How can one enhance the quality of one’s English writing? Teacher: Tao ZENG Time: Nov, 2014

1. Check Usage 2. Enrich Input 3. Produce Regular Output

Whenever you are not sure about usage, check a dictionary or a usage book. Language is concerned with very subtle details. If you miss these fine points, you fail miserably and your grasp of the language will remain weak and unstable. 1. Check Usage

A number of online dictionaries, thesauruses, usage manuals you can consult:  Online dictionaries a) Cambridge International Dictionary of English. Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary. Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.

Online dictionaries b) Webster's Dictionary c) 林語堂當代漢英詞典 A Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage

Thesaurus  Roget's Thesaurus This is a standard book of synonyms and near-synonyms, or words related loosely in meaning, useful when you want to vary your lexical choice in writing. bin/htsearch?config=roget&words

Usage manuals  a) The American Heritage Book of English Usage  b) The Elements of Style (William Strunk)

Electronic version of dictionary  a) WordNet  b) Collinscobuild Dictionary

2. Enrich Input  In order to upgrade your English proficiency, you must enrich your input. There seems to be no shortcut around this. According to language acquisition theories, if one doesn’t have input, one is doomed to a poor command of the language.  Develop the habit of browsing a newspaper or magazine website for minutes daily. You don't have to necessarily read the serious feature articles. Bookmark the section that interests you most, be it sports, fashion, finance, books, etc. And make sure you take a glance at it when you log on the machine.

Good news sources in terms of quality of writing  a) South China Morning Post  b) BBC News:  c) The Guardian  d) The New York Times

Good news sources in terms of quality of writing  e) Time magazine (Asia)  f) Newsweek  g) CNN Asia

3. Produce Regular Output  The secret to addiction is to be persistent. One gets addicted to a drug by taking it every day. In the same way, you can acquire the habit of reading and writing by doing it on a daily basis. One of the main discoveries in second language learning is that one learns best when one is not paying attention to it, when one derives pleasure from the task itself.

Produce Regular Output  Use your language actively in reading and writing. You don't have to read long piece and write long papers. A short news report a day; a few paragraphs of diary-this kind of output would be good enough. The point is one should produce regular language output. One should maintain a certain level of linguistic performance, in other words. The difference will be highly visible if you can use the language actively for half a year.