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University of Oxford Podcasts - Audio and Video Lectures

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Over 4000 free audio and video lectures, seminars and teaching resources from Oxford University.

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Using English for Academic Purposes: Information and Advice for Students in Higher Education

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Academic Writing

These OWL resources will help you with the types of writing you may encounter while in college. The OWL resources range from rhetorical approaches for writing, to document organization, to sentence level work, such as clarity. For specific examples of writing assignments, please see our Common Writing Assignments area.

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Academic Writing Introduction // Purdue Writing Lab

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.

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Academic writing is structured (and planned), evidenced (and referenced), critical, balanced, objective, and formal.

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Practice individual sounds (Standard American English)

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Practice individual sounds (Standard American English)

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Listen to the individual sounds in each word with interactive phonetic spelling

See the sound wave for the model and your own pronunciation

Identify difficult sections in each word by slowing down the recordings - just touch and drag

Discover where you need to improve by comparing your soundwave and stress marker against the model example

Keep track of your progress - add a star rating to save recordings to your My Words list

Test yourself across 3 levels or tap shuffle to try any word in the dictionary

Share a recording of your pronunciation and its sound wave with your teacher, parent or friends

Use it on your own, with friends, or in class with your teacher

If you are a visual learner, improve your pronunciation using the English File sound chart. It's designed to help you connect tricky sounds to words and images, making learning easier. Tap an illustration to hear individual sounds from the phonetic alphabet and hear how it is pronounced as part of a word.

Teachers - our experience shows that students love to see Say It displayed on a smartboard! Learners are highly engaged when they see the spelling, IPA, syllable blocks and soundwave in large format. Children in particular enjoy hearing the sound sequence in a word using the 'touch and drag' slow play. Simply connect your device to a compatible smartboard with a USB cable.

Say It generally requires devices released since 2016, running Android 6.0 or later, for optimal functionality.

Say It offers access to some very large wordlists - please be aware that it can take a few minutes to download them, depending on your wifi access and your device.

You can share your recordings with teachers or friends via email. Say It audio and images are not currently optimised to share via other platforms, although this is a feature we'd like to add in future versions.

Requires iOS 8.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Requires Android 6.0 and above. Widely compatible with devices manufactured from 2016 onwards.

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Listen to the individual sounds in each word with interactive phonetic spelling See the sound wave for the model and your own pronunciation Identify difficult sections in each word by slowing down the recordings - just touch and drag Discover where you need to improve by comparing your soundwave and

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ReadTheory | Reading Comprehension Exercises

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Reading comprehension exercises — online, free, & adaptive. Fits K-12, ESL and adult students. Easily track progress for the entire class.

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Choose a news story and practice reading it at different speeds.

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More On Speed Reading

Try these speed reading exercises to improve reading. You can also learn something about the news.

There are reading texts at different levels.

You can choose the reading speed of each text.

If one speed is too fast, choose a slower speed.

If one speed is too easy, choose a faster one.

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More On Speed Reading Try these speed reading exercises to improve reading. You can also learn something about the news. There are reading texts at different levels. You can choose the reading speed of each text. If one speed is too fast, choose a slower speed.

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In academic writing, you will need to use other writer's ideas to support your own. The most common way to do this is by using paraphrase. This section considers how to do this by first looking in more detail at what paraphrasing is, then giving reasons for using paraphrase, and finally considering how to paraphrase.

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrase is one of three ways of using another writer's work in your own writing, the other two being quotation and summary. The aim of paraphrasing is to change the words in the original text, while keeping the same meaning. This is different from quotation, which has the same words (as well as the same meaning). As the words have been changed, a paraphrase should not use quotation marks ("..."). Summary differs from paraphrase in that a summary is shorter than the original, whereas a paraphrase is the same length. When you paraphrase another writer's ideas, you will need to use in-text citations to acknowledge the source (this is the same for all three ways of using another writer's work). The following table summarises these points.

Why paraphrase?

Effective paraphrasing is essential in order to avoid plagiarism. A mistake many beginning academic writers make is to change a few but not enough of the words, leaving copied chunks from the original - so it is part paraphrase, part quotation, but without quotation marks (and therefore stealing a writer's words).

Avoiding plagiarism, however, is not the main aim of paraphrasing. As mentioned above, there are three ways to use another writer's work in your own: quotation, paraphrase and summary. Paraphrase is the most common of the three. It is usually favoured over quotation for two reasons: first, it allows you to demonstrate understanding of the original work; and second, it allows you to integrate the idea into your own writing. Although using quotation is easier, especially for beginning writers, most university lecturers will tell you to use quotation sparingly, and to use paraphrase or summary more frequently. Paraphrase is favoured over summary because it allows you to keep the full meaning of the original text, rather than just stating the main points.

While paraphrasing is an important skill in itself, it is also a part of writing a summary, as when you write a summary you still need to change the writer's words. It is also recommended that you use paraphrasing when reading and note-taking (although many students do not, and prefer to paraphrase later, when using their notes). These are additional reasons why learning how to paraphrase is important in your academic study.

How to paraphrase

A good paraphrase is different from the wording of the original, without altering the meaning. There are three vocabulary techniques you will need to use in order to achieve this, with good paraphrasing employing a mix of all three. They are:

changing words;

changing word forms;

changing word order.

The skill of paraphrase is another reason why it is important to understand more than just the meaning of a word, but also know its different word forms.

Below are two different examples of paraphrase, with an explanation of how each original text has been changed.
Original text 1, from Pears and Shields (2013, p.113)
Paraphrase: A restating of someone else's thoughts or ideas in your own words.
Paraphrase of text 1
Paraphrasing is a restatement of another person's ideas or thoughts using your own words.

In this example, the following changes have been made:

Paraphrase ⇒ Paraphrasing (change word form)

restating ⇒ restatement (change word form)

someone else's ⇒ another person's (change words)

thoughts or ideas ⇒ ideas or thoughts (change word order)

in ⇒ using (change word)

Original text 2, from Bailey (2000, p.21)
Paraphrasing involves changing a text so that it is quite dissimilar to the source yet retains all the meaning.
Paraphrase of text 2
Paraphrase requires a text to be altered in a way which makes it different from the original while keeping the same meaning.

In this example, the following changes have been made:

Paraphrasing ⇒ Paraphrase (change word form)

involves ⇒ requires (change word)

changing a text ⇒ a text to be altered (change word order)

changing ⇒ altered (change word)

so that it is ⇒ in a way which makes it (change words)

dissimilar to ⇒ different from (change words)

the source ⇒ the original (change words)

yet retains all the meaning ⇒ while keeping the same meaning (change words)

Checklist

Below is a checklist for paraphrasing. Use it to check your own paraphrasing, or get a peer (another student) to help you.

Paraphrasing skills
The text has been changed in several ways (changed words, changed word forms, changed word order).

The text has been changed enough to avoid plagiarism (no copied chunks).

Referencing skills
The paraphrase includes an in-text citation for the source text.

Meaning
The meaning of the text is the same as the original.

Length
The length of the text is about the same as the original.

References
Bailey, S. (2000). Academic Writing. Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer

Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2013). Cite them right: The essential guide to referencing (9th ed.), Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan

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Paraphrase is one of three ways of using another writer's work in your own. Paraphrase changes the words in the original while keeping the same meaning.

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University College London - mini lectures (approx 3 mins each)

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University College London - mini lectures (approx 3 mins each)

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UCL (University College London) is consistently ranked among the world’s top universities. Our excellence extends across all academic disciplines, from one of the world’s foremost centres for research and teaching in the biological sciences to world-renowned centres for architecture (UCL Bartlett),…

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

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TED Talks are influential videos from expert speakers on education, business, science, tech and creativity, with subtitles in 100+ languages. Ideas free to stream and download.

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE

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Longman English Dictionary - the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.

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Flash cards & matching game to practise Academic Word List vocab

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The Academic Word List is a useful English resource for lecturers and students.

Averil Coxhead from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies developed and evaluated The Academic Word List (AWL) for her MA thesis. This list is a very useful resource for English for Academic Purposes teachers and learners.

If you have questions about the AWL, contact

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Academic Word List | School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies | Victoria University of Wellington

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The Academic Word List is a useful English resource for lecturers and students.

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Examples & collocations for learners of English

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Examples & collocations for learners of English

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examples, collocations and thesaurus
for learners of English

What is SKELL?

SKELL (Sketch Engine for Language Learning) is a simple tool for students and teachers of English to easily check whether or how a particular phrase or a word is used by real speakers of English.

No registration or payment required. Just type a word and click a button.

All examples, collocations and synonyms were identified automatically by ingenious algorithms and state-of-the-art software analyzing large multi-billion samples of text. No manual work was involved.

SKELL vs. Google Search

SKELL finds good examples of the word or phrase useful for language learners.

Google Search finds web pages with information about the topic specified by the word or phrase.

для изучающих русский язык

Examples in context - concordance

Use the Examples button to display examples of the word or phrase in context. Type a word (e.g. controllable) or a phrase (e.g. in regard to) and click the Search button, you will get up to 40 example sentences.

How it works

Base form will find its derived forms too, e.g. searching for mouse will mice. However, searching for mice (plural, not a base form) will only find examples of mice (not mouse).

Finds all parts of speech.
If you search forwork, it will get sentences with work as a noun as well as a verb and both in various word forms (working, worked, works).

More complex searches and other languages

To find examples in other languages, to use more complex criteria, or to search for grammar structures rather than concrete words, use the concordance search in Sketch Engine.

Word Sketch (collocations)

Word Sketch - collocations

Collocation is a typical combination of two words. Using correct collocations makes the language correct, natural, and advanced. Using incorrect collocations will not usually cause misunderstanding but will be considered incorrect and unnatural. Collocations cannot be guessed, they must be learnt. This is why Word Sketch in SKELL is an invaluable tool.

Word Sketch is a summary of the most typical collocations divided into logical categories. Word Sketch in SKELL is available for every content word, i.e. noun, adjective, adverb or verb.

How it works

Type a word in its base form and click Word Sketch.
Typingmouse will work, typing mice will not.

Click a collocation to see examples in context (concordance).

By default, the most frequent part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) is shown first. Click the link to see a Word Sketch for a different part of speech.

By clicking on the Context button will be shown a broader typical context if exists, e.g. tree suitable for for tree as a noun in the relation 'adjectives with tree'

Other languages

To generate Word Sketch for words in other languages, subscribe for the Sketch Engine free trial.

Synonyms and similar words - thesaurus

Click Similar words to display a list of similar words. The list is generated automatically which means is available for every word in the language, provided there are enough examples in the corpus.

You will get a list of up to 40 most similar words.

Word cloud

The word cloud shows how similar each word is. The words in the centre are the most similar. The size indicates how frequent the word is.

Click the link to show similar words for a different part of speech.

Click a word to open a Word Sketch.

Thesaurus in other languages

To generate thesaurus for words in other languages, try the free trial of Sketch Engine.

Some words do not seem synonyms. Why is that?

Sometimes, words which do not seem similar will be included in the results. this is because computers cannot tell the meaning of the word. The automatically generated thesaurus uses a different technology to identify synonyms. It tries to finds words which tend to combine with the same words as the search word. In the screenshot for cook, you can see that try is nearly in the centre, i.e. is very similar to cook. This is because both cook and try combine with similar words: cook fish, try fish, cook pasta, try pasta, cook salmon, try salmon etc. Although inappropriate words might occasionally be included, the list is still very useful and most importantly, it is available for every word in the language.

... more features

Sketch Engine offers a lot more features than SKELL:

advanced concordances - example searches using complex criteria such as all sentences in the present perfect which contain the word today

word sketches for phrases, not just single words

looking up translations in bilingual corpora

word sketch difference - show the differences between two similar words

generate word lists (most frequent nouns, verbs etc.) or lists of phrases (most frequent 3-word phrases, 4-word phrases etc.)

information about words in 95+ languages

check out a brief survey of some of the many features

try Sketch Engine

Technology behind SKELL

SKELL is a free simplified interface of Sketch Engine adapted to the needs of learners of English. Sketch Engine is a corpus query and management system holding 700+ corpora in 90+ languages. Sketch Engine is used by linguists, lexicographers, lexicologists and other researchers to learn about how language works. Sketch Engine currently handles about 150 TB (terabytes) of data at an unprecedented speed. It is also designed to handle morphologically rich languages such as Russian, Spanish or Japanese.

Data sources

All results in SKELL are a product of ingenious algorithms analysing fully automatically large multi-billion word samples of text, called text corpora. There is no manual work involved when generating the collocations, examples or thesaurus results. See more about the English corpus behind the English SKELL.

The text corpora contain a varied collection of texts such as news, academic papers, Wikipedia articles, open-source books, web pages, discussion forums, blogs, etc. to provide a good example of how language is used in everyday, standard, formal and professional context.

About Skell from its users

on the eflnotes blog by Michael Houston Brown

Disclaimer

This service is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall Lexical Computing Ltd. be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

References to SKELL and versioning

From time to time, the underlying corpus data may change (cleaning, refining etc.). To refer to particular results (using bookmarked URLs for example), also refer to a particular version. The web interface may also change occasionally. Therefore, each SKELL page carries a version in the bottom-right corner, e.g. skell_3_10 v1.6. This refers to the version of the corpus data and the version of the interface respectively.

Feedback

For reporting issues or writing your feedback, please use the feedback form available on feedback (feedback) in the top-right corner of each page.

If you use results and examples from or links to SKELL, please, cite this paper:

BAISA, Vít a Vít SUCHOMEL. SkELL - Web interface for English Language Learning. In Eighth Workshop on Recent Advances in Slavonic Natural Language Processing. Brno: Tribun EU, 2014, pp. 63-70. ISSN 2336-4289.

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SKELL - corpus tool for language learners | Sketch Engine

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SKELL is a tool for language learners and teachers to see how phrases and words are used by real speakers. Use concordance and collocation examples or thesaurus.

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Longman Dictionary listening & pronunciation exercises

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Longman Dictionary listening & pronunciation exercises

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These exercises focus on sounds, syllables and stress in words to improve your listening and pronunciation skills. You can also test yourself on some of the common differences between British and American pronunciation.

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Find free online listening exercises to help you to improve your listening and speaking skills. No registration required.

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Longman Dictionary - advanced grammar exercises

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Longman Dictionary - advanced grammar exercises

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Each Advanced grammar topic includes a series of practice tasks and tests. First try the diagnostic tests to identify what you already know. Then do the practice tasks and finally take an exit test to check your understanding.

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Find free Advanced level grammar exercises at C1-C2 level of the CEFR (Common European Framework) with progress tests and more to ensure targeted practice.

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Each Intermediate grammar topic includes a series of practice tasks and tests. First try the diagnostic tests to identify what you already know. Then do the practice tasks and finally take an exit test to check your understanding.

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Find free Intermediate level grammar exercises at B1-B2 level of the CEFR (Common European Framework) with progress tests and more to ensure targeted practice.

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Find hundreds of free online vocabulary exercises to help you to learn synonyms, collocations, idioms and phrasal verbs. No registration required.

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The Skills You Need

You need good skills to write well. Some of these skills are general ones such as research and planning which you can use in other fields. Others are more specific such as understanding cohesion, text patterns and collocation. The best way to improve your skills is to read well-written texts by skilled writers and read a lot in your specialist area of interest or study. But by studying some of the key elements of academic texts you can accelerate your progress.

How to Plan

Planning is essential and in the long run it saves you time. Even if you only need to write a short essay you can speed up the writing process by spending a few minutes sketching out a plan. You can learn about how to plan an essay on the essay planning page. You can't plan unless you understand your task. Make sure you can do that by understanding the elements of a task direction.

How to Research

If you need to write anything longer than a short essay you'll probably need to do a little research. So you need to improve your research skills. You should do this in order to be able to find relevant and reliable information quickly.

Learn about Paragraph Structure

All writing has some kind of structure. It helps the reader to understand the flow of your argument and it helps you as a writer organise your ideas. On this site you can learn about common text patterns such as problem and solution, cause and effect, advantages and disadvantages and so on. You can also learn about topic sentences and supporting detail, thesis statements and what to include in an introduction or conclusion.

Learn about Cohesion

Cohesion means how elements of your text are connected together. Cohesive devices are important in a text. They allow the writer to avoid boring repetition and they provide important pointers to previous parts of the textThey also sometimes point forward or indicate relationships between parts of a text. . They are the "glue" which holds the text together. There are various types of cohesive device and you can see how they work on this site. They are reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Once you understand how they work you'll quickly recognise them in the texts you read and be able to use them yourself to good effect.

Learn how to Quote and Paraphrase

Often you need to refer to sources you believe are relevant to your discussion and in this case you have to quote or paraphrase information from these sources. You must abide by the style conventions writers use when quoting or paraphrasing. This is important so that readers can locate the sources you refer to, and so that you avoid any suspicion of plagiarism.

Learn how to Cite

There are certain style conventions you need to follow when you quote or paraphrase. You need to cite your sources. This often means using in-text citations and sometimes signal phrases to introduce your quotes or paraphrases. If you do a lot of writing you'll also need to learn how to use one or two citation or bibliographic tools to help you manage your database or sources.

Understand Collocation

If your first language is not English, one of the most important things you can do to improve your writing is to understand collocation. This simply means which words or phrases tend to be used with others in particular contexts. There are examples of collocation on the noun phrases page and in the glossary.

Learn how to Review

Writing is a cyclical process. You need to review what you have written in order to improve your text and correct any mistakes. Learning how to review is key to improving your writing skills. This means using checklists to review and check your writing, persuading others to review your work, and understanding any feedback you have been given.

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Writing Support | Academic Writing | Essay and Report Resources

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You need good skills to write well. Some of these skills are general ones such as research and planning which you can use in other fields. Others are more specific such as understanding cohesion, text patterns and collocation.

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An 'easy to understand' guide to a wide range of grammar.

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Easy Learning Grammar | Collins Education

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Learn English grammar: accessible guide to grammar and punctuation. With clear, concise explanations on everything from adverbs to word order, and from apostrophes to semicolons.

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Suggested Resources
Style Guide Overview MLA Guide APA Guide Chicago Guide OWL Exercises
This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

These OWL resources will help you with punctuation, such as using commas, quotation marks, apostrophes, and hyphens.

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

These OWL resources will help you with punctuation, such as using commas, quotation marks, apostrophes, and hyphens.

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These OWL resources will help you with punctuation, such as using commas, quotation marks, apostrophes, and hyphens.

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Globalisation undermine a minority languages culture by dominant global languages which is English

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BBC Learning English - Easy grammar - 6 Minute Grammar

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Improve your grammar with easy 6 Minute Grammar, our grammar series for beginner level learners. On this page you’ll find a range of easy grammar programmes to boost your grammar skills and links to our medium grammar and hard grammar resources.

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Our long-running series of topical discussion and new vocabulary, brought to you by your favourite BBC Learning English presenters.

From the archives

All 6 Minute English programmes pre-September 2014 can be found here.

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Our long-running series of topical discussion and new vocabulary, brought to you by your favourite BBC Learning English presenters. All 6 Minute English programmes pre-September 2014 can be found here.

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Try the activities at the bottom of this page to check that you know how to use present simple/present perfect when you are talking.

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We use the present simple for things that we do regularly and for facts, habits, truths and permanent situations. We often use time expressions like every day, once a week, on Fridays.

I check my email every day. (regular activity)

Yuki works at the bank. (permanent situation)

Form:
For positive sentences, use the same form as the infinitive without 'to' for I, you, we and they. For he, she and it, add -s or -es to the infinitive. Make questions and negatives with do / does + the infintive without 'to'.

They live in Rome.

Julian starts work at nine o'clock and finishes at five.

I don't eat meat.

It doesn't usually snow in October.

Why do you read the news online every day?

Does the supermarket sell stamps?

Present Continuous
We use the present continuous for things that are happening at the time we are speaking, for temporary situations, and for activities that are in progress.

Just a minute. I'm checking my email. (now)

She usually works in London, but she's working from home this week. (temporary)

I'm studying Economics (activity in progress)

We can also use the present continuous for future arrangements, usually with a time expression.

I'm seeing the doctor on Monday morning.

For positive sentences, the form is subject + am/is/are + verb-ing. Make questions and negatives with am/are/is + not + verb-ing.

Can I call you back later? We're having dinner right now.

He isn't answering his mobile at the moment.

What are you doing?

Is it raining?

Note: There are some verbs that we don't usually use in the continuous form. They are often verbs of thinking and feeling, for example: hear, see, smell, hate, know, understand, believe, want, need.

WRONG: Could you explain that again? I'm not understanding.
CORRECT: Could you explain that again? I don't understand.

Present Perfect
Use the present perfect for:

1) Life experiences in the past. We don't say when these happened: we are interested in the experience, not the time or date. We often use ever and never.

I've seen all Tarantino's films.

Have you ever eaten sushi? - Yes, I have. / No, I haven't.

2) Recent past actions that are important now.

Oh no! I've left my wallet on the bus.

The president has resigned.

3) Past situations that are still happening now. We often use how long with for (throughout a period of time) and since (from a point in the past until now).

I haven't seen Jenny this morning. (It is still this morning.)

How long have you known Mitya? - I've known him for two years.

Jack's been in Italy since January.

4) With just, already, yet to talk about recent events in the past. The exact time is not important. Use just and already mainly in positive sentences. Use yet in negatives and questions.

It's just stopped raining. Let's go out.

Can you feed the cat? - I've already fed her.

We can still watch the film. It hasn't started yet.

Have you done your English homework yet?

Note: Use the past simple for completed actions in the past.

I saw Jenny yesterday.

Peter moved to Saudi Arabia in 2011.

Natasha didn't want to have another piece of cake.

Form:
For positive sentences, the form is subject + have/has + past participle. Make negatives with not and change the word order to make questions.

I've finished the report.

Jack's been in Italy since January.

We've just got back from Germany.

I haven't seen Jenny this morning.

How long has Alex known Mitya?

To do

Let's do some practice! Have a go at this quiz. It's all about the use of these three tenses. When you've done that, go to the next page to do a quiz about the form of the three tenses. See you in a bit!

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BBC Learning English - Course: intermediate / Unit 1 / Session 2 / Activity 1

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We use the present simple for things that we do regularly and for facts, habits, truths and permanent situations. We often use time expressions like every day, once a week, on Fridays. I check my email every day. (regular activity) Yuki works at the bank.

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Read this to understand more about phrases, clauses and sentences.

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The basic unit of English grammar is the clause:

[An unlucky student almost lost a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000]

[when he left it in the waiting room of a London station.]

[William Brown inherited the 1698 Stradivarius violin from his mother]

[and had just had it valued by a London dealer at £180,000.]

Clauses are made up of phrases:

[An unlucky student] + [almost lost] + [a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000]

[when] + [he] + [left] + [it] + [in the waiting room of a London station.]

[William Brown] + [inherited] + [the 1698 Stradivarius violin] + [from his mother]

[and] [had just had it valued] + [by a London dealer] + [at £180,000.]

We can join two or more clauses together to make sentences.

An unlucky student almost lost a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000 when he left it in the waiting room of a London station.

William Brown inherited the 1698 Stradivarius violin from his mother and had just had it valued by a London dealer at £180,000.

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The basic unit of English grammar is the clause : [An unlucky student almost lost a 17th century violin worth almost £200,000] [when he left it in the waiting room of a London station.] [William Brown inherited the 1698 Stradivarius violin from his mother] [and had just had it valued by a London dealer at £180,000.]

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Quick activity to help with this common grammar mistake

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Why improve your understanding of grammar and punctuation?

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This quick activity will help you understand this grammar mistake better...

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The comma splice.

In the following exercise you will be presented with a series of sentences containing a comma. You have to indicate whether you think that the sentence is an example of the comma splice.

Read more about the comma splice.

Find out more about the uses of the comma.

See a list of other grammar exercises.

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In the following exercise you will be presented with a series of sentences containing a comma. You have to indicate whether you think that the sentence is an example of the comma splice. Read more about the comma splice. Find out more about the uses of the comma.

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Learn common PREfixes and SUFfixes (beginning and endings to English words)

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Understand when to use "the"

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General and specific determiners

Determiners are words which come at the beginning of the noun phrase.

They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general.

Determiners are either specific or general

Specific determiners:

The specific determiners are:

We use a specific determiner when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to:

Can you pass me the salt please?
Look at those lovely flowers.
Thank you very much for your letter.
Whose coat is this?

General determiners:

The general determiners are:

When we are talking about things in general and the listener/reader does not know exactly what we are referring to, we can use an uncount noun or a plural noun with no determiner:

Milk is very good for you. (= uncount noun)
Health and education are very important. (= 2 uncount nouns)
Girls normally do better in school than boys. (= plural nouns with no determiner)

... or you can use a singular noun with the indefinite article a or an:

A woman was lifted to safety by a helicopter.
A man climbing nearby saw the accident.

We use the general determiner any with a singular noun or an uncount noun when we are talking about all of those people or things:

It's very easy. Any child can do it. (= All children can do it)
With a full licence you are allowed to drive any car.
I like beef, lamb, pork - any meat.

We use the general determiner another to talk about an additional person or thing:

Would you like another glass of wine?

I spoke to John, Helen and a few other friends.

Quantifiers

We use quantifiers when we want to give someone information about the number of something: how much or how many.

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General and specific determiners Determiners are words which come at the beginning of the noun phrase . They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general. Determiners are either specific or general Specific determiners: The specific determiners are: We use a specific determiner when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to: Can you pass me the salt please?

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Easy listening practice

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ELLLO - English Listening Lesson Library Online

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ELLLO stands for English Listening Lesson Library Online and features natural English lessons that come with quizzes, vocabulary training, and free printable worksheets. ESL students and teachers can access over 2,000 free lessons that feature World English with speakers from over 100 countries.

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Understand when to use "a/an"

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General and specific determiners

Determiners are words which come at the beginning of the noun phrase.

They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general.

Determiners are either specific or general

Specific determiners:

The specific determiners are:

We use a specific determiner when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to:

Can you pass me the salt please?
Look at those lovely flowers.
Thank you very much for your letter.
Whose coat is this?

General determiners:

The general determiners are:

When we are talking about things in general and the listener/reader does not know exactly what we are referring to, we can use an uncount noun or a plural noun with no determiner:

Milk is very good for you. (= uncount noun)
Health and education are very important. (= 2 uncount nouns)
Girls normally do better in school than boys. (= plural nouns with no determiner)

... or you can use a singular noun with the indefinite article a or an:

A woman was lifted to safety by a helicopter.
A man climbing nearby saw the accident.

We use the general determiner any with a singular noun or an uncount noun when we are talking about all of those people or things:

It's very easy. Any child can do it. (= All children can do it)
With a full licence you are allowed to drive any car.
I like beef, lamb, pork - any meat.

We use the general determiner another to talk about an additional person or thing:

Would you like another glass of wine?

I spoke to John, Helen and a few other friends.

Quantifiers

We use quantifiers when we want to give someone information about the number of something: how much or how many.

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General and specific determiners Determiners are words which come at the beginning of the noun phrase . They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general. Determiners are either specific or general Specific determiners: The specific determiners are: We use a specific determiner when we believe the listener/reader knows exactly what we are referring to: Can you pass me the salt please?

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More difficult listening

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Independent Cinema World Cinema Classic Cinema Drama Comedy War & Action Romance Horror & Thriller Science Fiction & Fantasy LGBTQ Cinema Early Film Short Film TV Series

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Using English for Academic Purposes: Information and Advice for Students in Higher Education

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Lists of useful phrases organised by different functions e.g compare and contrast and "causality" (cause and effect)

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The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological 'nuts and bolts' of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (see the top menu ). Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing (see the menu on the left). The resource should be particularly useful for writers who need to report their research work. The phrases, and the headings under which they are listed, can be used simply to assist you in thinking about the content and organisation of your own writing, or the phrases can be incorporated into your writing where this is appropriate. In most cases, a certain amount of creativity and adaptation will be necessary when a phrase is used. The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people's ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism. For some of the entries, specific content words have been included for illustrative purposes, and these should be substituted when the phrases are used. The resource was designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers of English. However, native speaker writers may still find much of the material helpful. In fact, recent data suggest that the majority of users are native speakers of English. More about Academic Phrasebank.

Call for research participants
Are you a postgraduate student with a specific learning difficulty? We are conducting research into how Academic Phrasebank can be useful for postgraduate students who have specific learning difficulties. Would you like to assist with this project by taking part in an online interview? If so, please complete thisshort form. It will only take around one minute of your time.

This site was created by John Morley.

Academic Phrasebank is the Intellectual Property of the University of Manchester.

Copyright © 2023 The University of Manchester

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The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological 'nuts and bolts' of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (see the top menu ).