Avoiding mistakes in Writing

Here are some things to be aware of during the Writing section of the IELTS exam.

Some may seem very easy, childish even, but remember that when writing under pressure it is very easy to think of the rules of the native language and forget those of English or even write without any rules in mind.

·         Ensure that your handwriting is legible.

·       Ensure that the first letter of the first word in every sentence is a capital letter.

·       Make sure that you know which types of words in English need to be written with initial capital in all situations and write them correctly (for instance: days of the week, names of languages, etc.)

·      You can start writing from the left hand side of the page (block style) or you can begin the first sentence of every paragraph with an indent (a small blank space at the beginning of the line).

·     Try to avoid using question marks (?). Use indirect questions instead.

                 e.g.: What is the time?
                         I would like to know what the time is.

·     Try to avoid using exclamation marks (!), even if you are writing a letter of complaint. You are not writing an email or a blog post. Try to be polite.

• Make sure that other punctuation marks are placed right after words.
e.g.: … people.   NOT  … people  .

       … people,   NOT  … people  ,

• If you reach the end of the line it is also important to keep punctuation together.
e.g.:                                                                                               … people’s

NOT                                          …people

‘s

• If you are at the end of the line and realise that you cannot write an entire word in the space left, do not break it into syllables. Erase it and write the whole word on the next line instead to avoid mistakes.
e.g.:                                                                                                                                    … impo-    rtant                

                                                                          is incorrect

Until next time,

God luck