December 29, 2012

Weekly Finds: December 29, 2012

A Man With Magnifying Glass by digitalart
Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every week, we’ll be sharing a list of posts, stories, news, or opinions that we've run across the Internet during the past week or two. We won't be discussing them in detail here, but we do encourage you to check them out as they could contain valuable ideas and insights for your IELTS exam.

If you're ready, here we go...

GRAMMAR


ENGLISH QUIZ: Test your tenses!

Answer these questions and find out just how good you are with the use of tenses in English!

PUNCTUATION


13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using

Because sometimes periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won’t do.

HOW MANY SPACES AFTER A PERIOD?

What's the rule: Use one space or two spaces after a period? The author provides the answer.

Grammar Practice Sheets: Apostrophes, Quotation Marks and Underlining (and others)

The author shares practice activities on punctuation. Check them out.

READING


Want to Read Faster? Stop Saying The Words in Your Head As You Read

When you read, do you hear the words in your mind or even subconsciously say them under your breath? Break this one habit, called subvocalization, and you can double or even triple your reading speed.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT


Your Brain Can Fool You Into Hating Something You Actually Like

Our brains love playing tricks on us, and the results can be detrimental. Because of how we remember certain events, even a good experience can be recalled as an awful one because of one little problem.

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter

Whether you're trying to survive an intensive college schedule or just want to seem smarter in front of your friends, you can do a lot of things to both look and be smarter. Here are ten simple tricks for boosting your real (and perceived) brain power.

Humor for writers – A dangerous book …

There was once a mild-mannered man who read a book of assertiveness. Learn what happened after he put the tips into use.

19 Ways to Bounce Back from Just About Anything

Want to bounce back better and faster when life hits you with unexpected surprises? Here’s a quick list of some of the most useful tips to get back on your feet.

Language Learning Makes the Brain Grow, Swedish Study Suggests

At the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy, young recruits learn a new language at a very fast pace. By measuring their brains before and after the language training, a group of researchers has had an almost unique opportunity to observe what happens to the brain when we learn a new language in a short period of time.

The curious imperative

Now that information is ubiquitous, the obligation changes. It's no longer okay to not know.

SPEAKING


Communicating without words

It turns out that your body language also shapes who you are (not just how others feel about you, but how you feel about yourself)...

VOCABULARY


4 Tools for Building Academic Vocabulary

Technology is an effective and engaging tool that can be used to improve vocabulary acquisition for all learners.

50 Nautical Terms in General Use

The vocabulary of sailing has enriched the English language with the development, by analogy, of new senses for nautical terms. Here are fifty such words with their original meanings and their landlubber connotations.

“Bring” vs. “Take” differences in UK and American English

Both are about moving something. Do note the differences though.

Immigrate, Emigrate, Migrate

These three words look similar and have similar meanings. The author explains the meanings and differences between these three commonly mixed-up words.

Phrasal verbs with live

Here is a list of phrasal verbs using the word live. Each phrasal verb is followed by its definition and example sentences.

WRITING


SENTENCE STRUCTURE: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RAMBLING AND QUALITY WRITING

How to curb your addiction to commas.

3 Types of Accidental Writing to Avoid

Alliteration, punning, and rhyming are a trio of tried-and-true techniques for letting your prose out of the pen, introducing levity (perhaps at the expense of brevity). When inadvertently applied, however, they can distract readers because their use is inconsistent with a writer’s tone, or because the application is excessive. Here are some comments about proper and improper use of these writers’ tools.

Signposts in academic writing

Signposts in academic writing are as important as grammar and vocabulary! In western academic writing the reader is guided carefully through an argument. Nothing is a surprise when you are reading an academic text! International students who are writing at university need to be aware of signposts.