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📝 Writing a winning grant application 📝

Last week we conducted two webinars on writing grant applications. "We" is a stellar team - Elizaveta Zanozina, Mariia Merziiapova, and myself - with a bunch of grant awards under our belts.

We got some great questions I want to answer publicly.

1️⃣ Is it difficult to win a grant?

Not really. The thing about winning a grant is you don't actually know how that happens - you don't see the other applicants, you don't see their writing, you don't see the decision makers. What you do to win is just submit your writing and then go about your life. Is that difficult? No.

If you writing is successful, you'll get to the interview stage. Is this stage difficult? It might be for some types of people, for example, for introverts like myself. But, anyway, you show up, smile, and just answer the questions. We survived.

2️⃣ Did any professional teachers or writers read your applications?

No, none of us had our writing read by anyone.

But it's a good idea to have your writing read by:
- previous or current program participants: they can give you insight as to whether your application matches the program mission;
- professional writers or writing teachers: they can help you make sure your writing is smooth and readable;
- your friends and/or colleagues: they can help you make sure your personality shines through in your writing.

3️⃣ Where do I get inspiration for the letter of motivation? Are there some websites I can look at?

The most important source of inspiration should be your life. I personally believe it's a bad idea to google how to write letters of motivation or even to read other people's essays. Everything you find online will also be found by other potential participants. Tap into your own inner resources and make your application unique. The decision makers read hundreds of applications. It will play in your favor to stand out.

Live stream with some tips on writing a successful ELEX application (or any application):

📅 Today, 13 November, 16:00 Moscow time

ELEX is a two-week fully-funded exchange program in the US for teachers. I am a proud ELEXer 2023. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Find out more: https://www.elexprogram.org/

📝 Setting off your paragraphs 📝

Another thing I keep pointing out more often than I would like...

❌ Don't

"What exactly has the most pronounced impact on children is still a matter of debate. While a whole host of factors undeniably play their role, I believe familial influence is the most profound one.
The factors other than the family include but are not limited to such external forces as school, peers, television, and social media. These might indeed instigate children to make certain choices or to pursue certain activities that they otherwise would not. For example, ..."

✅ Do

"What exactly has the most pronounced impact on children is still a matter of debate. While a whole host of factors undeniably play their role, I believe familial influence is the most profound one.

The factors other than the family include but are not limited to such external forces as school, peers, television, and social media. These might indeed instigate children to make certain choices or to pursue certain activities that they otherwise would not. For example, ..."

Please, insert an empty line between your paragraphs! Pretty please. 💜

In word processors, you can also press "Tab" or even hit "Space" three or more times - this will shift the first line of the paragraph to the right, thereby setting it off. But this doesn't work on social media.

If you don't do either, you create a wall of text - and no one wants to read a wall of text.

🦩Too many "and"s 🦩

This is one of the most common problems I have to point out. The sentence below, which is from a student's essay, contains four (!).

📝 "The convenience and efficiency of digital tools often tempts people to connect with friends and family via instant messengers or video calls instead of investing time and effort in organising personal meetings and shared activities."

When I ask students to rephrase, their go-to solution is typically "as well as" or the like. But this wouldn't be a good sentence either:

📝 "The convenience along with efficiency of digital tools often tempts people to connect with friends as well as family via instant messengers or video calls instead of investing time together with effort in organizing personal meetings coupled with shared activities."

The real problem is not "and." The real problem is that we are snowed under with nouns.

This is a much better rewrite:

📝 "The convenience of digital tools often tempts people to connect with others via instant messengers or video calls instead of engaging in shared activities in person."

Other rewrites? Share in the comments.

🦩 Too many "it"s 🦩

This is another common mistake, but it's a bit more subtle and a lot more dangerous. First, all the "it"s and "its"s must clearly refer to specific nouns, and, second, they must all have the same use in one sentence. Otherwise, a sentence can be confusing.

📝 To wit, this is a sentence from a student's essay:

"On the other hand, reading news online has its own merits too. First, it is its accessibility - it takes less than a minute to open your device, click the icon and receive information."

This is too many "it"s overall, and the first two in the second sentence are downright confusing.

📝 My rewrite:

"On the other hand, reading news online has merits too. One is accessibility -- getting the news this way takes very little time as all the person has to do is click an icon on their device."

Other rewrites? Share in the comments.

🦩 A free lesson in typing 🦩

Here is a free lesson in typing up a text (including a message):

- capitalize the first word in a sentence
- add punctuation at the end of a sentence
- don't put a space before a punctuation mark
- do put one after (I can't stress this enough - just one)
- and, finally, put one - I really can't stress this enough - just one space between words.

✉️ This looks unappealing, to put it mildly:

hi,Irina ! i would like to sign up for a writing course

✉️ I imagine it isn't much harder to type this:

Hi, Irina! I would like to sign up for a writing course.

Pause before you hit "send." Or at least edit your message after you do. If you want to make a good impression that is.

‼️ Fair warning: Everyone who sends me badly formatted messages will be forwarded this post and kindly asked to re-type. I am not even kidding.

📊 Punctuate my IELTS Task 1 overview 📊

"Punctuate my overview for this task," Irina asked her students because this is how she has fun in her IELTS writing classes.

It might not be as easy as it sounds though. Try your hand in the comments.

"Overall in each country one type of grain is the primary source of calories whose consumption by far exceeds that of the other two rice in Cambodia wheat in Egypt and Poland and maize in Mexico Egypt shows the largest total caloric intake while Poland the lowest being the country that shows no consumption of one type of cereal namely maize"

PS: Don't get any wrong ideas. This is how I do indeed have fun in my IELTS writing classes.

🗽 Comma or no comma with relative clauses 🗽

Boring, I know. But important.

Stop explaining the need for commas, or the lack thereof, with relative clauses with the help of "essential vs. non-essential information." This is not helpful. "Defining vs. non-defining" is probably more helpful. But, obviously, I have the most helpful explanation.

Everything hinges on whether there is one of something or more than one of something.

1️⃣ "My brother, who lives in New York, has three cats." I have one brother.
2️⃣ "My brother who lives in New York has three cats." I have more than one brother. One lives in New York. Another one(s) lives elsewhere.

3️⃣ "The entrance, which is located on the southern side, has been renovated." The place has one entrance.
4️⃣ "The entrance which is located on the southern side has been renovated." The place has more than one entrance. The entrance on the southern side has been renovated. The one located elsewhere hasn't.

So the meaning hinges on the comma, and the absence of the comma can create sentences that don't make sense. For example, "It reached 50,000 which was the highest recorded level." This sentence means there are more than one 50,000 marks: one was the highest level and one (or more than one) wasn't, which doesn't make sense.

More creative and context dependent uses:

5️⃣ Me talking to my students: "St Petersburg, where I live, is a gloomy place." I am Russian. Most of my students are Russian. I assume we all understand there is only one St Petersburg.

6️⃣ But I often badmouth St Petersburg because of its bad weather. So a student might get indignant and exclaim, "Well, the St Petersburg where I live is a nice, vibrant place." The meaning here is that, metaphorically speaking, there are two St Petersburgs, i.e. two perceptions of the city.

7️⃣ When I go to Florida, I might meet someone who lives in St Petersburg in this state. They might tell me, "St Petersburg is a cute little town." I might reply, "The St Petersburg where I live is neither cute nor little." There are two St Petersburgs, literally.

To sum up, what makes the information essential or non-essential and the clause defining or non-defining is whether there is only one or more than one of something.

Did this post make your head spin? This is not even an exhaustive explanation...

My IELTS Speaking failure/success

Those of you who follow me on the prohibited network at ira.lutse.ielts have seen my IELTS speaking score from 1 October - a miserable 8, with the score breakdown 8888.

But after a remark, my speaking score was boosted to 8.5, with the score breakdown 9998. This pesky 8 is pronunciation. And no wonder - I don't care about pronunciation.

Serves me right. I should.

I am looking for an American pronunciation coach. Please recommend one in a private message at @iraluts. 💌

PS: I know my IELTS writing students were happy to read "... my IELTS speaking score from 1 October - a miserable 8 ... " not because they wanted to relish my failure, but because "a + adjective + figure" is a beautiful pattern, one that they have, no doubt, used in their writing. And now my IELTS writing students are doubly happy because they've noticed a resumptive modifier. Who needs pronunciation when you have all this beauty in writing ... 💜

🦋 A good referencing mistake, one you can learn from 🦋

There are bad mistakes and good mistakes.

Bad mistakes are mistakes you just keep making despite countless corrections. For example, "a big number of people" or "the least amount of money."

Good mistakes are ones you can learn from. Here is a good mistake - a beautiful one - made by a student. It is very subtle, though. Will you even notice it?

📝 "As people’s desire to stay abreast of current affairs is increasing, they can easily do so by exploiting a wide range of internet sources."

The referencing here doesn't work because "they" is in the nominative case, but "people's" is in the possessive case. You can't use a possessive noun as an antecedent for a nominative pronoun.

You might also encounter the term "implied noun." In "people’s desire," the noun "people" is an implied noun, while "desire" is the stated one. Pronouns can only refer to stated nouns.

📝 My fix for the sentence above: "People increasingly want to stay abreast of current affairs, which they can easily do by exploiting a wide range of internet sources."

Many different fixes are possible. Feel free to offer one in the comments.

🦩 An implied noun referencing mistake II 🦩

Here is another example of an implied noun referencing mistake:

📝 "Irina is wearing a stunning pink skirt. It is her favorite color."

"It" is supposed to refer to the color pink, but in this example "pink" is an adjective, so "it" can't refer to it. And the stated noun is "skirt," which is what "it" refers to, thus creating confusion.

This is "another example" because the first example was given in the previous post - make sure to read it.

You see, it's these kinds of things that make writing very different from speaking. You say something like "Irina is wearing a stunning pink skirt. It is her favorite color," and no one cares - the conversation keeps going. But you write something like this - and the reader notices because it creates confusion.

Do you love writing as much as I do? 💜

🦊 IELTS score breakdown/remark lifehack 🦊

Use this lifehack to get as much information out of your IELTS score as possible (and/or to bring some entertainment into your dull life).

1. Take the test.
2. Apply for a score breakdown immediately after you get your result.
3. Wait for 5 weeks (or even for 5 weeks and 4 days if you are a daredevil). Then apply for a remark, which you can do within 6 weeks of sitting your test.
4. Apply for a score breakdown again.

This way you will have two score breakdowns on the same answer, i.e. more information. If you apply for a remark immediately after the exam, most likely you will get the score breakdown for the remark only, so you will only have one score breakdown, i.e. less information.

How is this useful? Let's consider my two score breakdowns for speaking from the exam on 1 October: 8888 before the remark and 9998 after the remark. So, I see that one weakness persists - pronunciation. (I am still looking for an American pronunciation coach, btw. 🇺🇸)

This lifehack, apart from giving you more information about your IELTS score, is guaranteed to bring some thrill into your life. Don't I know it.

PS:
- Your score does not go down from a remark. It will either remain unchanged or increase.
- Remarks are done by senior examiners.
- The examiners doing the remarks don't know your original score.
- Score breakdowns are not given by test centers. They are given by BC or IDP - ask me how to get one if you don't know.

📝 Sentence chaos and how to fix it 📝

Look at this sentence from an IELTS essay written by a student.

📝 "Younger people who do community service for free may be instilled with the spirit of community and develop empathy, sensitivity to others' needs, and make choices that benefit everyone, thereby fostering community prosperity."

The source of chaos is the abundance of elements that are not properly connected. What is an element? Different things can be elements, but in this case it's verbs and nouns. I'll underline them for convenience.

"Younger people who do community service for free may be instilled with the spirit of community and develop empathy, sensitivity to others' needs, and make choices that benefit everyone, thereby fostering community prosperity."

1️⃣ Verbs

We have three verbs, one of which is passive and two active. This is not good already. Even worse is the fact that all three are connected with "and." "And" must only be used before the last element (unless you are using a stylistic device called polysyndeton, which, of course, you shouldn't be doing in IELTS).

2️⃣ Nouns

We have two nouns here "develop empathy, sensitivity." The nouns are not connected with a conjunction, which is a crime against nouns if you ask me (unless you are using a stylistic device called asyndeton, which, of course, you shouldn't be doing in IELTS).

My rewrite:

📝 "Younger people who do community service for free will develop empathy and sensitivity to other people's needs, making choices that benefit everyone and thereby fostering community prosperity."

Now all the elements are wonderfully connected.

You will have noticed that I've deleted "be instilled with the spirit of community." It doesn't really contribute much to meaning - no reason to keep it.

Other rewrites? Share in the comments. 📝

🦋 Irina writing an IELTS essay ....

Irina writing an IELTS essay be like...

1️⃣ "These two factors will have a detrimental impact on society."

No, that's just boring.

2️⃣ "The scale of the danger from both of these factors is such that it might lead to an outcome as atrocious as complete social disintegration."

Is it over the top? Share in the comments. 😬

PS: What I really wanted to use is "social disintegration" because I read it yesterday and wanted to recycle immediately.