Written communication is taking precedence over verbal communication, at least in business paradigm. Written communication removes the element of doubt. Written communication is about being precise and expressing concisely. Many of us fail to present our views well enough to engage the audience.  As a result, we lose on grades and opportunities. Elegance and flair in writing is developed by continuous practice. Through the next few articles we will learn to develop the habit of writing systematically with a focus on elegance on top of information.

Golden Rule

C.O.D.E.R. This will be our mantra to have an eye catching essay.

C: Collect Ideas

O: Organize Ideas

D: Draft the ideas

E: Edit the initial draft

R: Rewrite and jump to D.

If you feel, your essay passes all tests then it is ready to be submitted.

Nitty-Gritty

Perhaps by now, you are excited about learning to write. But we need to learn about writing styles and patterns before we can actually dive-in into writing. Most essays expect you to pen down your own opinion about a topic. It will do you a lot of good if you do a thorough research of the topic before writing about the topic. Remember, to form your OWN opinion you need to be aware of the existing views.

In this post we would talk about how to gather ideas — the first stepping stone.

Books are generally the most reliable sources of information. But in terms of accessibility internet would be a popular resource. Now comes the tricky part. Due to lack of accountability and reliability, not all sources of information over the internet can impress the audience.

Essay

How do I search for relevant data?

Now we would again divide our main problem into smaller questions. Answers to each of them will go a long way in solving the bigger problem.

• Topic of essay
• Key Concepts/Events
• Jargons/Alternative Terms

With successful answers, we will zero down on our search topic on internet. A few websites like Google books and www.jstor.org provide quality resources. Try avoiding open source resources like Wikipedia. These resources are not completely reliable.
Filter the data
Now, we need to filter the data we collected. Some points which would help in identifying the absolutely essential information from the passable information. The following questions will help you in filtering the data

• Does this information fit in the whole tone of the essay?
• Do you have better sources to back-up your point?
• Does my essay suffer drastically if I remove this point?

Remember we are planning to organise our essay concurring our view point. So we need to be careful with the information we quote. If you end up removing most of your data, then maybe you hadn’t done the research properly. Go back to step one and repeat.

Once we have enough information with us, we can look towards structuring it. The next post will deal with organising and drafting the ideas.

Clauses are used in English grammar very often. A clause is nothing but a pair of words that has a subject and a predicate. If you take a basic statement in English it consists of single clause and a complicated sentence may contain more than one clause. There are different kinds of clauses that we use in different situations. So let’s know about them.

There are two kinds of clauses: principal (or main) clauses, and subordinate (or dependent) clauses.

Types of Clauses

Principal Clauses: A group of words which includes a subject and a finite verb and makes a complete statement.

Examples:

• The house stands on the hill.
• When I come home, I will let the cat in.

The following are not principal clauses because they do not make a complete statement which can stand by itself:

• Which is a problem
• That the man is not on the hill
• When I come home
• The man stands on the table

Subordinate Clause: A group of words which includes a finite or non-finite verb but does not make a statement which stands by itself.

Examples:

• As soon as the Green Knight entered the room all were astounded.
• He said that the Green Knight was really orange.
• The house, which stands on the hill, is empty.

Subordinate clauses can be classified according to their function:

Adverbial Clause: An adverbial clause functions like an adverb in modifying another clause.

Examples:

• As soon as the Green Knight entered the room, all were astounded.
• In this sentence the clause fulfills the same function as an adverb such as immediately in the sentence immediately all were astounded.

Noun Clause: A noun clause can be used as both an object and as a subject.

Examples:

• He said that the Green Knight was really orange.
• The clause fulfills the same function as a noun such as the words in He said the words.

Relative Clause

Examples:

• The house, which stands on the hill, is empty.
• Relative clauses are adjectival in nature. The clause fulfills the same role as an adjective such as high placed in the sentence
• The high-placed house is empty.

Clauses can also be classified by whether they contain a finite verb.

Finite Clause : A finite clause contains a finite verb and, usually, a subject. It can be a principal clause or a subordinate clause.

Examples:

• They say nice things about you. (Principal clause)
  When they say nice things about you they are not lying. (Subordinate clause)

Non-Finite Clause: A non-finite clause contains a non-finite verb but does not contain a finite verb and cannot stand alone. A non-finite clause cannot be a principal clause. Non-finite verbs consist of participles and infinitives.

Examples:

• Singing and dancing, he moved slowly up the aisle.
• He gave me an invitation to bring you to the party.
• Having eaten all the cakes, he began to consume the biscuits.
• Filled with joy, he left the room.

Learning English can be a daunting task, to say the least. It can be confusing also, given the amount of material available over the internet. However a careful methodology would help immensely in utilising these resources efficiently. The difficulties faced by the learners are mainly because they tend to think in their native language.

Think in English
You have to tell yourself to think in English. It doesn’t come easily to a non native English speaker. But you have to train yourself as a football player. In a match, the football player doesn’t think about passing the ball, it comes naturally to him. But to develop this natural instinct, he spends a lot of time practising.

The first step towards this practice would be to think of words you use daily. Think about the words in English no tin your native language. Once you form an arsenal of sufficient words, you can start building sentences using these words. Listening to English conversation helps in forming sentences. This is where Internet comes to the rescue. With its infinite reading and listening resources, you can start grasping English rapidly.

How to learn English Online?

Reading
To build proper sentences you need to know the general format of English. Reading helps you achieve this. With innumerable online resources like Dictionary and news paper sites, you get to learn the various nuances involved in English. Random reading would also help. The catch here is you are trying to learn while having fun. How cool can it get than this?

Listening
Watching English movies with subtitles can prove to be a great way to learn English. You would learn English with your favourite actor teaching you the dialogue delivery. You can catch phrases and specific words from the movies.

English, English and English
English is everywhere around us. From the newspapers to sitcoms, you are surrounded by English. Once you feel fairly confident with your English, then it is the time to sky dive into more subtleties as grammar and pronunciation. You might want to improve your conversational skills by using Skype Public Chat. These forums include live free chats with other users around the world. You can also try innumerable online game to improve your vocabulary and grammar.

Fine Tuning
Fine tuning English requires you to be proficient with grammar rules. You can pick start with thousands of online grammar activities to give you a hang of the real thing. Moreover, writing helps in picking up the language smoothly. You can join various forums like World English Club. Remember training needs patience and time. Having fun during these testing times are the key to success.

In this ever busy world, concise communication is of paramount importance. We are constantly judged by the way we speak others form an impression about you as you speak. Using the right words helps creating a positive image which in turn impacts positively in the career growth. The key here is driving our point home. Having a rich vocabulary helps in communicating effectively. The more words you know, the more coherently you can articulate your ideas. Eloquence brings contacts which in turn open up infinite possibilities. In a way vocabulary is directly related to your growth.

vocabulary builder

Enriching vocabulary needs personal assessment. While some brilliant few can pick up the dictionary and learn words, others end up cluttering the words in their heads. Vocaboly provides one such platform for systematic learning through its unique vocabulary builder. This software caters to the requirements based on their usage. Vocaboly is categorised into five books SAT, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT and VOA Special English. Vocaboly (which programs) binds important words into flash cards and each word can be assigned to a difficulty level. This is an innovative way to speed up the process by attending to personal pick-up levels, as the difficulty level is based on various personal factors. Vocaboly encourages enriching vocabulary by engaging the users in some tailor made exercises like Word Ticker, Memory Game, Spelling , Star War game etc. Vocaboly is definitely one of the most exciting products to have hit the market.