ABE English Tutorials/Simple Sentences/Introduction to writing skills

Introduction to writing skills

The power of the written word

Have you heard the saying: "The pen is mightier than the sword"? We have all felt the power of words: the simple STOP on a stop sign, the word "poison" on a container, the words "Could try harder ... " on a child's report card.

We think of speaking as our main form of communication; but when we write, we are able to reach,
many more people.

What it says about us individually

How we write says a lot about us. Whether we are writing a simple "thank you" note for a gift, a note to a friend, or an important resumé, we are concerned about how our writing looks to others.

If we aren't, we should be, especially if a job we really want hangs on it!

How we can make those good things happen

The recipe for improving your writing includes two main ingredients:

• understanding basic grammar, punctuation and spelling rules

• knowing how to express what you want to say clearly

Oh, and practice, practice, practice!

If you would like more information on how to use the course emailclick here. 

The GED Writing Skills test

The test is in two parts:

The first part is a multiple-choice test on the "Conventions of English"; it tests your knowledge of the rules of English grammar.

There are three kinds of rules that you will be tested on:

sentence structure - knowing how to recognize when a sentence 
 is too long or too short;

usage - knowing how to make sure that the words (subjects, 
 verbs, pronouns) inside a sentence are correct, and

mechanics - knowing how to make sure that spelling and 
 punctuation are correct. 

The second part of the GED Writing Skills test asks you to

Write an essay on a topic given to you. 

The essay is to be about 200 words long, that is, approximately a page and a half. The topic
you will be given to write about will be something quite simple - "the advantages and disadvantages of television", for example.

It is important to remember that writing a well-formed essay requires first of all good organization and writing skills; you don't need a lot of background knowledge.

      If you would like to see a list of the skills covered
      in GED Writing Skills, have a look at the Skill List 
      for the GED. You can scroll down the page to see the 
      entire list. This might look like a lot of skills to 
      cover, but you probably know some of them already. 

How the Course is organized

This "GED Online" Writing Skills course covers all of the basic GED writing skills. Each skill is presented
in a separate "lesson" that you can read with your web browser program (the same program that you are
using now to read this page).

At the bottom of each lesson, there is a "link" to the homework for the skill. When you click on the link,
the homework page will come up.

You can print this page if you like, and work on the homework offline or even away from the computer.

Once you have the answers worked out, you can type them into an email message and send them to
your tutor. (There will be more details on how to do this when you are ready.)

Are you ready to begin?