How to improve your English writing in 5 minutes

Below is an excerpt from Michal’s story, but it is purposefully written in an ugly way. Do you find this excerpt pleasant to read?

Today , I can  understand the beatles very clearly.Each time I hear  a Beatles song,I am delighted and proud becouse  i have mademy childhood dream come true. I listen  to many rock bands , all in English,and I listen every day ,sometimes forover seven hours a day.I ma constantly  aware ofmy success with english because i cna  understand  the lyrics ofthe songs i listen to.and taht gives  me pleasure and Satisfaction for many hours every day .

Now you can read the original version of the excerpt. It’s the same text but it’s much more pleasant to read, don’t you think?

Today, I can understand The Beatles very clearly. Each time I hear a Beatles song, I am delighted and proud because I have made my childhood dream come true. I listen to many rock bands, all in English, and I listen every day, sometimes for over seven hours a day. I am constantly aware of my success with English because I can understand the lyrics of the songs I listen to. And that gives me pleasure and satisfaction for many hours every day.

There are three kinds of typing errors in the ugly version:

• wrong use of spaces (a missing space or an unnecessary space)
• incorrect capitalization (lower case instead of upper case or upper case instead of lower case)
• incorrect spelling

Today , I can  understand the beatles very clearly.Each time I hear a Beatles song,I am delighted and proud becouse  i have mademychildhood dream come true. I listen  to many rock bands , all in English,and I listen every day ,sometimes forover seven hours a day.I ma constantly  aware ofmy success with english because i cna understand  the lyrics ofthe songs i listen to.and taht gives  me pleasure and Satisfaction for many hours every day .

How to avoid writing in an ugly way

• Be careful. Put spaces between words. Use proper capitalization: The first word in every sentence should start with a capital letter. So should every proper name (such as English and The Beatles).
• “You” and “I”. Remember that the word “I” is spelled “I”, not “i”, and the word “you” is spelled “you”, not “u”.

• Put a space after every comma and every period; never before it.

  The wrong way:

  I listen to many rock bands , all in English,and I listen every day,sometimes for over seven hours a day . I am constantly aware of my success with English .

  The right way:

  I listen to many rock bands, all in English, and I listen every day, sometimes for over seven hours a day. I am constantly aware of my success with English.

• Use a spellchecker. With a spellchecker, you can easily avoid mistakes like becouse, ma (instead of am), cna (instead of can), and taht (instead ofthat). ( http://www.antimoon.com/other/carefulwriting.htm)