7 Powerful GED Writing Tips for Language Arts Success in 2020!

do you need to pass GED Language Arts do you want powerful GB writing tips guaranteed to raise your score well then stay tuned for the whole video hi this is Parker from desperate champions comm and we're about to get started but first I just want to point out that if you want free personalized feedback on your writing to help you with the GED essay just click the link down below in the description all right let's get started this first tip will help you with punctuation and capitalization so you don't lose points that you deserve to get in your writing you must end each sentence with a period exclamation mark or question mark exclamation marks are for showing strong feelings or excitement question marks are for questions in periods or for statements now in your essay try to stick mainly to periods you can throw with an exclamation mark or a question mark or two if you'd like to but they're usually not necessary when in doubt just stick to periods now the most important point to know about this though is that when you start a new sentence always capitalize the first letter of the first word in that new sentence make sense so far let's see with a quick example here we see a sentence John bought a book he just finished it but we see two versions of the sentence which is correct at version 1 or version 2 well hopefully you see that version 1 is incorrect and the reason is because we have this lowercase H starting the sentence here that's incorrect because we need to remember that at the start of a new sentence we always want to capitalize the first letter of the first word and that new sentence and number 2 John bought a book he just finished it we see that the H in the word he is properly capitalized and therefore 2 is correct now that we're clear on how to capitalize the first letter in a new sentence let's move on to tip number 2 tip number 2 is to make sure that you use words that sound the same but that are spelled differently correctly let's look at 2 vs. 2 vs. 2 we see 3 different spellings of the same word how do you know when to use each two well you want to use 2 spelled T wo for the number 2 for example we'd use T wo to say two women ride a rollercoaster but what about 2 spelled t oo used to spell t oo instead of also or in addition or you can use it for excessiveness or instead of the word berry for example we used to spelled t oo to say gene went biking her friend went to or that speed is too fast for me lastly what about to spelled T oh just remember that you use it in all other cases for example you would use to spelled t o for movement in the direction or a place of arrival or to indicate a range of time for example you would use to it spelled T oath to say we went to the city or we stayed from Monday to wednesday tip number three is to add transition words to your writing transition words connect ideas and they help the reader fall along with the passage so here are some examples and of course you've got to keep in mind the context of your writing to know when use these you've got to use common sense but these are some good words to start off a paragraph or four lists first second third next in addition lastly in the first place in the second place etc etc so to show an example you could say for example to demonstrate for instance or to illustrate for contrast you could say however in contrast on the other hand yet but or although and for conclusions you can just say in the conclusion therefore thus in short in brief or in summary these conclusions are great to put at the end the your essay you can start the closing paragraph off with one of these or you can use these at the end of your body paragraphs the next tip is extra important so make sure you pay close attention so we don't know exactly what the topic is gonna be there's no way to predict that but we do know what the prompt will be you're gonna have to read two passages by two different authors and both authors going to be trying to convince you that their position is correct and you're good I'm gonna write about which position is best supportive and to do this you're going to use a five paragraph essay ah--this so the fourth tip is to use the five paragraph essay format which I'll teach you how to do here so you're going to start off with an introduction which is one paragraph then three body paragraphs and then end with a conclusion but how do you know how to start the essay let's look at some formulas to help you crush it okay so the first thing that you must do is start off with a topic sentence what do you start off with you start your essay by writing what kind of sentence a topic sentence hopefully you were just listening and you got that right so give yourself a pat on the back if you got that right great job so let me give you some form now for writing a topic sentence so the first formula is blank is a controversial issue and in the blank you just put in whatever the topic of the essay is so these are just some examples if the topic was diamond mining you could say diamond mining is a controversial issue or you could say if it's about say for example teens arguing over the the best age to give teens a cellphone you could say the best age to give teams a cell phone is a controversial issue okay so also here's another formula I really like there's much debate about blank and again you just put the topic whatever the essay is about in the blank there so for example you could say there is much debate about diamond mining or if it's about cell phones you could say there's much debate about the best age to give teams a cell phone the formula 3 is another one that I really like here so formula 3 author a has a different viewpoint than author B on black and whatever the topic is you just put in there okay so if it's you could say for example the author of the letter has a different viewpoint than the author of the editorial on recycling alright so that would work now if you're given the names and I just made these games up but if you're given names you could just call people right out you could say Tom Smith has a different viewpoint than Jane Doe about renewable energy okay and so 4 is also another cool model that I really like here and there are both supporters and critics of Blanken whatever you the topic is again you put in that blank there so you could say they're both supporters and critics of daylight savings time all right so these are four formulas that I just made up here that you can use and these are totally valid ways to do it so and now let's move on here and I'll keep showing you how to quest the first paragraph alright so tip number five let's keep moving here so you want to start off with the topic sentence and the next thing that you want to do is you want to just state what both authors positions are now I like to do each in one sentence so I like to stay doubt there's a author aids position in one sentence and then author bees position in another sentence but you can combine them into one sentence if you want to here's a great tip here use the contrast transition between sentences two and three so remember your contrast I have some of the Impuls down below here so for example if it's about diamond mining you could say author a believes that diamond mining is good period however author B believes diamond mining is bad now you probably want to make it go a little bit more in-depth give a little more detail than that but that's an example roughly speaking of how you would do it alright and so then after those two sentences you want to then go on and state your own claim about which position is best supported all right and so you're going to be deciding after you passages which one has the strongest evidence which authors position is best supported by the evidence in the passage and you're just gonna state that in the final sentence in the first paragraph alright and so here's a great way to state which positions best support so you can just say author a provides a better supported argument than author be a right for example you can say the letter provides a better supported argument than the editorial if they don't give you names all right so the key though would that last sentence is just to clearly state which position is best support it doesn't have to be any brilliant amazing you know masterpiece just state which position is best supported in which position you're gonna be arguing in favor of throughout your essay alright so I want to now give some examples of a quote unquote perfect interest so this was in intro or this is a whole essay that got a perfect score and you can click the link down below or click or you can type the link on-screen in your search engine if you want to read this but it's not that important to read I'm just gonna give you some key parts okay so the topic sentence says both the press release and the letter to the editor offer positions that are supported by both fact and opinion so just a very simple to the point topic sentence that works and gets the job done here so take note of how this was done and then he or she whoever the author of this was goes on to state the author's positions right in so it's not really authors here it's a press release in a letter so the author said the author of the essay says the press release seems to exhort the new bill for expansion of highway 17 while the letter argues that the passing of the bill could prove detrimental to the district so while is a nice transition word here that we see right and so what's going on here again there's two different positions there's the press release and then there's the position in the letter and the author is just stating which what each of the positions are here and there's a nice transition word so the author chose to do it all in one sentence here which is a totally valid way to do it here alright now let's go on and let's look at the closing here so the writer he or she of the essay here says while both sides make an acceptable case the latter provides a stronger argument so they're just stating which position is stronger which one provides a better argument and so just simple to the point and definitely take note of how this was done so that's the intro but what about the body tip number six is to ace the body paragraphs and what you're doing again here is you're writing three different body paragraphs and so you're going to read those two passages and you're gonna pick which passage is the strongest and as the best evidence then out in that one passage that you think is the strongest you're gonna pick go through the evidence to pick out the three strongest pieces of evidence and then each paragraph is going to be dedicated to one piece of events all right and so these are some examples of strong arguments and these are just a few but we've got facts data stats and surveys expert in authority opinions and also research from research studies and experiments so these are just some signs that you've got a strong argument so again read the passage that you think is the most is the strongest and best supported pick out the three strongest pieces of evidence from that and then use body paragraph will be dedicated to an individual piece of evidence so tip number six is to help you ace the body paragraphs so here's a formula that you can use for the body so you're going to start off with a topic sentence and now this is a little bit different than the topic sentences in the introduction but it's basically the same thing then you're going to spend one or three sentences doing an explanation of that topic sentence and then you can also do a reputation in one three sentences where you basically look at the the weaker position named you're basically going to say why it's not as good as the stronger one all right and so the way is here's an example so here are some examples of words to start each body paragraph so you could say simply one reason why author is position is stronger is because he or she uses more statistics all right very simple way to do it okay and then you would put the statistic in the next sentence okay so you've got that topic sentence here one reason why author is position is stronger is because he or she uses more statistics okay so the topic is going to be the statistics and then you could put those as exact statistics in the next sentence so you could either quote or you don't want to copy directly but you can you can copy directly as long as you put quotes around it or you can just summarize how the author is using the statistics and you want to explain why that makes his position his or her position stronger and then next to just explain why it matters and or how the other position is lacking in statistics so you could just say for example something like one reason why I raised position is stronger is because he or she used more statistics then you'd list the statistics and the next sentence or two and explain why they matter then you could say author B makes some valid points but this authors lacking the statistics in fact so the position is not as strong something like that all right now here is another way that you can start each body paragraph and this might be even simpler so you could start each body paragraph by saying something like one example of why plank is the better supported position is blank and the first plank would be the author's name or if it's the letter or the editorial whatever she would say for example one example by author aids position is the better supportive position is because there are more facts in statistics all right and so then you would put your evidence there at the end of that sentence okay so you can then start the next paragraph with another example and then do the same type of thing another example of why author a has the better argument is because of more facts and statistics or because they cite expert opinions or whatever it is alright and then another way you can do it it's a second example okay so what I want to do now is just show you some highlights from this quote-unquote perfect essay to just really drive home how you can start off your body paragraphs so so this is an example from the perfect essay or the quote unquote perfect essay and it starts off by saying one example of the letter stronger argument is the explanation that federal tax dollars pay for the road as it will incorporate six different states therefore eliminating this particular state's ability to strike the ball down so very simply very very simple very at the point and the author just says one example and so note that the whole body paragraph the first body paragraph of the essay just starts off with one example of the letter stronger argument stating that the letter is stronger than the editorial amend explains why alright then so here's another example here so the author of the essay says another example of the better supported argument in the letter is the reference to the construction jobs as temporary okay so I just again I just want to highlight some some really good examples of how to start each body paragraph so this just starts with another example and then the last body paragraph also starts with another example so it says another example of the letter stronger argument is the author's explanation of the 2001 study so again I just want to point out here that hey all this authors did to get a perfect score was they they started each paragraph with another example alright so they first started with one example and then the other two body paragraph they started with another example then they just explained why alright so that's a simple way to start off and it worked to get a perfect score for that person okay so here's where we are here next we want to talk about the explanation and the refutation and I want to just show you here a perfect example of how to do this here so the author again starts off with that introduction that we already looked at and then goes on and say this proves with factual information that the district did not have a fair say in the bill so I like that that the author says factual information because that's basically just stating you know why someone's position is stronger because they use spectral information then the author he or she goes on to say the notion that few residents we use the road that their tax dollars providing is an opinion however a resident and small-business owner in the town is more credible in the awareness of the town's concern as compared to representative you attended a few meetings in the Town Hall so very good job here refuting those both stating why the letter is better and also stating why the editorial is not as strong here so we've got a perfect example here of both explaining why one argument is credible and then also stating why another argument is not credible so this is a good example to look at here and again like I said if you're having trouble with the body paragraphs just let me know down below click on that link down below and I'll take a look at your writing for you and we can get that sorted out the next tip is to vary your sentence length so tip number 7 is to bury your sentence length you want to use a mix of short long and average length sentences so figure out about what how many words on average you put in a sentence now you can use a word count tool like Google Docs or Microsoft Word you can copy and paste your writing when you're done practicing over there and you can use the tool to count or you can just estimate you don't have to necessarily get an exact number but just figure out about what the average length of words is that you put in a sentence and then just deliberately cut it about 15 to 20 words short or just deliberately put about 15 to 20 words longer just here in there to write your essay just to mix it up here and just note that it's especially powerful to use short sentences here and there so a short sentence can provide a quick punch that it really makes your writing shine and really helps your writing stand out but you will be graded on this so make sure that you vary your sentence like then do this intentionally and deliberately and remember this when you go into your test if you haven't done so already you'll now want to go check out my video on how to be GED grammar and how to beat the GDS and you'll learn more tips to help you pass the GED language arts section thank you so much for watching please give me a thumbs up if you found anything in this video helpful don't forget to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to send me your rate and click down below some of your writing I'll give you feedback free thanks a lot guys good luck on your test

Channel: Test Prep Champions

Views: 30,192

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Keywords: GED writing, GED writing tips, GED Language arts, GED writing 2019, GED language arts 2019, GED language arts tips

Id: KTakLdy9kkw

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 04 2019