**5 tips to improve your writing — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/5-tips-improve-writing/

Emma from engVid shares five tips for stronger academic and formal writing: avoid contractions, avoid 'there is/are', drop weak intensifiers, prefer active voice, and use strong verbs.

## Key Takeaways

- Formal writing calls for full forms rather than contractions
- Concise, direct sentences beat filler constructions like 'there is' and 'there are'
- Active voice and strong single verbs make academic writing clearer and more forceful

## What the video covers

- Targets formal writing such as academic essays, TOEFL/IELTS writing, and business writing rather than informal letters
- Tip 1: Avoid contractions (don't, can't, shouldn't) and write them in full (do not, cannot, should not)
- Tip 2: Avoid 'there is' / 'there are' constructions to keep sentences concise and direct
- Tip 3: Avoid weakening intensifiers such as 'really', 'very', 'a lot', and 'so'; use stronger words or 'many'/'much' instead
- Tip 4: Prefer active voice in humanities and social sciences; passive voice is acceptable but used sparingly in the sciences
- Illustrates passive vs. active with examples such as 'Health care reforms were implemented by Obama' vs. 'Obama implemented health care reforms'
- Tip 5: Use strong verbs; convert verb-plus-noun phrases (gave assistance, made an objection, conducted an investigation) into single verbs (assisted, objected, investigated)
- Concludes with an invitation to practice the tips on the engVid website

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction: Formal vs. Informal Writing
2. 01:08 Tip 1: Avoid Contractions
3. 02:13 Tip 2: Avoid 'There Is' and 'There Are'
4. 03:06 Tip 3: Avoid Weak Intensifiers
5. 04:27 Tip 4: Use Active Voice
6. 06:24 Tip 5: Use Strong Verbs
7. 09:00 Conclusion

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the main advice about contractions in academic writing?

Emma advises writing out contractions in full, so 'don't' becomes 'do not' and 'can't' becomes 'cannot.' This applies to academic and formal business writing, not personal letters.

Why should 'there is' and 'there are' be avoided?

These constructions add unnecessary words and make sentences longer. Rewriting 'There are many issues that students face' as 'Students face many issues' produces a more concise, stronger sentence.

When is passive voice acceptable?

Emma says passive voice is acceptable and normal in the sciences, though it should not be overused. In humanities, social science, history and psychology, she recommends active voice.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Hi there. My name is Emma, and in today's video, we are going to look at five ways to improve academic essay writing, okay? Or TOEFL writing, IELTS writing. This doesn't have to do with when you write a letter to your friends, okay? We're talking specifically

00:23

Speaker A

about formal writing, maybe business writing, or academic writing. Okay, so let's get started. My first tip on how to improve writing is do not use contractions, okay? And again, this is for academic writing. So what is a contraction? Don't, can't, shouldn't,

00:45

Speaker A

couldn't, wouldn't, isn't, haven't, hasn't, okay? So it's the short form of, for example, "don't". For example, "don't" is the contraction of "do not", okay? So it's better to actually write out the word in full in academic and formal business writing. So instead of "don't",

01:08

Speaker A

use "do not". Instead of "can't", use "cannot". And notice how with "do not", it's actually two words. "Cannot" is just one word. "Shouldn't" becomes "should not". "Couldn't" becomes "could not". "Wouldn't", "would not", "isn't", "is not", "haven't", "have not", "hasn't", "has

01:31

Speaker A

not", okay? So don't use "these", use "these". Okay, so now let's look at tip number two. So tip number two is avoid "there is" or "there are", okay? So why do we avoid "there is" or "there are"? Well, one of the reasons is

01:55

Speaker A

when we write, we want to write our ideas clear and concise, meaning we don't want these long sentences. We want our sentences to be to the point. "There are" adds extra words that are not needed. So let's look at some examples.

02:13

Speaker A

"A, there are many issues that students face at university." So that's an okay sentence, but if I wanted to make it a better sentence that is more appropriate for academic writing, I would change it. I'd get rid of "there are" and I would say instead, "Students face many

02:34

Speaker A

issues at university." So you don't need "there is" or "there are". A second example, "There are many development projects that the UN supports." Okay? Again, we don't need "there are", we could just change it to, "The UN supports many development projects."

02:58

Speaker A

By getting rid of "there is" and "there are", your sentences become stronger and to the point.

03:06

Speaker A

So tip number three is avoid words, so don't use words in academic writing such as "really", "very", "a lot", I'm going to add another one, "so". Okay? This weakens your writing.

03:24

Speaker A

Your writing isn't as strong if you use these types of words. So let's look at some examples. "Many students think university is very hard." Okay, so now we have "very".

03:39

Speaker A

How could I improve this sentence? Well, instead of using "very hard", just use a stronger word in the first place. Say, "Many students think university is difficult." Okay? "There are many cars" -- well, I just broke a rule, sorry. "Many cars speed very fast." You could

04:10

Speaker A

get rid of the "very" in that sentence, come up with a stronger word for it.

04:16

Speaker A

So let's look at number B, sentence B. "Bill 399 is very" -- or sorry, "is really controversial." So again, in academic writing, avoid the usage of "really". We could just say, "Bill 399 is controversial." The sentence sounds better, it sounds more formal.

04:40

Speaker A

Okay? C. "A lot of the students" -- I didn't finish this sentence. I could say, "A lot of the students live on campus." Now, instead of using "a lot", we could use the word "many students". So, we use "many" if we can count the noun, if it's countable. So instead of

05:13

Speaker A

using "a lot", use "many". Or, if our noun is not countable, if it's a non-count noun, we can use "much". Okay, so we get rid of "a lot". So instead of "a lot of the students", now we have "many students". "Many students face problems in their first year of university.

05:49

Speaker A

Much time is wasted because of procrastination." Okay? So, "many" and "much" are both words that are better to use than "a lot". And again, the rule is avoid the usage of "really", "very", "a lot", and "so".

06:07

Speaker A

So our fourth tip when it comes to academic writing is unless -- so if you are in the sciences, it's okay to use the passive. Don't use it too much, but it's okay and normal to use the passive voice, and I'll explain what that is in a second. But if you are studying

06:27

Speaker A

humanities, social science, history, psychology, these types of subjects, do not use the passive voice. Use the active voice. So for most university writing, we use the active voice. So what is the passive voice and what is the active voice?

06:49

Speaker A

So here is an example of the passive voice. "Health care reforms were implemented by Obama." Okay? So notice, first, we have a form of the verb "to be", and then we have the past participle of "implement", in this case, "implemented". So you see an "ed". And then, oftentimes,

07:17

Speaker A

we have the word "by someone". So this is an example of a passive voice sentence.

07:24

Speaker A

"Health care reforms were implemented by Obama." So what is the problem with using the passive voice? Well, it takes away the fact that Obama is the one who implemented the reforms. The sentence is sort of weak, a little bit awkward.

07:43

Speaker A

It would be much better if we had the actor who is Obama, so the person, the verb, and the object. "Obama implemented health care reforms." So this is the active voice.

07:57

Speaker A

Okay? So if you can, have the subject, then the verb, then the object, instead of the passive voice.

08:08

Speaker A

So here is another example of this. If I wrote in the passive voice, I would write, "The war was", so here we have a form of the "be" verb, "won", so here is the past participle of "win", "by", so another key word, "the French". "The war was won by the French."

08:38

Speaker A

So this is, again, a passive voice sentence, it's a passive sentence, but it's still a little bit weak. In academic writing, we want strong sentences, and a strong sentence has the actor or the person performing the action at the beginning of the sentence. So instead,

08:56

Speaker A

a better sentence would be, "The French won the war." So the final tip in this video is when you write academically, use strong verbs. Okay, so what is a strong verb? And what is a weak verb? So I'm going to give you an example.

09:16

Speaker A

I could say, "He gave assistance to my friend." Okay, this is a very weak way of saying, "He gave assistance to my friend." In a stronger way, I could instead just say, "He assisted my friend." So what is the difference between these two sentences? Well, in this sentence,

09:36

Speaker A

it means, "assistance" is a noun. So a better way to write this sentence, anytime you have a verb and a noun, and you look at the noun, and it could be its own verb, use this in a verbal form instead. So for example, "He gave assistance" should become, "He assisted."

09:58

Speaker A

Okay, so this is stronger. Let's look at another example. So here I have a weak verb, "made an objection." "He made an objection." Okay, so again, we have a verb, and then a noun, "objection", but "objection" can be its own verb. So to make it stronger, we get rid of "made", and we turn "objection"

10:25

Speaker A

into its verbal form, "objected". "He objected." So, "He objected" is better than "He made an objection." Another example, here we have our example of the weak verb, "She conducted an investigation." "She conducted an investigation." Well, when I look here, I see the word, "investigation",

10:52

Speaker A

and I think, "Does 'investigation' -- does this noun have a verb form?" Well, yes, it does. "Investigate." So instead of saying, "Conduct an investigation," "She investigated something." It's a lot better. It's stronger.

11:10

Speaker A

Okay, finally, for our fourth example, the weak verb is, "did an audit." "They did an audit." "They did an audit on Wesley Snipes." I don't know. Porn joke, maybe. "They did an audit on someone." So again, I see the word, "audit", so here's a verb, and here's

11:32

Speaker A

a noun. When I look at this noun, and I think, "audit", is there a verb form of the word "audit"? Yes, there is. "Wesley Snipes was audited." But again, I told you not to use a passive, so I could say, "The government audited Wesley Snipes."

11:51

Speaker A

So there you have it, five tips that will quickly improve your academic writing. If you would like to practice some of these tips, come visit us at our website at www.engvid.com.

12:05

Speaker A

Until next time.

Topics: academic writing essay writing IELTS TOEFL English grammar active voice passive voice contractions strong verbs formal writing

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