helps to clarify and sometimes emphasize the meaning of thesentence. It is necessary to learn to use all the punctuation marks correctly. But many students make mistakes in this area. Such as in the following sentence: Because of the invention of the airplane. The world is getting smaller and smaller. We can easily find the mistake in punctuation. The period, instead of comma, should appear in this sentence. The trip was not very well planned or prepared. Therefore, it was not a pleasant one. Here, the period should be replaced by semicolon. Conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, hence, nevertheless, moreover, thus, otherwise, besides, etc., should not be used as conjunctions to link two coordinate clauses. They should be preceded by a semicolon, not a comma. The errors in punctuation can be seen in many writings. We must pay more attention to this aspect.
2.2 Demonstrative Pronoun Unclear.
During using pronoun “it”, “he”, “this”, “that” etc., explicit antecedents should turn up. However, many students possibly very clear what the pronouns refer to when they use these pronouns. But in passage there is lack of antecedents or expressing unclear. This causes meaning vaguely. For example: She told my sister that she was wrong. Here, the faulty sentence is a pronoun with ambiguous reference. The second she in the sentence may refer to the subject “my sister”.The revised sentence is: “I’m wrong,” she said to my sister. This kind of errors is commonly seen in writing.
2.3 Inconsistent
In a passage students should keep the consistence of subject-predicate, tense, person, number and gender and so on. A man is judged not only by what he says nut also by his deeds. Parallel ideas had better be expressed in parallel constructions, which give emphasis, clarity and coherence to a sentence. “What he says” and “his deeds” are not parallel in form, so one of them has to be changed. The sentence can be rewrite as follows: A man is judged not only by what he says but also by what he does. Subject-predicate inconsistent is the common failing among the writing of Chinese students, especially the problem of the third person. For example, The eating habit of Chinese people have changed dramatically in the past decade. In this sentence, the subject-predicate is not consistent. “Have” should not appear.It should be replaced by “has”. Basic problem is the consistent of subject ╞predicate. “There be” sentence pattern is one of the most commonly sentence patterns . But you must understand this sentence pattern is inverted sentence, so predicated verb should keep consistent with the back subject.
2.4 Errors in Conjunction
When two or more independent clauses are separated by wrong comma or there is no punctuation mark, as a result it will take shape “run-on sentence”. For example: One should improve his English, one should overcome difficulties in studies. This sentence needs a conjunction. You can rewrite in this way: If one wants to improve his English, he should overcome difficulties in studies. Conjunctive adverbs like therefore, nevertheless, thus, besides, etc., should be used in proper way. Let’s look at this sentence:Buses are always crowded; nevertheless he prefers to.In this sentence, obviously the conjunction “nevertheless” is not proper. It can be replaced by “hence”. Then, this sentence can be understood easily. In writing we must choose correct conjunctions according to the meaning of the whole sentence.
2.5 Chinese style English
Chinese style English is also Chinese English, and this
phenomenon commonly exists in the writing of students. First, we should know the reason of Chinese style English existing.
The basic reason of Chinese style English is the English learner is lack of language points. They translate Chinese into English using Chinese language system and habitual usage. For example “打某人的臉” is translate into “hit somebody’s face”(should be “hit somebody in the face”). Learners should know the different races have same thoughts, also different thoughts. For example: The level of my English has thus been improved. “Level” expressing the improvement of the moral of people can be used “raise the moral level of the people”. But when it expresses the living standard of people can be used “improving the living standard for the people” not use “level”. We can say in this way: Thus I improved my English.
3. Solutions
3.1 Use Punctuation Correctly
How to use different punctuation is a big problem. The following are few basic rules which all students learning to write should remember:
Use a period “full stop” at the end of a complete sentence, however short it is.
Do not use a comma to join two coordinate clauses; use a comma and a conjunction, or a semicolon.
Make your commas different from your period. A comma has a little tail “,”; a period is a dot “.”, not a tiny circle “。”
Use a question mark at the end of a direct question; do not use one at the end of an indirect question.
Use the exclamation mark only after an emphatic interjection or words that express very strong motion. Do not overuse it.
Put direct speech between quotation marks. The subject and verb that introduce a quotation may be put before, after, or in the middle of the quotation.
3.2 To Use Clear Pronoun
Writing is a unit of thought; it is at once a unit in itself and part of a large whole, that is, the essay. Pronouns play an important role in unity of the writing. When using it, you must make sure that other people can understand, not an ambiguous one. The basic principle is that the whole should be logically connected. In other words, the idea determines the choice of the pronoun, not the other way round. When writing, students should use pronouns. But what the pronoun refers to should keep consistent of gender and number. Otherwise this will mix up the meaning.
3.3 To Be Consistent
Consistence means clear and reasonable connection
between parts. A sentence is coherent when its words or parts are properly connected and their relationships unmistakable clear. It is not coherent if it has faulty parallel constructions, pronouns with ambiguous reference, dangling or misplaced modifiers, confusing shifts in person and number, or in voice, tense, and mood. When writing, students must pay attention to the unity which is the quality of an effective sentence. And make sure the unified sentence express a single complete thought. You can read the masterpieces of famous writers as many as you can. Before handing in your writing, you should proofread it once or twice.
Prograph unity is usually achieved through the
“leadership” of the paragraph---the topic sentence. The topic sentence is the central theme , summarizing the main idea to be expressed in the paragraph. Althougu most paragraphs would have the topic sentence at the beginning, there are cases in which the topic sentence is placed in the middle of the paragraph or at the end of it. But no matter where the topic sentence appears, the rest sentences must all be hanging closely around that central idea or theme represented by the topic sentence. While unity is mainly concerned with the coordination of the subordinating sentences with the topic sentence, coherenc is largly concerned with the natural and logical movements flow of sentences in paragraph. To achieve coherence, each sentence in paragraph should be so arranged that it follows naturally from the previous sentence and ideas smoothly to the next. Sentences that express relatively unimportant ideas should be always subordinated to those that contain the more important ones; in particular,the main idea of the paragraph should be adequately and forcefully expressed.
3.4 Use Right Conjunction
Conjunctions play such an important role that without
them, the English language would not be complete. In fact, it is those conjunctions which bridge the relation between two nouns and between some verbs and some nouns, without which there is no “communication” between certain groups of words. Indeed, no language can be a well-knitted and complete language without conjunction! Conjunctions are never used alone: they always go together with other words. Therefore,the functions of conjunctions depend on the company of other words. The parts that conjunctions link to must be logical and acceptable. In other words, the conjunction is needed here. Without it the sentence will be dull or becomes wrong. Using conjunctios properly can show your linguistic competence of writer. And this can “weight” your writing.
Conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, hence, nevertheless, moreover, thus, otherwise, besides, etc., should not be used as conjunctions to link two coordinate clauses. Because of no use or not good at using conjunctions or transitional adverb to express all kind of logical relations, the sentence will be not correct. As before said the English is a language which we shouldpay attention to the hypotasis. When learning writing of English, one should take note of this language phenomenon. Only in this way can we reduce the influence to English caused by the character of Chinese syntax.
3.5 Overcome Chinese English
3.5.1 Collect more language points and contrast the
harmony and difference of two languages and learn thinking in English
That is to say learner should often contrast the
vocabulary, commonly used words, sentence pattern and the habits of thinking etc of English and Chinese, know the harmony and difference. What’s more, English is not the mother tongue, is not only the skill of mastering a language, also learning to use another language to express thoughts. So, no help from Chinese translation, directly using thinking of English can eventually overcome Chinese style English.
3.5.2 Recite more to strengthen the training of English linguistic sense.
Many graceful sentences and paragraphs from texts and magazines, the address of presidents etc.,these materials have graceful characters and substantial content is not only interesting but also useful. Recite more and students can learn more right expression. This is the process of training Englishi linguistic sense. Step by step Chinese style English can be avoided in sense. Thus, the students can improve their English.
3.5.3 Practise more
Chinese write in English and cause Chinese style English, and this is essential stage of learning English writing. To different people, this stage will be short or long, the problem will be more or few. On ordinary days stedents should write in English, study and train hard, and seek advice from teachers or persons of high level to rectify Chinese style English. Thus, the students can improve their English.
4. Conclusion
With the development of science and technology our
country has been involved in the big market of the whole world step by step. The world today is no longer the world of the times of the Silk Road or Marco Polo. This is the achievement of the progress of human civilization. The historical experiences of both China and other countries have once again proved that culture needs exchanging. Though exchange can we give full play to human wisdom and enjoy the common fruits of civilization. Languages play an important role. You must understand other languages by reading or writing. So English is important, and English writing is also necessary. So we must take English writing seriously.
As you are learning to write, you should have a clear idea of what is good manuscript form. You should do everthing---writing the title, leaving the margins ,indenting, capitalizing, and dividing words---according to generally accepted rules. Whenever you should write something, work carefully, write neatly and clearly, and try to make as few mistakes as possible. Before handing in your essay or exercise, proofread it once or twice, because you may need to make some final corrections and changes. If you always work in this way, you are sure to make progress.
References：
［1］胡曙中. 英漢修辞比较研究［M］.上海外语教育出版社，1993.
［2］王斌. 英汉中互译句构的转换［J］.上海科技翻译出版社，1996.
［3］邓炎昌. 预言与文化［M］.北京：外研社，1989.
［4］周非. 中国的教学文化与思维方式［M］.辽宁教育出版社，1992.
［5］黄永志. 英语语法与惯用法［M］.国防科技大学出版社，1995.
Key words: English writing; writing ability; grammar errors; solutions
1. Introduction
We live in a world of words. Hardly any moment pass without someone talking, writing, or reading. Since we learn English, writing is an essential part. English teaching program and exam program of band 4 and 6 raise some certain demands on English writing. They request that students can use the language points freely,write a composition whose content is coherent and there is no big grammar error according to the fixed title in half an hour. But from the past year’s result of eaxminatios, the score of writing is obviously lower than other parts. Some examinees fail in words spelling; even some examinees fail in using of grammar; some fail in the organization of whole composition; even some examinees cannot use punctuation mark correctly. All those errors are usually seen in many writings. If students wannt to learn English well or just get a high score, they must take these errors seriously. In this paper , there will be some solutions for references.
2. Errors in Writing
2.1 Errors in Punctuation.
Punctuation helps to clarify and sometimes emphasize the meaning of thesentence. It is necessary to learn to use all the punctuation marks correctly. But many students make mistakes in this area. Such as in the following sentence: Because of the invention of the airplane. The world is getting smaller and smaller. We can easily find the mistake in punctuation. The period, instead of comma, should appear in this sentence. The trip was not very well planned or prepared. Therefore, it was not a pleasant one. Here, the period should be replaced by semicolon. Conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, hence, nevertheless, moreover, thus, otherwise, besides, etc., should not be used as conjunctions to link two coordinate clauses. They should be preceded by a semicolon, not a comma. The errors in punctuation can be seen in many writings. We must pay more attention to this aspect.
2.2 Demonstrative Pronoun Unclear.
During using pronoun “it”, “he”, “this”, “that” etc., explicit antecedents should turn up. However, many students possibly very clear what the pronouns refer to when they use these pronouns. But in passage there is lack of antecedents or expressing unclear. This causes meaning vaguely. For example: She told my sister that she was wrong. Here, the faulty sentence is a pronoun with ambiguous reference. The second she in the sentence may refer to the subject “my sister”.The revised sentence is: “I’m wrong,” she said to my sister. This kind of errors is commonly seen in writing.
2.3 Inconsistent
In a passage students should keep the consistence of subject-predicate, tense, person, number and gender and so on. A man is judged not only by what he says nut also by his deeds. Parallel ideas had better be expressed in parallel constructions, which give emphasis, clarity and coherence to a sentence. “What he says” and “his deeds” are not parallel in form, so one of them has to be changed. The sentence can be rewrite as follows: A man is judged not only by what he says but also by what he does. Subject-predicate inconsistent is the common failing among the writing of Chinese students, especially the problem of the third person. For example, The eating habit of Chinese people have changed dramatically in the past decade. In this sentence, the subject-predicate is not consistent. “Have” should not appear.It should be replaced by “has”. Basic problem is the consistent of subject ╞predicate. “There be” sentence pattern is one of the most commonly sentence patterns . But you must understand this sentence pattern is inverted sentence, so predicated verb should keep consistent with the back subject.
2.4 Errors in Conjunction
When two or more independent clauses are separated by wrong comma or there is no punctuation mark, as a result it will take shape “run-on sentence”. For example: One should improve his English, one should overcome difficulties in studies. This sentence needs a conjunction. You can rewrite in this way: If one wants to improve his English, he should overcome difficulties in studies. Conjunctive adverbs like therefore, nevertheless, thus, besides, etc., should be used in proper way. Let’s look at this sentence:Buses are always crowded; nevertheless he prefers to.In this sentence, obviously the conjunction “nevertheless” is not proper. It can be replaced by “hence”. Then, this sentence can be understood easily. In writing we must choose correct conjunctions according to the meaning of the whole sentence.
2.5 Chinese style English
Chinese style English is also Chinese English, and this
phenomenon commonly exists in the writing of students. First, we should know the reason of Chinese style English existing.
The basic reason of Chinese style English is the English learner is lack of language points. They translate Chinese into English using Chinese language system and habitual usage. For example “打某人的臉” is translate into “hit somebody’s face”(should be “hit somebody in the face”). Learners should know the different races have same thoughts, also different thoughts. For example: The level of my English has thus been improved. “Level” expressing the improvement of the moral of people can be used “raise the moral level of the people”. But when it expresses the living standard of people can be used “improving the living standard for the people” not use “level”. We can say in this way: Thus I improved my English.
3. Solutions
3.1 Use Punctuation Correctly
How to use different punctuation is a big problem. The following are few basic rules which all students learning to write should remember:
Use a period “full stop” at the end of a complete sentence, however short it is.
Do not use a comma to join two coordinate clauses; use a comma and a conjunction, or a semicolon.
Make your commas different from your period. A comma has a little tail “,”; a period is a dot “.”, not a tiny circle “。”
Use a question mark at the end of a direct question; do not use one at the end of an indirect question.
Use the exclamation mark only after an emphatic interjection or words that express very strong motion. Do not overuse it.
Put direct speech between quotation marks. The subject and verb that introduce a quotation may be put before, after, or in the middle of the quotation.
3.2 To Use Clear Pronoun
Writing is a unit of thought; it is at once a unit in itself and part of a large whole, that is, the essay. Pronouns play an important role in unity of the writing. When using it, you must make sure that other people can understand, not an ambiguous one. The basic principle is that the whole should be logically connected. In other words, the idea determines the choice of the pronoun, not the other way round. When writing, students should use pronouns. But what the pronoun refers to should keep consistent of gender and number. Otherwise this will mix up the meaning.
3.3 To Be Consistent
Consistence means clear and reasonable connection
between parts. A sentence is coherent when its words or parts are properly connected and their relationships unmistakable clear. It is not coherent if it has faulty parallel constructions, pronouns with ambiguous reference, dangling or misplaced modifiers, confusing shifts in person and number, or in voice, tense, and mood. When writing, students must pay attention to the unity which is the quality of an effective sentence. And make sure the unified sentence express a single complete thought. You can read the masterpieces of famous writers as many as you can. Before handing in your writing, you should proofread it once or twice.
Prograph unity is usually achieved through the
“leadership” of the paragraph---the topic sentence. The topic sentence is the central theme , summarizing the main idea to be expressed in the paragraph. Althougu most paragraphs would have the topic sentence at the beginning, there are cases in which the topic sentence is placed in the middle of the paragraph or at the end of it. But no matter where the topic sentence appears, the rest sentences must all be hanging closely around that central idea or theme represented by the topic sentence. While unity is mainly concerned with the coordination of the subordinating sentences with the topic sentence, coherenc is largly concerned with the natural and logical movements flow of sentences in paragraph. To achieve coherence, each sentence in paragraph should be so arranged that it follows naturally from the previous sentence and ideas smoothly to the next. Sentences that express relatively unimportant ideas should be always subordinated to those that contain the more important ones; in particular,the main idea of the paragraph should be adequately and forcefully expressed.
3.4 Use Right Conjunction
Conjunctions play such an important role that without
them, the English language would not be complete. In fact, it is those conjunctions which bridge the relation between two nouns and between some verbs and some nouns, without which there is no “communication” between certain groups of words. Indeed, no language can be a well-knitted and complete language without conjunction! Conjunctions are never used alone: they always go together with other words. Therefore,the functions of conjunctions depend on the company of other words. The parts that conjunctions link to must be logical and acceptable. In other words, the conjunction is needed here. Without it the sentence will be dull or becomes wrong. Using conjunctios properly can show your linguistic competence of writer. And this can “weight” your writing.
Conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, hence, nevertheless, moreover, thus, otherwise, besides, etc., should not be used as conjunctions to link two coordinate clauses. Because of no use or not good at using conjunctions or transitional adverb to express all kind of logical relations, the sentence will be not correct. As before said the English is a language which we shouldpay attention to the hypotasis. When learning writing of English, one should take note of this language phenomenon. Only in this way can we reduce the influence to English caused by the character of Chinese syntax.
3.5 Overcome Chinese English
3.5.1 Collect more language points and contrast the
harmony and difference of two languages and learn thinking in English
That is to say learner should often contrast the
vocabulary, commonly used words, sentence pattern and the habits of thinking etc of English and Chinese, know the harmony and difference. What’s more, English is not the mother tongue, is not only the skill of mastering a language, also learning to use another language to express thoughts. So, no help from Chinese translation, directly using thinking of English can eventually overcome Chinese style English.
3.5.2 Recite more to strengthen the training of English linguistic sense.
Many graceful sentences and paragraphs from texts and magazines, the address of presidents etc.,these materials have graceful characters and substantial content is not only interesting but also useful. Recite more and students can learn more right expression. This is the process of training Englishi linguistic sense. Step by step Chinese style English can be avoided in sense. Thus, the students can improve their English.
3.5.3 Practise more
Chinese write in English and cause Chinese style English, and this is essential stage of learning English writing. To different people, this stage will be short or long, the problem will be more or few. On ordinary days stedents should write in English, study and train hard, and seek advice from teachers or persons of high level to rectify Chinese style English. Thus, the students can improve their English.
4. Conclusion
With the development of science and technology our
country has been involved in the big market of the whole world step by step. The world today is no longer the world of the times of the Silk Road or Marco Polo. This is the achievement of the progress of human civilization. The historical experiences of both China and other countries have once again proved that culture needs exchanging. Though exchange can we give full play to human wisdom and enjoy the common fruits of civilization. Languages play an important role. You must understand other languages by reading or writing. So English is important, and English writing is also necessary. So we must take English writing seriously.
As you are learning to write, you should have a clear idea of what is good manuscript form. You should do everthing---writing the title, leaving the margins ,indenting, capitalizing, and dividing words---according to generally accepted rules. Whenever you should write something, work carefully, write neatly and clearly, and try to make as few mistakes as possible. Before handing in your essay or exercise, proofread it once or twice, because you may need to make some final corrections and changes. If you always work in this way, you are sure to make progress.
References：
［1］胡曙中. 英漢修辞比较研究［M］.上海外语教育出版社，1993.
［2］王斌. 英汉中互译句构的转换［J］.上海科技翻译出版社，1996.
［3］邓炎昌. 预言与文化［M］.北京：外研社，1989.
［4］周非. 中国的教学文化与思维方式［M］.辽宁教育出版社，1992.
［5］黄永志. 英语语法与惯用法［M］.国防科技大学出版社，1995.