Need Help With Your Writing? Try This Web Site

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com Many colleges and universities in the United States have writing centers to help students improve their skills. Some materials are available free at Web sites like the Purdue Online Writing Lab, or OWL. The site is connected to the Writing Lab at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It includes resources that can help non-native English speakers. VOA's Art Chimes recently spoke with the director, Linda Bergmann. She said the Purdue Online Writing Lab is a collection of workshops, worksheets and instructional materials. For example, even native speakers are often not sure when to use "lie" and when to use "lay." The site gives these example sentences: "After laying down his weapon, the soldier lay down to sleep." "Will you lay out my clothes while I lie down to rest?" The problem is that "lie" also means to not tell the truth, as in "I lied to my mother." So you would say in the past tense "I lay on the bed because I was tired." The Purdue Online Writing Lab also explains how to use an apostrophe correctly in possessives and other cases. People often add an apostrophe to "its" in a sentence like "The group made its decision." There should be no apostrophe because what you mean is that the decision belongs to the group. "It's" with an apostrophe is short for "it is," as in "It's raining." The Purdue Online Writing Lab also explains how to organize papers and avoid

Published 2010-03-11 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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