Have you asked yourself any good questions lately?

I recently found out about ‘afformations’ after reading a blog post by my friend Khuram Malik. I was very familiar with the more well known affirmations, having used them on and off with varying degrees of success over the years. ‘Afformations’, however, immediately made more sense and gave a stronger punch of positivity more easily. And they’ve also led me to think how small changes in language can greatly influence the effect that language has on us.

But what is the difference between ‘afformations’ and affirmations, I hear you say. An affirmation is a statement regarding something you would like to be true in your life, for example, ‘I am happy’. You repeat the phrase over and over in order to change your subconscious mind, and therefore hopefully change your thinking and attitudes. ‘Afformations’, on the other hand, are questions which you ask yourself, questions which assume what you want to be true in your life already is true. So instead of chanting ‘I am happy, I am happy, I am happy’, you could ask ‘Why do I feel so happy?’ Go on, say both of them now. Do you notice any differences?

The idea behind ’afformations’ is that instead of making your mind focus on, in this case, the happiness you lack, your brain is now focusing on the happiness you DO have, and the things and people already in your life that bring you happiness. It produces a much more positive result immediately and have you worked out why?

Any good presenter or writer knows that an effective way of getting or keeping their audience’s attention is to ask them questions. We can’t help ourselves; even if we know a question is rhetorical or know the person who posed the question won’t hear us, our brain immediately wants to supply an answer, working away like a search engine to come up with a response. It’s a well-used sales technique to engage the target audience: Have you driven a Ford lately? Where would you like to go today? Statements don’t involve us to the same extent; questions immediately grab us, naturally motivating action and encouraging reflection.

Language is a powerful tool and even a subtle difference, such as changing a statement into a question, can produce an entirely different result. Being aware of this means you have another instrument in your belt for communicating more effectively, whether you’re a manager encouraging your team to come up with solutions to a problem, a teacher leading students to discover an answer for themselves, a copywriter persuading future clients they need a service, or you making another step along your personal development road. Perhaps you should spend less time worrying about finding the right answers and more time formulating the right question.

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
– Naguib Mahfouz (Egyptian writer and Nobel Prize winner)

How to weaken an argument in three quick steps

Presenting a weak argument, whether you’re trying to convince a possible customer they need your product or discussing Tarantino’s latest film with a friend, couldn’t be easier. There are just three simple quick steps to make any statement unconvincing. If you manage to do all three of them, any assertion you make will be powerless and completely ineffective.

One: give no support

Don’t give any justification for your reasoning. It is enough to simply state it. You may repeat it as many times as you like, in fact the more times you repeat it the weaker it will become. Not having to convince someone of the value or benefit of your assertion by coming up with relevant supporting facts and examples saves you a lot of time and effort.

Two: make your argument one-sided

Don’t waste time considering the other side of the argument; yours is the only valid one. By acknowledging there are two sides (or even more) to an argument, you are conceding that your side may not be the right one (and that can’t possibly be true). On top of this, you’ll have to criticise or show the other perspectives are less valid in order to eliminate them.

Three: don’t anticipate objections

If you consider any opposing viewpoints, you’re just going to have to spend even more time and effort coming up with ideas to counter the specific concerns that may be raised. You will also need to thoroughly identify any objections and then either suggest solutions or point out the weaknesses of them. Instead, deliberately trivialise the evidence against your case or, better still, ignore it, don’t be objective and never change your position even to make a small concession.

While some say the best way to win an argument is to avoid it, the best way to convince someone not to take you seriously is to make your argument as powerless and flimsy as possible. Strengthening an assertion takes time and effort and thought; weakening it requires almost no effort or time or thought at all.

How to confidently use semi-colons in two easy steps

I love semi-colons. I take every opportunity to use them and hope that, by example, I encourage other people to use them (I hope this isn’t merely wishful thinking). To be honest, I have never understood why some people are afraid of using semi-colons; probably it’s more a fear of misusing them.

The semi-colon is an underused, yet powerful, punctuation mark. Just as our tone or hand gestures, for instance, can help us to be understood clearly when we speak, so punctuation helps us to communicate more clearly when we write. In the words of Lynne Truss, who wrote the bestselling guide to punctuation, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, “all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places… If [punctuation] goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable”. So, even though the semi-colon is not as commonly used as commas or full stops, it does have a very important role to play in helping us communicate our message as accurately as possible.

While I often hear people (myself included) complaining about the misuse of apostrophes, and overuse of commas and exclamation marks, the semi-colon doesn’t usually get a lot of attention. Although, oddly enough, the writer Kurt Vonnegut warned people against using them because “They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” On the opposite side, George Bernard Shaw advised fellow writer T.E. Lawrence, after reading his autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom, “You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.” People are always going to disagree when discussing language and its nuances. Why not just take from this argument the fact that semi-colons should be used with care and consideration.

If you are feeling encouraged to use semi-colons, but are not completely sure how to, let’s refer to Swan’s Practical English Usage. Very simply, Swan explains the semi-colon has two uses.

1)  Instead of full stops, to join two grammatically independent phrases which have a closely connected meaning.

Some people work best in the mornings; others do better in the evenings.
It is a fine idea; let us hope that it is going to work.

If, however, either of the phrases are complex, it is better to use a full stop instead of a semi-colon:
It is a fine idea to cut back on advertising to save money this quarter. Let us hope that it is going to work, otherwise some jobs may have to be cut.

2)  In lists, when the items are complex or contain commas.

You may use the sports facilities on condition that your subscription is paid regularly; that you arrange for all necessary cleaning to be carried out; that you undertake to make good any damage; that you inform staff of any facilities that need fixing, cleaning or updating; …

To test your prowess with semi-colons, try these exercises.

Getting your head around English spelling

or ‘Y iz Inglish speling sew difikult?’

Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell well.
- Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to his daughter

English spelling causes problems even for native speakers, who often rely on dictionaries and spell checkers much more than speakers of other languages. Compared to other languages, English is arguably more irregular and more complex.

The English language has a complicated history, borrowing words from almost every other language (Latin, French, Greek, German, Arabic and Chinese just to name a few), often keeping the foreign spelling but pronouncing the word in an Anglicised way. For a large part of its history, achieving any kind of consistency in spelling was not considered important. The invention of the printing press, in the late 1400s, began to encourage conformity of spelling to a certain extent to make the process easier for printers. However, it was not until the mid 18^th century, when dictionaries began to be published (the most influential being Samuel Johnson’s ‘Dictionary of the English Language’, 1755), that English spelling really started to become standardised.

There are English spelling rules, but they can be quite difficult to remember because of their complexity, and, of course, there are always exceptions to these rules, as there are always exceptions to any rules. So, what can we do apart from carrying a dictionary around with us if we wish to be ladies and gentlemen who spell well?

Knowing just some of the English spelling rules will make you a more confident speller. One rule that many native English speakers repeatedly chanted at school is ‘I before E, except after C’. I still hear this in my head when I am unsure if a word is spelt with an ‘ie’ or an ‘ei’. The UK Government recently and controversially advised primary school teachers not to teach this rule believing it not to be effective because of the exceptions to it (for example, ‘seize’, ‘weird’ and ‘veil’), yet many people believe that it is worthwhile learning when it is a simple rule to remember and generally true.

You can also make up your own ways of remembering spelling including using mnemonics to aid your memory. I taught myself the difference between ‘stationery’ and ‘stationary’ by thinking that ‘stationERy’ is ‘papER’ and ‘stationAry’ is ‘inActive’. A past student who found it difficult remembering whether to double the ‘c’ or the ‘s’ in ‘occasionally’ made up the phrase ‘I watch The O.C. with my Cat occasionally’ to remind herself that the word started with ‘occ’. Even after more than twenty-five years, whenever I write the word ‘rhythm’, I hear my whole class loudly and rhythmically tapping out ‘R, H, Y… T, H, M…’ on our desks while our teacher ‘conducted’ us.

Finally, the more you use words that are particularly confusing for you in their written form, the easier it will be to remember the spelling. But, if you are still pulling your hair out, take heart in the words of a famous writer, who would have probably enjoyed, had he been alive today, the shorthand spelling that is normal in text messaging:

I don’t see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. I have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me, there is such a breezy unfettered originality about his orthography. He always spells “Kow” with a large “K.” Now that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind of a cow.
- Mark Twain, speaking at a spelling match, reported in the Hartford Courant, 1875

One comprehensive list of spelling rules

200 most commonly misspelled words

Four Tips for a Better Essay

Understand the task

A very common mistake students of all levels make is either misunderstanding the task question or not answering the task question. You can waste time researching irrelevant information if you do not know what to focus on and you will never get a good mark if you do not answer the question.

Analyse the task carefully. Try to rewrite it in your own words. Highlight the key words and think about what you are being asked to do (for instance, do you need to give your viewpoint, discuss different sides of an argument or evaluate someone else’s ideas?). Do you have to write a specific text type, such as a report or an article? Also consider how the task relates to what you have studied.

If you can choose your own question you will need to spend time formulating it so it is concise and clear. If it is not clear in your own mind, it will not be clear in your writing nor to the reader.

Organise – be organised and organise your writing

Allow yourself enough time to research, draft, review and edit – this often takes longer than you think. As you research, keep an accurate record of the sources you use to avoid wasting time looking for them later.

Plan the structure of your essay before you start writing a first draft (see the previous post ‘Planning makes perfect’ for different types of plans). Think about the best order for your points, trying to achieve a fluent argument where one point logically flows from another. Well-organised writing enables the reader to see how your points relate to each other and therefore understand your meaning more clearly.

As you are writing, use linking words and phrases (e.g. nevertheless, furthermore or as a consequence) to join your ideas together and help make your writing more fluent.

Write clearly

One should not aim at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.
- Quintilian (Roman rhetorician, c. 35 – c. 100)

The purpose of your essay is to communicate information. For example, you may need to show you have understood the key concepts of a subject or that you are able to convey your own ideas. Regardless of your essay’s specific purpose you will also need to show you can write well and communicate your ideas.

Make sure your reader cannot misunderstand anything you write. Nor should the reader have to guess or search for meaning; tell him or her exactly what you mean. Check for unnecessary repetition and unnecessary words (we can often eliminate the word that from phrases), be specific rather than general or ambiguous, avoid sentences which are too long, and support your points with relevant examples. Be careful of using opinion words, such as interesting or arguably, without explaining why you have chosen to use them, and check that any pronouns you have used clearly refer to the correct noun.

Proofread and edit

Allow yourself enough time to thoroughly review your writing. It is best not to do this immediately, but to come back later with a fresh mind. It is even better if you can also give it to someone else to review.

Start by looking at the essay as a whole: have you answered the question? Do your points/ideas flow logically? Are you paragraphs correctly divided and clear? Then look at smaller details: is your meaning clear in every sentence? Are there any words or phrases which do not add anything to the meaning and so could be deleted? And finally the smallest features: spelling, grammar and punctuation.

What you should now have is an essay worthy of the time and effort you have put into it.

Planning Makes Perfect

It can be difficult to help people understand the importance of planning a piece of writing. Those of us who have taught writing will have sometimes felt that our advice has gone unheeded. Planning will definitely improve your writing and, like everything, the more you do it the easier it gets.

Professional writers spend a great deal of time preparing, considering different ideas and organising their thoughts before beginning to write. Even if you are not getting paid for your words, planning should always be your first step and it is one of the main ways to write more effectively.

Some people believe planning is a waste of time, that it is better to just start writing. Unfortunately they have not understood that planning actually saves time and effort later; it helps you organise your ideas and enables you to check you have all the information you need. A plan is like a road map guiding you through step by step. Without it you can get ‘lost’ on the way, wasting time wondering which ‘roads’ to take, perhaps even going round in circles. With a plan you will never have to ask yourself ‘What do I write next?’

You need to consider three things as you begin planning:

1. Purpose
- why are you writing or what is your reason for writing?

2. Reader
- who will read your writing and why will they read it?

3. Content
- what information is relevant to your purpose?
- what information will get your message across effectively to the reader?

Once you have identified these three factors you will have a clearer picture in your mind of what your finished piece of writing will be like. For instance, thinking about who might read your writing can help you decide the language to use: whether to use a formal or informal style, simple vocabulary or terminology only certain readers would understand, and so on.

Plans come in different shapes and sizes, depending on the writer and depending on what is being written. Try a few different ways to discover which are more effective for you. You can write a list of bullet points, draw a flow chart, create a mind map or write ideas on separate pieces of paper which you can move around to organise. If you are struggling for ideas, brainstorm as many possibilities as you can regardless of how relevant you think they are, write all of them down and then select the ones which relate to your intended purpose, reader and content.

Writing without a plan sends a very clear message to the reader: the writer is unsure which direction to go in. Avoid this fundamental error by practising your planning skills and not only will your writing improve, but you will also give readers confidence in your writing ability.

Present Perfect or Past Simple?

English grammar can be tricky for speakers of other languages, and two tenses which often cause confusion are the past simple and the present perfect. Some people overuse the past simple when they should be using the present perfect, and other people are unsure when to use one or the other.

The past simple refers to something which occurred in the past and has no connection with the present. The action or event could have happened once in the past (I went to Budapest last year) or been continuous or repeated (Dinosaurs lived on the earth). The time can be specified (Where did you go last night?) or not (She worked at the local cinema). The important thing to remember is that the action or event has finished and that we are focusing on a specific time in the past, even if that time is not specified.

The present perfect connects the past to the present; we are thinking about the past and the present at the same time, although the focus is mainly on the present because it is a ‘present’ tense. The action or event started in the past and may have finished (I have written you an email) or it might still be continuing (I have lived in London since 2004). It may have happened in the recent past or it could have occurred a long time ago.

The present perfect refers to something which happened at a point in time before now. The exact time the action or event occurred is not important and, in fact, we cannot say exactly when it happened. Even if we do not mention the specific time, but are just thinking of it, we cannot use the present perfect; instead we would use the past simple –
Have you seen Master Chef (in general on television)?
Did you see Master Chef (last night on television)?
However, we can use unspecific time expressions with the present perfect (e.g. lately, so far, many times, ever, never, since, etc.) or time expressions that describe a period that is not finished (e.g. this month, today, etc.).

Listening to the news you will hear examples of the past simple and the present perfect. The news is often introduced using the present perfect, announcing a past event which is considered relevant at the present time (A man has been rescued). However, when the details of the event are described, the past simple is used, together with expressions of time and place, in order to place it in the definite past (The man’s boat sank yesterday evening).

While we have covered only the basics here, if you want to learn more look at a good grammar book such as Michael Swan’s ‘Practical English Usage’ and remember that practice makes perfect!