by Phil Williams | Oct 26, 2021 | General English, Reading Exercise, Writing skills
For today’s reading exercise, I’ve taken an extract from a creepy old horror story by M.R. James. James was an accomplished scholar who wrote ghost stories heavy with real mythological references. He wrote in a “visceral” way, creating strong feelings/reactions, but...
by Phil Williams | Mar 10, 2020 | General English
As this website has become more popular, I’ve received an increasing number of questions and requests for assistance. It’s always good to hear from readers, as I know there is always more to explain, or different ways to explain things, and also because it exposes...
by Phil Williams | Sep 10, 2019 | General English, Writing skills
I’m often asked about tips for writing essays, particularly for exams. There is a section on this in my book, Advanced Writing Skills, but it’s such a universal topic I thought it would be good to share the general advice here. Planning to Succeed Writing for exams...
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 | Apr 16, 2015 | General English, Vocabulary, Words, Writing skills
There are many verbs in English that describe speech. If you want to describe a conversation in a more dynamic way, you can choose verbs with more specific meanings than “to say”, which simply means to speak. This is useful if you want to create a varied...