Better Writing

Useful, interesting and culturally appropriate for students in the Arab world, "Better Writing" is designed as a supplement to main coursebooks at the low-intermediate to intermediate level. It should benefit those studying at secondary and tertiary institutions and adults undertaking training as part of their work or business experience. The author takes a step-by-step approach to the teaching of writing skills. Each unit begins with activities designed to increase awareness of what writing in English involves, and includes practice in mechanical skills (spelling, capitalization and punctuation), the construction and linking of sentences using conjunctions and subordination, and grammatical aspects. Through controlled and guided practice, students are gradually led towards writing accurate, cohesive, appropriate and more interesting paragraphs involving a variety of topics and functions. These include: explaining the functioning of a machine or instrument; describing a process; describing an object; making comparisons; describing tables and graphs; explaining cause and effect; writing formal and informal letters; describing change over time; and reporting speech and events.