by Phil Williams | Jun 7, 2018 | Books, Writing skills
It’s finally here – Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English has hit the (electronic) shelves! After an intense month of final updates, with massive thanks due to my excellent beta reading team, the final book is now available in eBook and paperback...
by Phil Williams | Mar 22, 2018 | Definitions, Writing skills
A hyphen is this short punctuation mark: – . Not to be confused with longer dashes, which have different uses. Hyphens are used in English for two specific purposes – hard hyphens join words together, while soft hyphens divide words. The uses of hyphens...
by Phil Williams | Aug 31, 2017 | Books, Writing skills
If you’re a member of the ELB mailing list you may have seen that I’m working on a new guide to improved writing skills. The idea is to present advanced writing tips for learners of English as a foreign language – a guide based on how the language functions, as...
by Phil Williams | Aug 8, 2017 | Grammar, Writing skills
When we write a rule in a past tense narrative, should it still be in the present simple tense? This was an excellent question raised by a reader, from a fairly unexpected source – this Christmas reading exercise. It contains the phrase “everyone knew how...
by Phil Williams | Feb 7, 2017 | Definitions, General English, Grammar, Writing skills
In my article on the different formats for dates in UK and US English, there are plenty of rules and variations – some covered very briefly. Across business letters and other correspondence you may find uses that you do not recognise (or did not notice) in that list....
by Phil Williams | Jan 14, 2016 | Exercises, Grammar, Writing skills
Here are 2 new exercises to help practice some of the lessons given in my article on the various methods that can be used to rewrite English sentences. These exercises involve rewriting given sentences based on a specific component or rule – and it combines a...