Improve Writing Skills

English before the Internet

Before the Internet and its open door for the largely unedited usage of written English, people could trust that what they were reading had passed through the hands of proofreaders and editors whose task was to ensure that the accepted standards of formal English were being observed.

English on the Internet and elsewhere today

On the Internet, we can find articles about proofreading, editing, and other matters related to the art of writing, but there are some that are fraught with errors! Perhaps you have found instances of such writing. One of the pieces of advice that I have given to my writing students is to read aloud to yourself what you have written. If you do this before submitting any paper, you will eliminate many of the errors that commonly occur in written English. When I see writing that is full of errors, I know that such advice has not been heeded.

The more often that poorly written English is published, the more likely it will be that proper usage will become hard to recognize, particularly by people whose acquaintance with English is as a second or foreign language. Consider that some of my students have occasionally ventured to correct me in my spoken usage because it has sounded strange to their ears that have been exposed for so long to the English spoken less carefully in their homes and in some parts of the mass media.

Is there a standard for English usage?

While it is true that there are many varieties of English and that it would be wrong to say that one form is correct and another is to be avoided, there remains an accepted standard of proper usage, within each variety, that persists amid many changes. This standard is not set in concrete, as it were; historically, it has proved to have an intrinsic flexibility that slowly, over decades and centuries, incorporates new words, idioms, and phraseology, and antiquates older forms. One person with a lifespan of seventy years or more may be a witness to some of these changes, but, on the whole, that person will be subject to a commonly accepted grammatical standard for all formal English writing and speech of a particular region – for example, Britain or America.

However, as the use of the Internet increases the speed of communication and as life changes more rapidly, the incorporation of new words and phrases is happening more quickly than in earlier generations. The BBC evinces this fact by the presence of its Keep-your-English-up-to-date page on its website. Despite these changes and their increasing acceptance into our language, the requirements of formal writing and grammar will remain substantially the same. There has to be a standard or else there will be mass confusion.

In order to write English as a work of art in the global arena that is ours by means of the Internet, we must respect the commonly accepted standard of our region. Writing in English requires an awareness of what is new, clarity of thought, the correct choice of words, the correct use of grammar, attention to detail, and an aesthetic flow that draws the reader comfortably along with it to a clearer understanding of the issues being discussed.

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For useful articles on English essay writing and grammar, click here.

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