4 pasos de revisar tus English writing tareas y mejorar tus notas
Bueno, he terminado el writing. ¿Qué hago ahora? ¿Está bien entregarlo sin revisarlo antes? ¿Qué tengo que comprobar exactamente? ¿Por qué nadie nunca me explicó cómo hacerlo? Deja de sentir pánico. ¡Aquí tienes los 4 pasos para revisar tus tareas de English writing antes de entregarlo para que saques las mejores notas!
Cuando los examinadores de Cambridge English, y tus profes también, califican los textos escritos se fijan en 4 elementos claves: contenido, éxito comunicativo, organización y lenguaje.
Vamos a ver lo que tú (o tu hijo) puedes hacer para asegurarte de que saques la mejor nota por un trabajo escrito y que no hayas cometido ningunos errores evitables.
Ok, I’ve finished my writing. What do I do now? Is it ok to hand it in without checking it over first? What do I even have to check? Why hasn’t anybody ever explained how to do this? Panic no more. Here are the 4 steps to proofreading your English wrting tasks before submitting it to get the best marks!
When marking written texts Cambridge English examiners, and teachers too, look at 4 key elements: content, communicative achievement, organisation and language.
Let’s see what you (or your child) can do to make sure you are getting the best possible grades for a piece of writing and that you haven’t made any preventable mistakes.
Revisar el contenido del writing
Antes de todo, tenemos que comprobar que has completado la tarea y que todo es pertinente. Si has subrayado todas las preguntas y las sub-preguntas de la tarea que te ha dado el profesor, será pan comido.
Verifica:
“¿He contestado la pregunta principal?”
“¿He contestado todas las sub-preguntas en la tarea?”
“¿Ayudan todos los párrafos a contestar la pregunta principal?”
“¿Es relevante todo lo que he escrito de la tarea?”
Comprueba que el texto está cerca del límite de palabras sugerido para la tarea. Estos límites son el número de palabras que cree tu profesor o un examinador que necesitas para completar la tarea. Si estás por debajo del límite, quizás no hayas contestado todas las partes de la pregunta. Si estás por encima del límite, quizás hayas escrito cosas irrelevantes. Incluir información que no se ha pedido en la tarea bajará tu nota.
Question (A2 Key Exam)
You have started going to a new sports club. Write an email to your English friend, Pat.
Tell Pat:
–where the club is
–what sport you do there
–how much it costs.
Write 25-35 words
Student’s Answer
Content: 5/5
Hi Pat,
I joined a new sport club at the school last week. I am playing football every week there and it don’t cost anything! It’s great fun. Do you want to come too?
Write soon,
José
Check the writing’s content
First of all, we need to check that you have completed the task and that everything is relevant. If you underline all the questions and sub-questions from the task that your teacher has given you, this will be a piece of cake.
Check:
“Have I answered the main question?”
“Have I answered all the sub-questions in the task?”
“Does each paragraph help to answer the main question?”
“Is everything relevant to the task?”
Check that you are within the suggested word limit too. These limits are the number of words your teacher or an examiner thinks you need to complete the task. If you’re under, maybe you haven’t answered all the questions. If you’re over, maybe you’ve written about things that aren’t relevant. Including information that isn’t asked for will lower your mark.
Question (A2 Key Exam)
You have started going to a new sports club. Write and email to your English friend, Pat.
Tell Pat:
–where the club is
–what sport you do there
–how much it costs.
Write 25-35 words
Student’s Answer
Content: 5/5
Hi Pat,
I joined a new sport club at the school last week. I am playing football every week there and it don’t cost anything! It’s great fun. Do you want to come too?
Write soon,
José
Revisar el éxito comunicativo del texto
Ésto les confunde a muchos de nuestros estudiantes, pero es simplemente comprobar que has escrito un texto apropiado para la pregunta. Si la tarea pide un ensayo y escribes una crítica que se podría presentar en la revista Hola, vas a perder puntos.
Verifica:
“¿Qué formato se pide en la pregunta? ¿Una carta, un artículo, una solicitud?”
“¿El texto sigue el estilo de éste formato?
“¿Quién es el lector planeado? ¿Debería usar lenguaje más formal o menos?”
“¿He usado oraciones largas y cortas para mantener el interés del lector? O peor, ¿He escrito algo que le distraerá?”
Queremos que el texto sí sea interesante. Queremos que siga un estilo fácil para el lector. No queremos que se tenga que esforzar en entenderlo.
Question (B2 FCE Exam)
Every country in the world has problems with pollution and damage to the environment. Do you think these problems can be solved?
Write an essay for your teacher about:
-transport
-rivers and seas
–_________ (your own idea)
Write 140-190 words
Student’s Answer
Communicative Achievement: 5/5
If we surf the web looking for pollution and environmental catastrophes, we will find that every country in the world suffers from them. This is a natural consequence of the struggle between development and environment.
If a country decided to live isolated from the rest of the world, living on what it can naturally grow and produce, it surely wouldn’t be highly polluted. But we all want exotic food and technological items from all over the world, so we have to pay the price.
Investing on electrical transport would benefit the environment a lot. Even more if this electricity came from a natural source like wind, rivers and solar boards. It’s difficult to achieve this because petrol companies will fight against these actions.
But what about ourselves? We can also do a lot. If, when possible, we bought larger packs of food, we would be producing less rubbish. And this is only an example.
Check the writing’s communicative achievement
This one confuses a lot of our students, but it’s simply checking if you have written an appropriate text for the question. If the task is to write an essay and you write a review that could feature in Hello Magazine, you’re going to lose marks.
Check:
“Which format was asked for? A letter, an article, an application?”
“Does my text follow the style of that format?”
“Who is the intended reader? Should I use formal or less formal language?”
“Have I used long and short sentences to keep the reader interested? Or worse, have I written anything that will distract the reader?”
We want the text to be interesting. We want it to follow the style that the reader expects to encounter. We don’t want the reader to have to concentrate hard in order to understand it.
Question (B2 FCE Exam)
Every country in the world has problems with pollution and damage to the environment. Do you think these problems can be solved?
Write an essay for your teacher about:
-transport
-rivers and seas
–_________ (your own idea)
Write 140-190 words
Student’s Answer
Communicative Achievement: 5/5
If we surf the web looking for pollution and environmental catastrophes, we will find that every country in the world suffers from them. This is a natural consequence of the struggle between development and environment.
If a country decided to live isolated from the rest of the world, living on what it can naturally grow and produce, it surely wouldn’t be highly polluted. But we all want exotic food and technological items from all over the world, so we have to pay the price.
Investing on electrical transport would benefit the environment a lot. Even more if this electricity came from a natural source like wind, rivers and solar boards. It’s difficult to achieve this because petrol companies will fight against these actions.
But what about ourselves? We can also do a lot. If, when possible, we bought larger packs of food, we would be producing less rubbish. And this is only an example.
Revisar la organización del texto
El paso 3 es comprobar que el texto fluye de frase a frase y de párrafo a párrafo. Lo logramos dando a nuestro writing una estructura visual clara y usando palabras/frases conectivas.
Verifica:
“¿Las ideas que estoy describiendo siguen un orden lógico?”
“¿He usado conjunciones y frases conectivas para hacer una transición entre oraciones y de un párrafo al otro?”
“Después de las correcciones precedentes, ¿aún es obvio a qué se refieren los pronombres? Y ¿es el apartado anterior aún el apartado anterior?”
Las cosas que les impiden a los estudiantes sacar buenas notas de organización son oraciones excesivamente largas con muchas comas, repetición, no usar pronombres y no tener claro el desarrollo de las ideas a lo largo del texto
Question (B1 PET Exam)
Your teacher has asked you to right a story.
This is the title of your story:
A lucky escape
Write your story in about 100 words
Student’s Answer
Organisation: 5/5
A Lucky Escape
When I was young, I saw a lucky escape. I was playing in the garden with some friends who lived in the same street, when a police car arrived. We were a bit scared and didn’t know why the car had come to my house. Maybe they were checking something or looking for someone.
Then the policeman got out and started speaking to one of my friends.
While the policeman was asking questions, I suddenly saw a strange person going out at the back of my neighbour’s house. My neighbour was on holiday, so the house was empty. I had never seen this person before. Suddenly he started to run. I didn’t know what to do, so I shouted to the police, but the man could run very fast and he got away. That was a lucky escape!
Check the organisation of the writing
Step 3 is checking that the text flows both from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph. We do this by giving our writing a clear visual structure and using linking words/phrases.
Check:
“Do the ideas I’m discussing follow a logical order?”
“Have I used linking-words and phrases to transition between sentences and from one paragraph to another?”
“After the previous edits, is it still obvious what the pronouns refer to? And is the previous section still the previous section?”
Things that stop students from getting good marks for organisation are excessively long sentences with several commas; repetition and not using pronouns; and having no clear development of ideas throughout the text.
Question (B1 PET Exam)
Your teacher has asked you to right a story.
This is the title of your story:
A lucky escape
Write your story in about 100 words
Student’s Answer
Organisation: 5/5
A Lucky Escape
When I was young, I saw a lucky escape. I was playing in the garden with some friends who lived in the same street, when a police car arrived. We were a bit scared and didn’t know why the car had come to my house. Maybe they were checking something or looking for someone.
Then the policeman got out and started speaking to one of my friends.
While the policeman was asking questions, I suddenly saw a strange person going out at the back of my neighbour’s house. My neighbour was on holiday, so the house was empty. I had never seen this person before. Suddenly he started to run. I didn’t know what to do, so I shouted to the police, but the man could run very fast and he got away. That was a lucky escape!
Revisar el lenguaje que has usado
Éste paso final se puede dividir en 2: la gramática y el vocabulario. Para sacar las mejores notas, es importante demostrar que sí puedes usar una variedad de la gramática simple y compleja con exactitud, así como también las palabras cotidianas y poco comunes*. Buscamos los errores gramaticales y léxicos por leer hacia atrás…
*(Para los ingleses, ¡ésa oración es enorme! Si escribes algo más largo que esa, correrás el riesgo de perder puntos por el éxito comunicativo.)
La gramática- Empieza al final de un párrafo y lee la última oración. ¿Tiene sentido sin el resto del texto? Si es así, avanza a la penúltima oración. ¿Ésta tiene sentido sola? Continúa leyendo de éste modo hasta que alcances el comienzo de la sección.
El vocabulario- Empieza al final del párrafo y lee la última palabra. ¿Se ésta deletreado bien? Cierto, repite el proceso con la penúltima palabra, entonces la antepenúltima y demás hasta que hayas revisado el texto entero.
Consejazo: “¿He usado la gramática y vocabulario que justo hemos aprendido en la clase de inglés?” ¡Es probable que lo busque tu profesor!
Check the language you have used
This final step can be divided into 2: grammar and vocabulary. To get better marks, it’s important to show that you can accurately use a range of simple and complex grammar as well as both common and uncommon words*. We check for grammatical and lexical errors by reading backwards…
*(For English people, that sentence is enormous! If you write something longer than that you’ll run the risk of losing marks for communicative achievement.)
Grammar- Start at the end of a paragraph and read the last sentence. Does it make sense without the rest of the text? If so, move on to the penultimate sentence. Does that make sense on its own? Continue reading this way until you reach the start of the section.
Vocabulary- Start at the end of a paragraph and read the last word. Is it spelt correctly? That’s right, repeat this process with the second last word, then the third last word and so on until you’ve checked the whole text.
Top tip: “Have I used the grammar and vocabulary that we’ve just learnt about in English class?” Your teacher is probably looking for it!
Éste procedimiento puede que tarde un poco más que lo que estás acostumbrado al principio, pero mejorará tus notas considerablemente. Serás capaz de asegurarte de que tu trabajo A) contiene toda la información relevante B) es apropiado para la tarea C) es fácil de leer y D) no tiene ningunos errores tontos.
Una vez estás acostumbrado a usar éste método mejorará tu velocidad, cometerá menos errores y te harás un escritor mejor. ¡Haz un esfuerzo por usar éste proceso de 4 pasos en tus siguientes deberes para ver la diferencia que pueden marcar en tus notas!
This procedure might take a little longer than you’re used to at first, but it really will improve your grades. You’ll be able to ensure your work A) contains all the relevant information B) is appropriate for the for the task C) is easy to read and D) hasn’t got any silly mistakes.
Once you’re used to using this method your speed will improve, you’ll make less mistakes and you’ll become a better writer. Try this 4-step plan in your next assignment to see what a difference it will make to your grades!
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