As I mentioned last week, I am currently working on a new short course called “10 Practical Writing Tips.” Hopefully, it will be ready within the next couple of months. 💯
In the course, I will share 10 practical tips that you can apply easily to elevate your everyday writing. In line with my teaching philosophy, these tips will be grounded in the overall structural framework of English grammar that we build together in our foundational course, “Core Concepts of English.”
This framework is an essential basis for all higher-level engagement with the language, including formal writing. Only when you understand how English sentences truly work can you apply even the most practical “tips” in a productive way. Otherwise, even if you can use a certain writing tip mechanically in one sentence or context, you will not be able to apply or manipulate it correctly in the next.
For example, the first “practical tip” in the upcoming course is about aptly utilizing the forward movement of additional adverb phrases modifying an entire clause to create more word-order variation and a more layered sentence structure.
Take the following sentences as examples:
When, amid mounting criticism from local residents, the council approved the revised development plan, public trust declined even further.
當市議會在當地居民愈來愈多的批評聲中批准經修訂的發展方案時，公眾信任進一步下滑。
The agency issued a revised report that, despite repeated requests from independent experts, did not clarify the key findings.
該機構發表了一份儘管面對獨立專家一再提出要求，卻沒有澄清關鍵發現的修訂報告。
Many students would be confused by the italicized parts in sentences like these. They find them difficult to process when reading, let alone to produce in their own writing.
However, if you had a structural framework of English grammar in place, you could easily identify the clause boundaries in these sentences and understand that the italicized parts are simply adverb phrases that have been moved forward within the clause layers they modify.
Once you have this structural understanding, you can begin to harness it in your own formal writing. You can learn, systematically and consciously, to produce sentences with more layered structures yourself.
If you would like to build this structural foundation with me, you can read more about our foundational course, “Core Concepts of English,” here:
正如我上星期提到的那樣，我目前正在製作一個新的短課程，名叫「10 Practical Writing Tips」。希望它會在接下來這兩個月內準備好。💯
在這個課程裏，我會分享 10 個你可以輕鬆運用的實用技巧，幫助你提升日常寫作。按照我的教學理念，這些技巧都會建立在我們在基礎課程「Core Concepts of English」裏一起建立起來的英文文法整體結構框架之上。
這個框架是你對英文進行一切更高層次運用（包括正式寫作）的一個重要基礎。只有當你真正明白英文句子是怎樣運作的，你才能以一種有生產力的方式去運用哪怕最實用的「技巧」。否則，就算你能夠在某一個句子或某一個語境裏機械地套用某一個寫作技巧，你也無法在下一個句子或下一個語境裏正確地運用它，或靈活地調整和豐富它。
例如，這個即將推出的課程中的第一個「practical tip」，就是關於如何恰當地運用修飾整個子句的附加副詞組的前移，從而為句子帶來更多詞序變化，以及一種更有層次的句子結構。
請看看以下這兩個句子：
When, amid mounting criticism from local residents, the council approved the revised development plan, public trust declined even further.
當市議會在當地居民愈來愈多的批評聲中批准經修訂的發展方案時，公眾信任進一步下滑。
The agency issued a revised report that, despite repeated requests from independent experts, did not clarify the key findings.
該機構發表了一份儘管面對獨立專家一再提出要求，卻沒有澄清關鍵發現的修訂報告。
很多學生都會被這類句子裏斜體部分搞糊塗。他們在閱讀時會覺得這些部分難以理解，更不用說要在自己的寫作中把它們寫出來了。
然而，如果你已經具備一個英文文法的結構框架，你就可以很容易辨認出這些句子裏的子句界線，並明白那些斜體部分其實只是在它們各自修飾的子句層次中被前移了的副詞組。
一旦你有了這種結構上的理解，你就可以開始把它運用到自己的正式寫作之中。你可以有系統地、有意識地學會自己寫出結構更有層次的句子。
如果你也想和我一起建立這個結構基礎，你可以在這裏了解更多我們的基礎課程「Core Concepts of English」：