Many of us think of writing as a solitary activity - something we do when we are all alone in a “secluded spot”. This is not true. Most of our writing, like other forms of communication - telephone conversations, classroom discussions, meetings and presentations - is an intensely social activity. You may find it odd to hear writing called a social act, however, if you think about it carefully, you will realize that most writing activities are intensely social. Even simple writing activities, like taking a telephone message, sending an e-mail, or sending a personal letter, involve conveying a message to another person and doing so as clearly as possible. Even more complex writing activities, such as writing a progress report, or preparing a proposal outline, or writing an executive summary involve communication with the people addressed.
In much the same way, readers are engaged in a social act. They will interpret the message they have received in order to understand the meaning lying beyond the words themselves.
In some ways, writers’ and readers’ interactions with each other are like conversations at a party. When you are at a party you wander around, listening in briefly on conversations until you find one you want to join. What you say is shaped by a particular purpose: you wish to entertain a group of people, inform them or ask a question. Naturally, you will first listen to the conversation before joining in, because you do not want to repeat things that have already been said, and you will try and keep to the subject that is being discussed. When people converse, they like saying something new or interesting, something that helps move the conversation forward. Your decision to add to the conversation will be based, not only on what you have already listened to, but on your understanding of the needs, interests, values and beliefs of other members of the conversation. Contributing something of value to a conversation is centrally important in most writing projects. Just as you will be ignored or even shut down if you make an irrelevant comment at a party, so your writing will be ignored if it fails to offer something of value to your readers.
Writing and speaking well is important to all architects, and students of architecture should be aware of how important it is since one day, they will write to their clients, consultants, suppliers of building products, and all the people they will have business dealings with. You write to cause action!
Architects write to a client prospect because they want to have an interview, or to submit credentials, or to respond to a request for proposals (RfP)
They will write to current or past clients to be remembered when new projects arise, or be recommended to others.
They communicate with team associates and consultants to keep the current project on track.
They need to write in order to connect with their peers or competitors for an association or a joint venture.
As a student it is important to write well to get good grades, or to get a thesis or dissertation accepted. Once you will graduate and will glance at the help-wanted pages of any newspaper or professional newsletter you will see how many jobs demand some level of communication skills: “candidate must possess communication skills”.
But writing well in English for an ESL student is not an easy matter. Different cultures think in different ways.
Concise Style: Native speakers of English like to think and write in ways that are linear. In other words, people admire writing that “ gets to the point”. Writers are expected to “be straight” and not to “ go off the track”. One thing that the English cannot put up with is “ circular thinking”.
When writing in English people prefer using sentences that are lean and mean. They like nouns and verbs and are suspicious of other parts of speech - in particular they distrust adjectives and adverbs that seem to inflate a piece of prose when it really proves to be rather weak. It is useless for writers to use three or four words where one would do just as well. Writers who have been raised speaking other languages sometimes may find English, well, lacking. Where are those lovely adjectives? Where are the complex digressions? Don't the English love their language at all? Of course they do, but for different qualities. English is beautiful because it is a simple and balanced language.
The Top Common ESL Errors:
You will certainly find some of these errors in the writing of native speakers of English, but some (such as articles and preposition problems) are particular to writers for whom English is a second language.
1. Articles
Articles are perhaps the most persistent problems for non-native speakers of English.. ESL speakers will exhibit some difficulty with articles. According to them every noun requires an article, and it is unclear to some speakers when articles should be omitted. A native English speaker will never have trouble with articles: even children know at some fundamental level when to use or to omit "the," "a," or "an."
The basic rules for articles is not difficult to explain: countable nouns require articles; uncountable nouns generally do not. Reference to a concrete noun generally requires a definite article while an abstract noun usually requires an indefinite article. What complicates the matter is that the use of the article often depends on context, both grammatical and in relation to the sentence’s meaning.
2. Prepositions
This is a second area of error that is almost exclusive to ESL writers. Writers will have trouble understanding why it is that “sitting by the table” is different from “sitting at the table” or why there is a difference between “being concerned with something”, as opposed to “being concerned by something”.
Typically those prepositions used to express abstract thoughts will prove to be particularly meddlesome: an ESL writer may be able to visualize the difference between “being on the water” and “in the water”, but less able to see the difference between “dwelling in” and “dwelling on” a particular idea and emotion. Unfortunately, most preposition usage is simply a matter of usage!.
3. Infinitives or Gerunds?
Another category of error common to ESL writers is the incorrect use of infinitives. ESL writers tend to pattern their English sentences according to the sentence constructions in their native languages, where often many rules, including the rules for infinitives, differ from the rules used in English. Therefore, you will have writers composing sentences like, "I wouldn't mind to have a new car” instead of “ I wouldn’t mind having a new car.”
4. Using the wrong parts of speech
ESL writers will sometimes confuse parts of speech, using an adjective where they should use a noun, or an infinitive instead of a gerund, or an adverb in place of an adjective. This is common when one is learning a foreign language.
5. Agreement
Subjects and verbs must agree, tenses must agree and so on. Agreement errors are rather common in ESL papers.
6. Verb Tense and Forms
Choosing the proper tense is one of the major difficulties ESL students find when writing in English, since the use of tenses in their native language differs considerably from the use of tenses in English. They also get easily confused with irregular verbs such as “lie” and “lay” and the use of phrasal verbs
7. Sentence Structure
Great eighteenth–century writers often rolled out page-long sentences. That was an era when readers had time to plow through such prose. The goal today is to keep sentences short. It is easier to make a point clearly if you do not try to exceed eighteen words per sentence. Avoid cramming in too many ideas- one idea per sentence is plenty.
Read the following example from a proposal:
Our multi-disciplinary team offers not only capabilities in space programming, site planning, architectural design, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering, but also provides services in the areas of financial feasibility studies and environmental assessment, as well as in the administration of the construction contract and in the development of post-occupancy monitoring systems, all of which are critical elements in the successful implementation of a viable construction programme.
Here is a jungle of words. What is the meaning hidden in this pile of verbiage? If we try to pinpoint the several ideas and make each one into a separate sentence the proposal will appear this way:
Our multi-disciplinary team offers these services:
Space programming, site planning, architectural design including construction contract administration, as well as structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering.
Financial feasibility studies and environmental assessments.
Development of post-occupancy monitoring systems.
These services are critical to a viable construction programme.
8. Write as you would talk.
There is an odd but widely held convinction that writing is different from speech; that writing is formal while speaking is the opposite. For some people, speaking means the use of jargon.
Some people are convinced that when they write they must use pompous, hard-to-grasp language, as for example this example shows:
Implementation of the construction program’s first phase will be initiated as soon as proper authorization is received.
No professional would talk to another professional this way. You have to read it twice before the real meaning pokes through the clouds.
The person writing is trying to say “that work will go ahead as soon as a written ok arrives.”
9. Shun Jargon or “Designer Babble”
Do not confuse jargon with technical terminology. Every profession has its terminology that allows its members to talk with one another without defining each word. For example, as a structural engineer you will use terms as shear, moment, deflection, Vieremdeel truss, or space-web. If you are writing a class report about Gothic architecture, you may well have to use such terms as triforium, lancet arch, ogee window, and more. Designer-babble is different. Not only does it use technical terms with audiences that do not understand them; it invents words and phrases that confuse the public and may also make professionals throw up their hands in despair. Unavoidable technical or design terms are:
ashlar honeycombing parti
brownfield Howe truss pediment
BTU hypocaust plenum
caisson impluvium purlin
camber isometric quoin
capital axonometric rafter
CFC joist register
chlorosulphonated polyethylene King post truss repoussé
CMU layer ( as in CAD) reverberation time
corbel linenfold seismic code
decibel lintel shear
egg-and-dart lumens shim
elevation mimbar slump
emission mitigation spandrel
emissivity module torchère
English, Flemish, Dutch bond narthex Vierendeel truss
entourage oculus VOC
glume over mantel voussoir, keystone
hacking parging web, flange
withe
How can you tell when you cross the line from clarity to designer-babble? Put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Rigorously screen every phrase in your text. Whenever you have the slightest doubt as to the meaning, simplify the word, the phrase, and the context.
Note that when you go into professional practice, your reports, proposals, and correspondence will be read by people from different professions. If your client has a technical staff working for him then your design terminology will be understood immediately. But most of the time clients lack technical staffs; most key decisions, anyway, are taken at a higher level. That level includes administrators, politicians, senior management executives etc. These are laypeople who will certainly find your professional terminology obscure. If some technical terms cannot be avoided, insert a small glossary.
Read the following sentence from a building review:
Colliding volumes provided a convincing contemporary interpretation of spatial transparency, as extrapolated by an axiomatic jusxtaposition of superficial tension.
The first sentence seems to express the idea that two intersecting building parts were glass-faced so you could see through them. The second part is anyone’s guess, perhaps it wants to express the idea that when next to each other, the same two buildings had a bigger impact than when alone.
The following “before” and “after” examples are based on examples of designer-babble:
Description of a design:
Before:
The building’s formal strategies are consistent….The detailing ethic is the same- it’s forever.
After:
Form is consistent….the detailing is forever.
Profile of a firm:
Before:
Projects are either investigative or accommodative
After:
Designs either stretch the envelope or follow norms.
Terms such as formal strategies, projects that are either investigative or accommodative are at best a pernicious effort to invent new terms in hope that they will enter the common language.
10. Be specific:
The need for precision is the key ingredient of clear communication. Do not write “bring to reality” when you can simply say “ build”; say “partition” not “ divider element”. Words like “ interesting”, “ impressive”, “ basically”, and “situation” are considered filler words, and, unless defined, add nothing to your message. Note that the use of a vague term where a specific one would work better often stems from vagueness of thought, and in such cases if the thought can be sharpened the words will come.
Consider the following sentence from a proposal introduction.
The self-contained instructional space- a splendid teaching medium for a specific objective- is simply inadequate for other tasks.
Compare the above sentence with the following solution:
The enclosed classroom, superb for some types of instruction, simply will not work for other tasks.
11. Keep it simple:
Along with being specific you need to keep your writing simple.
Do not use: optimum, initiate, implement, aspirations, maximum, utilize.
Do use: best, start, carry out, hopes, most, use.
Read this extract from a marketing letter:
Reluctance to engage expert consultants is often considered under contemporary mangement practices to be an inefficient utilization of resources.
Compare the above extract with this solution:
It pays to use consultants.
12. Punctuation
Everyone has this problem, but ESL writers are plagued by it.
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