Improving Your English
Hi again to all those who took advantage of our #free online #English Course. Whether you are just starting to learn and use English or are a new author with a home language different from English or you are in the throes of writing your university thesis, I hope that...
Session 8 – “Dynamite” Rules for Good English
I have put together a set of very short "catchy", easy to remember rules to help you improve your English. if you could make the effort to memorise these rules, it will make your English leap up to another level; not only for writing or typing English, but also for...
Session 7 – Bad habits
This session is directed at all English writers, but more specifically at graduates and students who are required to submit a thesis to their academic institution as part of a degree. A large part of our work as editors and proofreaders requires us to edit and...
Session 6 – Review & Some New Stuff.
As we have just stepped into 2020 I thought it would be a good time to remind everyone of some of the basics. Reminder 1 - Remember, A sentence is not a sentence if there is no verb. Example 1: "What a great day" is not a sentence because there is no verb. Example 2:...
Session 5 – Common Mistakes in English usage.
These mistakes occur all the time! Our #education system in South Africa should have corrected these mistakes in primary school and yet they occur all the way up to tertiary level and thence find their way up into the #corporate #business world. They occur so often...
Session 4 – DOs and DON’ts
Hi All! There are some correct and incorrect practices that writers in English use, that are clear-cut. We come across these all the time in our proofreading and editing work. a or an This is straightforward. You must use 'a' before a word that starts with a...
Session 3 – Common Errors and #Speechmarks
#Different and Various There seems to be a tendency to use the word 'different' all the time, when often 'various' would be better. Example 1: "Different people went to the concert: Here the author is trying to say that all kinds of people went to the concert. The...
Session 3 – Bits and Pieces
Here are some useful bits and pieces that will help you with getting your English perfect. Capitalisation There is a tendency amongst some authors to over-capitalise. When in doubt whether one should capitalise a word Google will give you the answer almost every time....
Busy Bee English – Session 2
English is full of annoying little rules that particularly plague new English students with different home languages. From time to time, I will just drop in a rule as it occurs to me, such as: Practice and Practise You must use practice when it is being used as a...