Written texts

📄️ Pronouns and other proforms

Avoiding unnatural/ungrammatical repetition

📄️ Linking with conjunctions and adverbials

The difference

📄️ Discourse markers in writing

Discourse markers are words and expressions which help to structure spoken exchanges and written text (e.g. first of all, on the other hand, in any case, to sum up). English has a very large number of these. Some are used in all kinds of discourse, some mostly in formal writing, and others mainly in informal speech. Those that are most common in writing are discussed here; for discourse markers in speech, (see here). Most discourse markers are adverbs or adverbial expressions; some are conjunctions. For differences in punctuation and other points, (see here).

📄️ Reading complicated structures

Language learners (and many native-speaker readers) can have trouble reading long and complicated sentences. Certain kinds of structure, in particular, can slow down unskilled readers, and perhaps cause them to get lost, so that they lose sight of ‘where a sentence is going’. This is often the case when sentences begin with complex noun phrases.

📄️ Paragraphs

Written English text is usually divided into blocks called ‘paragraphs’, to make it easier to read. Paragraphs can vary in length, from several hundred words (for example in literary or academic writing), to a few sentences (for example in journalism or letters). A paragraph division is usually shown by starting the text on a new line and ‘indenting’ (leaving a space at the beginning of the line). The paragraph divisions break the material up into easily ‘digestible’ sections, providing places where the reader can pause and think for a moment if necessary. And good writers can show the structure of their texts by making paragraph divisions in suitable places, for example when they move to a new stage in a story, a new point in a discussion or a new part of a description.

📄️ Repetition

Avoidance of repetition

📄️ Academic writing

The writing found in academic journals and similar contexts (for example research reports, theoretical discussion and debate, historical accounts) is normally formal in tone, and follows the conventions of formal writing discussed in other parts of this Section. In particular:

📄️ Correspondence: letters

Traditionally-constructed letters are now much less common than other forms of correspondence such as emails. However, it is useful to know the normal conventions used in English-speaking cultures – for instance, in letters of application.