I’ve sat through enough marking sessions to know that most students approach the question of how to write a report with a heavy dose of unnecessary fluff. They think that if they use enough “academic-sounding” jargon or wrap their ideas in layers of complex, winding sentences, they’ll somehow impress the examiner. It’s a complete myth.
I remember sitting at my small kitchen table years ago, surrounded by a mountain of red ink and the weary faces of adult students who had failed their exams for the second time. They didn’t need more “inspiration” or flowery metaphors; they needed to know why their hard work wasn’t translating into points. Most of
I was sitting in my small office last Tuesday, staring at yet another CV that had been through a professional translation service, and I felt that familiar, sharp prickle of frustration. The candidate was clearly brilliant, but they had spent hundreds of dollars on a “premium” service only to end up with a document that
I was sitting in my small office last Tuesday, marking a stack of practice essays, when I saw it again: the same clumsy, over-rehearsed sentence structure that has been haunting my “List of Fifty” for years. It’s the same pattern I see when students try to figure out how to write a cover letter; they
I was sitting in my office last Tuesday, staring at a stack of practice essays, when I saw it again: a student trying to decline a business proposal using language so flowery and indirect that it actually sounded aggressive. They think that being polite means hiding behind a mountain of unnecessary, “sophisticated” vocabulary, but in
I’ve spent nineteen years watching grown adults—smart, capable professionals—completely tank their writing scores because they think an apology requires a thesaurus. They sit there, sweating over their keyboards, trying to find the most “sophisticated” way to say they’re sorry, when all they’re actually doing is making themselves sound like a robot. Most textbooks will give
I was sitting in my classroom last Tuesday, looking at a stack of practice papers, when I saw it again: the same frantic, emotional, and ultimately useless rambling that kills a score before the examiner even finishes the first sentence. Most textbooks will tell you that knowing how to write a complaint is about using
I was sitting in my small office last Tuesday, staring at a particularly heartbreaking exam paper from a student I’ve taught for six months. He was brilliant, a sharp man with a wealth of professional experience, yet he had completely tanked his score because he tried to be too polite. He had buried his actual
I was sitting in my classroom last Tuesday, staring at a stack of exam scripts, when I saw it again: the same misplaced “Dear Sir/Madam” followed by a tone so casual it practically invited the reader to sit down for tea. It’s a pattern I’ve seen more than fifty times, and frankly, it’s exhausting. Most
I’ve sat through countless workshops where instructors drone on about “elevating your vocabulary” or using complex, flowery sentence structures to sound more professional. Honestly? It’s a waste of your time. I’ve seen brilliant, highly educated professionals fail their writing exams because they were too busy trying to sound like a Victorian novelist instead of just