英语海报写作范文（热门20篇）

在学习英语写作之前先来看下练习写作对你的英文有什么样的帮助：

好处1、辅助提升口语语言组织力

好处2、提升语法

好处3、帮助背单词和句型。

了解到联系英语写作带来的好处后让我们来看看学习英语写作有哪些方法：

零基础英语写作入门方法一：背单词

单词是英语写作的基本构成之一，拥有大量的词汇才能写出你想要的文章，背单词有很多方法用mp3在零碎的时间边听边背边写，还有单词前后缀记忆法等众多方法，只要掌握其中一种适合你的方法，就开始大量的充实你的词汇吧。

零基础英语写作入门方法二：语法

语法是将单词串联在一起变成文章的那根线，学习好语法是整个英语阅读的重中之重。推荐熟读语法俱乐部，同时搭配大量的阅读自己感兴趣的文章，在大量的语境中去领受感悟本书的妙处。

零基础英语写作入门方法三：长时间的练习

写日记，这是最简单最长久的写作练习你不需要有任何的准备，这是你会接触到最基础的写作练习，你可以写任何你感兴趣的事情，你要做的就是拿起笔和本子把自已生活上的点点滴滴用英文记录下来。下面就是我的第一篇英文日记！

"today i rest,i stayed at home.sister call me go to the mother.i want not go there,because i must go to the company .去领 clothes.刚刚上完课come back.at home i find my 皮 shoes.now 要穿皮shoes了,write 日记好搞笑，还可以写点english了,i believe 以后 i sure i会更好。”

大家可能会看不懂这篇文章。你可能会觉得很好，说老实话当我现回过头去看我以前的日记我看了也觉得很好笑。但这就是我的第一篇英文日记，我的英文写作就是从这里开始的。你会发现写得非常直白，简直就是中文翻译毫无语法可言。但没有关系每个人开始都是这样的。

在写日记的开始阶段，你可能会像我这样不知道怎么去写或跟本无法组织语言，你可以像我这样按自已大脑里中文的想法去写，把会的单词都写上去不会的就用中文代替。在这个阶段你更多的是在使用你所学的词汇，有时候你会觉得这样很好玩。每天坚持写一篇，慢慢的你会发现你用的中文越来越少了有时候整篇文章都可以用英文写出来，随着你英语学习的进度不断推进，你在写句子的时候你不会直译了，你开始吧语法考虑到你的语言组织里面去。

当你要表边一个句子又找不到这个单词的时候，这种映像会深深的印在你的脑海里，当你在收集单词时候你就会注意收集那些非常实用的单词了。你会背更多的单词因为你想终有一天我的整篇文章是用英文写的。对于初期的写作，我认为就是这样写吧，请注意兴趣的培养。

一、认真审题，确定时态人称，同时关注题材格式

时态：故事性文章一般用过去时，其中表达感受时可用现在时。

说明性或议论性文章一般用现在时，举例时可用过去时。

根据题目要求也会出现时态的交错使用，如过去和现在的对比等。

如果句中出现了时间状语，时态则要遵循时间状语。

如ago，last…——过去时

next，in…——将来时等

人称：注意在句子中人称的统一。

例如：Thanks to the teachers， we have improved our English。

其中we和our就是人称的统一。

格式：注意书信格式的开头和结尾。

二、找全信息点，紧扣主题，突出重点

切忌只看表格中或所列1、2、3中的信息点。一定把题读全，找齐信息点，建议用铅笔标出，写完后再涂掉。

根据题目，可适当增加合理内容。

特别注意文章要有开头和结尾。

三、成文时表述正确，文字流畅

切忌与汉语提示的一一对应，使用所学表达方法将语义表达出来即可。

首先考虑句子结构(如主谓宾，主系表等)。

同时注意短语的正确使用和单词的拼写，最好使用课本上学过的短语和句式。

四、文章结构清晰，重点句型出彩，可使文章在得分上提高一个档次

考虑文章的篇章结构，使用适当的连接短语，使文章结构紧凑。

常用连接词：

1.表文章结构顺序：First of all，Firstly/First，Secondly/Second…

And then，Finally，In the end，At last

2.表并列补充关系的：What ismore，Besides，Moreover，Furthermore，Inaddition

3.表转折对比关系的：However，On the contrary，but

Although+clause( 从句)，In spite of+n/doing

On the one hand…

On the other hand…

Some…，while others…

4.表因果关系的：Because，As

So，Thus，Therefore，As a result

5.表换一种方式表达：In other words

6.表进行举例说明：For example，句子;For instance，句子;such as+n/doing

7.表陈述事实：In fact

8.表达自己观点：As far as I know，In my opinion

9.表总结：In short，In a word，In conclusion，In summary

文中正确使用两三个好的句型，如：宾语从句、状语从句、动名词做主语等。

宾语从句举例：I believe Tianjin will be more beautifulandprosperous。

状语从句举例：If everyone does something for the environment， ourhometown will become clean and beautiful。

动名词做主语举例：Reading books in the sun is bad for our eyes。

It’s bad for our eyes to read books in the sun。

常用状语从句句型：

1)时间when，not…until，as soon as

2)目的so that+clause;to do( 为了)

3)结果so…that+clause，too…to do(太……以至于……)

4)条件if，unless(除非)，as long as(只要)

5)让步though，although，even though，even if

no matter what/when/where/who/which/how

6)比较as…as…，not so…as…，than

五、认真检查，检查信息点是否全面，时态、人称是否一致，句子结构是否清晰，短语使用、单词拼写是否准确等。

检查后，将草稿誊写在纸上，请注意按结构分段，书写清晰。

下面列举一些在检查中可发现的错误：

1.We live more and more comfortable。

改正：comfortably(副词修饰动词)

2.we can get many informations by reading newspapers。

改正：much information

(不可数名词由much修饰)

3.There has many programs in TV。

改正：There are many programs on TV。

(There be句型和介词短语)

4.I think ride a bike can keep our health。

改正：I think riding a bike can keep us healthy。(动名词作主语)

建议大家练习或模仿不同题材的文章，特别注意改错总结和吸取范文中好的结构与表达方法，适当运用于自己的文章中。

如何写通顺的英语

英语写作是语言应用的一个重要方面，也是语言能力测定的重要手段，衡量写作水平的标准便是看其是否能用学过的语言材料，语法知识等用文字的形式来表达描述。

书面语言表达一般分为三个过程：思维、组织、表达。先是思维，把要写的东西在脑中思考，这往往是个别的，孤立的一些素材，很凌乱琐碎；因此要对此进行组织，把这些思维作出整理，使其条理、系统化，但这还是较粗糙的，可能还有一些用词不当或语言错误；最后才是表达，把组织过的材料仔细推敲，确无问题了再落笔成文。

在撰写时要注意主谓语一致，时态呼应，用词贴切等，这就是写作。上述的三个过程，最难的就是第三个过程，这需要我们有较好的语法知识，掌握一定数量的句型，习惯用语，熟练的写作技巧，这样才能写出通顺生动的文章来。

总之，要提高英语写作水平，需要两方面的训练：一是语言基础方面的训练，要有扎实的造句、翻译等基本功，即用词法、句法等知识造出正确无误的句子；二是写作知识和能力方面的训练以掌握写作方面的基本方法和技巧。

那么，究竟怎样才能写好作文呢？

阅读优秀范文

首先要搞好阅读。阅读是写作的基础，在阅读方面下的功夫越深，驾驭语言的能力也就越强。所以要写好英语先要读好英语，在语言学习方面狠下苦功，教科书要读透，因为教科书中的文章都是一些很好的范文，文笔流畅，语言规范，精彩的一些课文段落要背诵。再就是要进行大量课外阅读，并记住一些好文章的篇章结构。

加强练词造句训练

其次，要加强练词造句的训练。词句对作文相当于造房的材料，无好材料就造不出好房子。平时在学习阅读时要注意收集积累，把好的词语、短语、句型做好笔记。平时在练习中的错误也要做好记录，再对照正确句子，使地道的英语句子如同条件反射，落笔就对。

了解英语写作格式

还有，要了解英语写作的不同体裁与格式。可以先看一本介绍英语写作入门的书，对英语写作有一个初步的概念，如怎么写议论文，如何提出论据，如何展开，如何确定中心句；又如，英语信的格式，如何根据不同身份写不同结束语等，然后根据不同的体裁进行写作练习。

用英语写日记

要养成记英语日记勤练笔的好习惯。经常用英语记日记，等于天天在练笔，这无疑是提高英语协作的行之有效的好办法。在记日记时，不要总是用简单句，要有意识地用一些好的词组、句型、关联词和复合句等，使文句更优美生动。还有要按照题目或所给情景写文章练笔。写好后对照范文，找出差距，然后再练习，这对提高英语作文也很有帮助，在游泳中学会游泳，只有多练习才能练好。

总之，平时学习语言素材积累多了，体裁格式记住了又经常练习不断提高，到作文下笔时就会得心应手，水到渠成。

小编导语：英语作文是英语考试中的一个得分点，那么在写作过程中有什么技巧呢，下面是小编收集整理的相关资料，希望对您有所帮助。

1、首尾呼应，画龙点睛在文章的结尾，把含义较深的话放在末尾，以点明主题，深化主题，起到画龙点睛的效果。如“I Cannot Forget Her” (我忘不了她)的结尾：

After her death， I felt as if something were missing in my life. I was sad over her passing away， but I knew she would not have had any regrets at having given her life for the benefit of the people.

2、重复主题，句结尾回到文章开头阐明的中心思想或主题句上，达到强调的效果。如“I Love My Home Town”(我爱家乡)的结尾：

I love my home town， and I love its people. They too have changed. They are going all out to do more for the good of our motherland.

3、自然结尾随着文章的结束，文章自然而然地结尾。如“Fishing”(钓鱼)的结尾：

I caught as many as twenty fish in two hours， but my brother caught many more. Tired from fishing， we lay down on the river bank， bathing in the sun. We returned home very late.

4、含蓄性的结尾

用比喻或含蓄的手法不直接点明作者的看法，而是让读者自己去领会和思考。如“A Day of Harvesting”(收割的日子)的结尾：

Evening came before we realized it. We put down our sickles and looked at each other. Our clothes were wet with sweat， but on every face there was a smile.

5、用反问结尾

虽然形式是问句，但意义却是肯定的，并具有特别的强调作用，引起读者深思。如“Should We Learn to Do Housework?”(我们要不要学做家务?) 的结尾。

Everyone should learn to do housework. Dont you agree， boys and girls?

6、指明方向，激励读者结尾表示对将来的展望，或期待读者投入行动。如“Lets Go in for Sports”(让我们参加体育运动)的结尾：As we have said above， sports can be of great value. They not only make people live happily but also help people to learn virtues and do their work bettter. A sound mind is in a sound body. Lets go in for sports.

语言和内容是评判一篇英语论文质量高低的重要依据;但是,写作格式规范与否亦是一个不可忽略的衡量标准。小编收集了英语论文的格式与写作方法，欢迎阅读。

一、英语论文的标题

一篇较长的英语论文(如英语毕业论文)一般都需要标题页,其书写格式如下:第一行标题与打印纸顶端的距离约为打印纸全长的三分之一,与下行(通常为by,居中)的距离则为5cm,第三、第四行分别为作者姓名及日期(均居中)。如果该篇英语论文是学生针对某门课程而写,则在作者姓名与日期之间还需分别打上教师学衔及其姓名(如:Dr./Prof.C.Prager)及本门课程的编号或名称(如:English 734或British Novel)。打印时,如无特殊要求,每一行均需double space,即隔行打印,行距约为0.6cm(论文其他部分行距同此)。

就学生而言,如果英语论文篇幅较短,亦可不做标题页(及提纲页),而将标题页的内容打在正文第一页的左上方。第一行为作者姓名,与打印纸顶端距离约为2.5cm,以下各行依次为教师学衔和姓、课程编号(或名称)及日期;各行左边上下对齐,并留出2.5cm左右的页边空白(下同)。接下来便是论文标题及正文(日期与标题之间及标题与正文第一行之间只需隔行打印,不必留出更多空白)。

二、英语论文提纲

英语论文提纲页包括论题句及提纲本身,其规范格式如下:先在第一行(与打印纸顶端的距离仍为2.5cm左右)的始端打上 Thesis 一词及冒号,空一格后再打论题句,回行时左边须与论题句的第一个字母上下对齐。主要纲目以大写罗马数字标出,次要纲目则依次用大写英文字母、阿拉伯数字和小写英文字母标出。各数字或字母后均为一句点,空出一格后再打该项内容的第一个字母;处于同一等级的纲目,其上下行左边必须对齐。需要注意的是,同等重要的纲目必须是两个以上,即:有Ⅰ应有Ⅱ,有A应有B,以此类推。如果英文论文提纲较长,需两页纸,则第二页须在右上角用小写罗马数字标出页码,即ii(第一页无需标页码)。

三、英语论文正文

有标题页和提纲页的英语论文,其正文第一页的规范格式为:论文标题居中,其位置距打印纸顶端约5cm,距正文第一行约1.5cm。段首字母须缩进五格,即从第六格打起。正文第一页不必标页码(但应计算其页数),自第二页起,必须在每页的右上角(即空出第一行,在其后部)打上论文作者的姓,空一格后再用阿拉伯数字标出页码;阿拉伯数字(或其最后一位)应为该行的最后一个空格。在打印正文时尚需注意标点符号的打印格式,即:句末号(句号、问号及感叹号)后应空两格,其他标点符号后则空一格。

四、英语论文的文中引述

正确引用作品原文或专家、学者的论述是写好英语论文的重要环节;既要注意引述与论文的有机统一,即其逻辑性,又要注意引述格式 (即英语论文参考文献)的规范性。引述别人的观点,可以直接引用,也可以间接引用。无论采用何种方式,论文作者必须注明所引文字的作者和出处。目前美国学术界通行的做法是在引文后以圆括弧形式注明引文作者及出处。现针对文中引述的不同情况,将部分规范格式分述如下。

1.若引文不足三行,则可将引文有机地融合在论文中。如:

The divorce of Arnolds personal desire from his inheritance results in “the familiar picture of Victorian man alone in an alien universe”(Roper9).

这里,圆括弧中的Roper为引文作者的姓(不必注出全名);阿拉伯数字为引文出处的页码(不要写成p.9);作者姓与页码之间需空一格,但不需任何标点符号;句号应置于第二个圆括弧后。

2.被引述的文字如果超过三行,则应将引文与论文文字分开,如下例所示:

Whitman has proved himself an eminent democratic representative and precursor, and his “Democratic Vistas”

is an admirable and characteristic

diatribe. And if one is sorry that in it

Whitman is unable to conceive the

extreme crises of society, one is certain

that no society would be tolerable whoses

citizens could not find refreshment in its

buoyant democratic idealism.(Chase 165)

这里的格式有两点要加以注意。一是引文各行距英语论文的左边第一个字母十个空格,即应从第十一格打起;二是引文不需加引号,末尾的句号应标在最后一个词后。

3.如需在引文中插注,对某些词语加以解释,则要使用方括号(不可用圆括弧)。如:

Dr.Beaman points out that“he [Charles Darw in] has been an important factor in the debate between evolutionary theory and biblical creationism”(9).

值得注意的是,本例中引文作者的姓已出现在引导句中,故圆括弧中只需注明引文出处的页码即可。

4.如果拟引用的文字中有与论文无关的词语需要删除,则需用省略号。如果省略号出现在引文中则用三个点,如出现在引文末,则用四个点,最后一点表示句号,置于第二个圆括弧后(一般说来,应避免在引文开头使用省略号);点与字母之间,或点与点之间都需空一格。如:

Mary Shelley hated tyranny and“looked upon the poor as pathetic victims of the social system and upon the rich and highborn...with undisguised scorn and contempt...(Nitchie 43).

5.若引文出自一部多卷书,除注明作者姓和页码外,还需注明卷号。如:

Professor Chen Jias A History of English Literature aimed to give Chinese readers“a historical survey of English literature from its earliest beginnings down to the 20thcentury”(Chen,1:i).

圆括弧里的1为卷号,小写罗马数字i为页码,说明引文出自第1卷序言(引言、序言、导言等多使用小写的罗马数字标明页码)。此外,书名 A History of English Literature 下划了线;规范的格式是:书名,包括以成书形式出版的作品名(如《失乐园》)均需划线,或用斜体字;其他作品,如诗歌、散文、短篇小说等的标题则以双引号标出,如“To Autumn”及前面出现的“Democratic Vistas”等。

6.如果英语论文中引用了同一作者的两篇或两篇以上的作品,除注明引文作者及页码外,还要注明作品名。如:

Bacon condemned Platoas“an obstacle to science”(Farrington, Philosophy 35).

Farrington points out that Aristotles father Nicomachus, a physician, probably trained his son in medicine(Aristotle 15).

这两个例子分别引用了Farrington的两部著作,故在各自的圆括弧中分别注出所引用的书名,以免混淆。两部作品名均为缩写形式(如书名太长,在圆括弧中加以注明时均需使用缩写形式),其全名分别为 Founder of Scientific Philosophy 及 The Philosophy of Francis Baconand Aristotle。

7.评析诗歌常需引用原诗句,其引用格式如下例所示。

When Beowulf dives upwards through the water and reaches the surface,“The surging waves, great tracts of water, / were all cleansed...”(1.1620-21).

这里,被引用的诗句以斜线号隔开,斜线号与前后字母及标点符号间均需空一格;圆括弧中小写的1是line的缩写;21不必写成1621。如果引用的诗句超过三行,仍需将引用的诗句与论文文字分开(参见第四项第2点内容)。

五、英语论文的文献目录

论文作者在正文之后必须提供论文中全部引文的详细出版情况,即文献目录页。美国高校一般称此页为 Works Cited, 其格式须注意下列几点:

1.目录页应与正文分开,另页打印,置于正文之后。

2.目录页应视为英语论文的一页,按论文页码的顺序在其右上角标明论文作者的姓和页码;如果条目较多,不止一页,则第一页不必标出作者姓和页码(但必须计算页数),其余各页仍按顺序标明作者姓和页码。标题Works Cited与打印纸顶端的距离约为2.5cm,与第一条目中第一行的距离仍为0.6cm;各条目之间及各行之间的距离亦为0.6cm,不必留出更多空白。

3.各条目内容顺序分别为作者姓、名、作品名、出版社名称、出版地、出版年份及起止页码等;各条目应严格按各作者姓的首字母顺序排列,但不要给各条目编码,也不必将书条与杂志、期刊等条目分列。

4.各条目第一行需顶格打印,回行时均需缩进五格,以将该条目与其他条目区分开来。

现将部分较为特殊的条目分列如下,并略加说明,供读者参考。

Two or More Books by the Same Author

Brooks, Cleanth. Fundamentals of Good Writing: A

Handbook of Modern Rhetoric. NewYork: Harcourt, 1950.

---The Hidden God: Studies in Hemingway, Faulkner, Yeats,

Eliot, and Warren. New Haven: Yale UP,1963.

引用同一作者的多部著作,只需在第一条目中注明该作者姓名,余下各条目则以三条连字符及一句点代替该作者姓名;各条目须按书名的第一个词(冠词除外)的字母顺序排列。

An Author with an Editor

Shake speare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Ed. Louis B.

Wright. New York: Washington Square, 1959.

本条目将作者 Shakespeare 的姓名排在前面,而将编者姓名(不颠倒)放在后面,表明引文出自 The Tragedy of Macbeth;如果引文出自编者写的序言、导言等,则需将编者姓名置前,如:

Blackmur, Richard P.Introduction. The Art of the Novel:

Critical Prefaces. By Henry James. New York: Scribners,

1962.vii-xxxix.

如果引言与著作为同一人所写,则其格式如下例所示(By后只需注明作者姓即可):

Emery, Donald. Preface. English Fundamentals. By Emery.

London: Macmillan, 1972.v-vi.

A Multivolume Work

Browne, Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne. Ed.

Geoffrey Keynes. 4 vols. London: Faber, 1928.

Browne, Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne. Ed.

Geoffrey Keynes. Vol.2. London: Faber, 1928. 4 vols.

第一条目表明该著作共4卷,而论文作者使用了各卷内容;第二条目则表明论文作者只使用了第2卷中的内容。

A Selection from an Anthology

Abram, M. H.“English Romanticism: The Spirit of the Age.”

Romanticism Reconsidered. Ed. Northrop Frye. New

York: Columbia UP,1963.63-88.

被引用的英语论文名须用引号标出,并注意将英语论文名后的句点置于引号内。条目末尾必须注明该文在选集中的起止页码。

Articles in Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers

Otto, Mary L.“Child Abuse: Group Treatment for Parents.”

Personnel and Guidance Journal 62(1984): 336-48.

报刊杂志名需划线,但其后不需任何标点符号。62为卷号或期号,如既有卷号,又有期号,则要将二者以句号分开。如:(3.3);1984为出版年份,应置于圆括弧中。

Arnold, Marilgn.“Willa Cathers Nostalgia: A Study in

Ambivalance.”Research Studies Mar.1981:23-24,28.

月刊或双月刊须同时注明出版年月;23-24,28表示该文的前一部分刊于第23和24两页,后一部分则转至第28页。

Gorney, Cynthia.“When the Gorilla Speaks.”Washington Post

31 July,1985:B1.

引用日报上的英语论文必须同时注明报纸出版的年、月、日。B1为该文在报纸中的版面及页码。参考文献(略)

说明文是阐述事物的特征、本质、性能、结构、用途或科学原理的一种文体。其说明的对象可以是具体的，如：自然环境，仪表设备等；也可以是抽象的，如概念定律等。以下是小编整理的初中英语说明文写作要点，欢迎阅读！

说明文的写作相对于论说文来说，有一定的套路可循，因此不是十分复杂。说明科技方面的内容常用定义法、比较对比法、分类法、因果法等；说明自然环境方面的内容常用时间次序法、分类法等。当然，随着对象的不同，具体应该采用的方法也会有所不同。

说明文的写作应该注意的事项有下面几点：

1.语言简明扼要，通俗易懂，避免夸张华丽的辞藻，要把真实的一面展现在读者面前。

2.说明时一定要把握一个中心主题。说明文中细枝末节较多，但不能喧宾夺主。

3.说明的次序非常重要。合理的次序会使文章条理清楚，脉络明晰。因此，练习时可以尝试不同的次序进行写作，找出最合理的一种。

4.由于说明文写实性较强，有时难免会让人感到没有生气。因此，可以适当使用一些比喻、拟人等修辞手段，来增加文章的色彩。

下面是一篇说明一所医院布局的文章。文章虽短，但需要说明的内容却达11处之多。平均一句话就要描写一处，如果组织得不好，便会给人凌乱的感觉。

为了避免这一点，文章把整个布局图分三部分来写：

贯彻医院的是main road，第一部分以大门为参照物，介绍了靠大门且通过main road东西相对的急诊楼和门诊楼。

第二部分以湖为参照物，中心线还是main road，介绍其他分诊楼、实验室、放射室等。

第三部分写main road尽头的建筑物。

这样，繁多的细节显得井井有条。因此，选择好主线及参照物是决定文章成功的关键。

Directions：For this part，you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition about“THE LAYOUT OF A HOSPITAL”. Locate some important departments in the hospital based on the information given below.Your composition should be no less than 120 words.

（1）the Emergency Department

（2）the Out-patient Department

（3）the Surgery Department

（4）the Dispensary

（5）the Physician Department

（6）the Eye，Ear，and Throat Department

（7）the Dental Department

（8）the Laboratory

（9）the X-ray Department

（10）the Administrative Building

（11）the Ward

例文：

The Layout of a Hospital Near the gate，on the westside of the road is the Emergency Department. Opposite the Emergency Department across the Main Road is the Out-patient Department. The building to the southwest of the lake is the Dispensary，which face the Surgery Department lying on the other side of the road.Along the west wall，from south to north，stand three buildings：the Physician Department，the Eye，Ear，and Throat Department，and the Dental Department.

The Laboratory is to the northwest of the round about，and beside the Laboratory，the X-ray Department is located on the same side of the road. A winding road by the lake leads to the Ward.

Near the end of the Main Road，the Administrative Building is situated on the east side.The hospital is nicely and conveniently laid out.

俗话说“千里之行始于足下”。英语书面表达能力的形成不是一日之功，必须从平时的课堂学习一点一滴抓起，持之以恒。

一篇优秀的英语作文在内容和语言两方面应是一个统一体，任何一方面的欠缺都会直接影响到作文的质量。然而，很多考生在写作中或者由于粗心大意，或者由于基本功不扎实而经常出现名词不变复数、第三人称单数不加s，前后不一致，以及时态语态、句子完整性等方面的错误。

1. 审题不清

如2004年中考作文要求写一项最喜欢的课外活动，有些考生将作文的主题定位为“我最喜欢的活动”，偏离了“一项、课外活动”这一主题。依据作文的评分原则，若文章内容不切题，则不管语言如何规范、用词如何准确，都会被判为零分。

2.拼写错误

拼写是考生应该具备的最起码的基本功，但在考生的作文中却经常能发现很多拼写错误。有拼写错误的作文肯定会被酌情扣分，而且有大量拼写错误存在的作文不仅体现出语言基本功差，同时也直接影响内容的表达，通常会降低作文的档次。

3.名词单复数问题

误 my father and my mother is all teacher。

正 my father and my mother are both teachers。

[中考英语作文写作常见的三个错误

考研英语写作：应用文写作之感谢信

大纲对应用文写作的评价目标是：考生应能根据所设情景，写出不同类型的应用文，包括私人和公务信函、备忘录、摘要、报告等。写作时。考生应能：

1） 做到语法、拼写、标点正确、用词恰当；

2）遵循文章的特定问题格式；

3）合理组织文章结构，使其内容统一、连贯；

4）根据写作目的和特定读者，选用恰当语域。

应用文写作不需要华丽的辞藻和多变的句式，只需要能够用简洁概括的语言将事情叙述清楚就能够取得不错的成绩。应用文写作作为考研英语中性价比比较高的题目，考生必须重视对其复习。应用文写作可以充分借鉴模板，以达到更好的复习效果。下面，就为考生介绍一下感谢信的基本写作方法。

感谢信的目的是感激对方为自己的付出，感激之情要传达得真挚自然，不要刻意夸大。感谢信所涉及的内容多种多样，比如可以感谢对方替自己做了一件事情，在自己痛苦时安慰了自己，出席了自己的宴会等等。其内容包括：1)表达感激之情2)回顾事情的经过 3)肯定对方帮助的价值以及对自己的影响，表达自己回报的愿望。

常用套语有：

1表达感激之情：

Thanks so much for…;Abundant thanks to … for…

Im writing to express my heartfelt thanks for …

On behalf of my whole family, I wish to extend our heartfelt thanks for all the trouble you had taken in …I must write to thank you for inviting me to…

2肯定对方帮助的价值及影响：

You will never know how much we appreciated your kind and practical help. Your …meant more than I can express in words. Nothing can be more precious for me than your…

3表达回报的愿望：

I hope I can return the favor someday … Do call on me if I can ever return the favor. 感谢信中比较特殊是求职者面试后给面试官写的信。

此类感谢信的内容不只是感谢，而是一般感谢信和求职信的结合。其主要内容包括：(1)感谢对方给你面谈的机会，并注明你面试的时间和所求的职位;(2) 说明你对该公司、该职位的兴趣，强调你的知识与技能符合公司的需要，表示自己能为公司的发展做出贡献。也可以补充说明或澄清在面谈中忽略或没有讲明的问题 (3)重申你对该职位的兴趣，主动提供更多的材料，表示期待他们的消息。

Directions: You have just attended an interview in Apfel Incorporated for the position of marketing analyst. Write a letter of appreciation to the interviewer Mr. David Wayne. Your letter should include the following points:

1) express your appreciation for the interview

2) tell about your job-related skills and experience

实例：

Dear Mr. Wayne，

Thank you very much for taking the time from your busy schedule last Friday to interview me for the marketing analyst position at Apfel Incorporated. After our meeting, I am convinced that your company is an excellent place for my career.

I am extremely excited about the position and believe that my skills are a good match for the company. As you may remember, I completed a project that is similar in nature to the work I

would be doing at your company. I believe that I could make an immediate contribution to Apfel Incorporated.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any additional information about my background or goals. My email address is LiMing@yahoo.com, and my phone number is 12345678. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Li Ming

高考英语作文需要将有自己的想法，并且掌握好写作的方法，这样英语才能得到高分。

1、审题：审题是做到切题的第一步。所谓审题就是要看清题意，确定文章的中心思想、主题，并围绕中心思想组织材料。

2、进行构思，列出简单的提纲，打造文章之骨架：审好题、立好意后，就要写提纲，打造文章的骨架。文章布局要做好几件事：安排好层次段落，铺设好过渡，处理好开头和结尾。

3、扩展成文：根据字数多少扩展成篇。扩展的内容一定要紧扣主题，千万不要写那些与主题不相关的内容。展开的方式包括：顺序法、举例法、比较法、对比法、说明法、因果法、推导法、归纳法和下定义等。可以根据需要任选一种或几种方式。

在这一步骤中还需注意三方面问题：

1)确保提纲中段落结构的思路与各段主题句的一致性。只有这样，才能保证所写段落不偏题、不跑题。

2)要综合考虑各个段落的内容安排，避免段落内容的交叉。

3)用好连接词，注意段落间、句子间的连贯性。要做到所写文章层次分明，思路清晰，文字连贯，就需要在句与句之间、段与段之间架起一座座桥梁，而连接词起的正是桥梁作用。

在扩展的过程中也有些窍门，以下几点可供参考：

1)在整篇文章中，避免只是用一两个句式或重复用同一词语。英语中存在着极为丰富的同义词，准确地使用同义词可以给读者清新的感觉。同时要灵活运用各种句式，如倒装句、强调句、省略句、主从复合句、对比句、分词短语、介词短语等，从而增加文章的可读性。

2)使用不同长度的句子。如果一个意思用一句话写不清楚的话，通过分句和合句或用两句、三句来表达，增强句子的连贯性和表现力。

3)改变句子的开头方式，不要总是以主、谓、宾、状的次序。可以把状语至于句首，或用分词等。

4)学会使用过渡词。

(1) 递进furthermore，moreover，besides，in addition，then，etc

(2) 转折however，but，nevertheless，afterwards，etc

(3) 总结finally，at last，in brief，to conclude，etc

(4) 强调really，indeed，certainly，surely，above a11，etc

(5) 对比in the same way，just as，on the other hand，etc

5)确定文章用第几人称写，基本时态是什么。使用人称时人物不能张冠李戴或指代不明。

时态要尽量保持一致。

4、检查修改：要检查复核，不要写完了事。

要留时间通读全文，修改可能出现的错误。检查上下文是否连贯，句子衔接是否自然流畅。检验的标准主要是句子是否通畅，该用连词的地方用了没有，所用的连词是否合适，是否有语法错误，主谓是否一致，动词的时态、语态、语气的使用是否正确，词组的搭配是否合乎习惯，是否有大小写、拼写、标点错误等，还有就是注意卷面整洁。

可归纳为：中心突出，主题明确;层次清楚，条理清晰; 表达力强，传情达意;语句通顺，句型多变;过渡自然，衔接紧凑;标点正确，大小无误;字迹清楚，卷面整洁。

高中英语写作常用开头句型

1.As far as …is concerned 就……而言

2.It goes without saying that… 不言而喻，…

3.It can be said with certainty that… 可以肯定地说……

4.As the proverb says， 正如谚语所说的，

5.It has to be noticed that… 它必须注意到，…

6.Its generally recognized that… 它普遍认为…

7.Its likely that … 这可能是因为…

8.Its hardly that… 这是很难的……

9.Its hardly too much to say that… 它几乎没有太多的说…

10.What calls for special attention is that…需要特别注意的是

11.Theres no denying the fact that…毫无疑问，无可否认

12.Nothing is more important than the fact that… 没有什么比这更重要的是…

13.whats far more important is that… 更重要的是…

最近几年的中考英语当中，很多省市已经摆脱了单一作文模式，采用一大一小两个作文相结合的模式。例如，去年辽宁沈阳中考英语作文就是一个小作文，应用文-写假条，加上一个大作文，汉语提示作文构成。今年，北京中考英语作文也将是两个，一个看图作文在加上一个提示作文构成。这一讲，我们先来学习一下看图作文的写法。

看图作文要求考生按照所给图画，通过合理的联想将一组画面的内容正确地表达出来。看图作文与其他类型作文的不同之处在于，它除了要求考生有英语语言表达能力，还要求考生有观察能力、分析能力和想象能力。

写好看图作文应注意的事项1、结合文字提示，正确理解图意。一般情况下，看图作文在提供图画的同时也附带有简要的文字提示，我们可以利用文字提示去正确地理解图意，得到要点。切忌孤立地看图而忽视文字提示。

写作从图画的细节出发。所谓细节，就是指图画中的人物、事件、地点、环境、时间、动作等。依据图画细节，就可以把图画的内容用英语具体而生动地表达出来了。

(三)例题分析(例题)

同学们，看到下面的四幅图片及相应的报道后，你感到最担忧的是哪两种情形?请简述你担忧的理由并提出建议或希望。

要求：

⒈ 从所给素材中任选两种情形进行阐述，不可多选或少选。

⒉ 条理清楚，意思连贯，语句通顺，标点正确;

⒊ 词数 80 ～ 100。

参考词汇： 建议 suggest v. suggestion n.

气体 gas n. 污染 pollution n.

THE POLLUTIONS

① One third of the worlds people dont have enough clean water.

② More and more diseases are caused by polluted air.

③ People are disturbed quite often by kinds of noises.

④ Every person in our city makes about 1.8 kilos of rubbish every day.

这道看图作文题，主题和图片连接得不是很紧密。从考查的形式上来说，虽是看图，实质上却属于提示性的作文。这个作文应该结合个人的观点，选择的余地还是很大的。做这个题应该注意几个方面：

1、认真读题。注意，题目虽然给了四幅图，但是却只要求写其中的两个就行。

2、题意要求的是阐述个人的观点-最担忧的两种情形。而不是对图片进行描述。

3、结合所给的提示。提示中，对每种污染都进行了阐述，考生可以这些描述进行写作。

4、注意字数，语法，拼写等，避免错误。

下面是两个例文，大家可以参考一下。

One possible version:

The environment is becoming worse and worse. There are many kinds of pollution I worry about. The most serious two are water pollution and air pollution, because people cant live healthily with dirty water and polluted air, nor can animals. More and more diseases are caused by polluted air.

I think factories should not pour dirty water into the river directly or produce more waste gas. Wed better go on foot or by like instead of by car, because more cars mean more waste gas. We should make our world more and more beautiful.

Another possible version:

The first fact I worry about is noise pollution. People cant sleep well if there is too much noise. Thats why so many people prefer to live in the countryside rather than live in the noisy city. I suggest all the factories and cars shouldnt make terrible noises. If they make terrible noise that isnt allowed, they will be fined, and we can also produce the cars which cant make terrible noise.

The other pollution is rubbish pollution. If everyone makes so much rubbish, one day we may live in a world filled with rubbish. Some people throw the waste paper about. I suggest rubbish should be put into different kinds of dustbins or paper bags.

下面，我们来看看这道题的评分标准。一般来说，各地的评分标准都和下面的这个标准差不多。这个最高的标准，实际上也就是我们写作的目标。

评分标准：

1. 内容完整，语句流畅，无语法错误，书写规范，给9-10分;

2. 内容较完整，语句较流畅，基本无语法错误，书写较规范，给6-8分;

3. 内容不完整，语句欠流畅，语法错误较多，书写较规范，给3-5分;

4. 只写出个别要点，语法错误较多，书写欠规范，只有个别句子可读或不知所云，给0-2分。

看图作文不可小视。希望大家掌握答好这种题型的要点，并积累词汇。

书面表达是近几年初中英语中考的重要题型，是一种反映学生表达、传递信息和解决实际问题的重要的语言测试手段，同时也是用于测试学生的语言交际能力和语言知识活用能力的一项综合性试题。《英语课程标准》对各个年级学生“写”的技能提出了明确目标，它要求学生具有较高的书面语言表达能力。然而，目前初中英语教学的书面表达相对滞后，学生的写作水平提高甚微，一提起写作学生们就犯愁，甚至一字不写，有的干脆放弃。写一篇像样的英语作文对80%的学生来说是“难于上青天”。究其原因是多方面的。学生方面：(1)汉语影响、生词造句;(2)词汇贫乏、搭配不当;(3)句型误用、语法不通;(4)信息不全、条理紊乱。因此，笔者结合新教材的内容，在教学中探索了学生写作训练的方法。

一、积累词汇

初中学生在阅读理解方面最大的障碍就是词汇量的缺乏，而扩大词汇量绝非死记硬背就能做到。最有效的方法就是大量接触各种不同体裁的英语文章，利用“在句中记，在文中记”的方法来积累词汇。因此我们指导学生依据英语报刊的特点，按栏目、话题、题材、体裁归类收集常用词，将出现频率较高的常用词汇积累到单词本子上，查字典写例句，初步学会这些单词的运用，放在身边，利用零散时间反复记忆，加强印象。还要求学生给出与单词有关的同义、近义、反义和词形相似的词，使词汇量得到最大限度的复现。如：反义词appear/disappear， crowded/uncrowded，polite/impolite/rude.词形相似的词except/expect，chance/change/challenge.这样，通过大量的词汇练习不仅仅能有效地积累词汇，还为组句打下了基础，同时还能训练学生的发散性思维和总结、归纳、比较的能力，为学生正确使用词句奠定了良好的基础。

二、活用词句

当学生有了一定的词汇量的时候，教师在教学中可以采用先易后难的方法，让学生用简单的词组成句子，再以句子的构成作为学生进行写作训练的起点，引导学生从对单个句型的掌握，逐渐过渡到多种句型的混用，直到学生能连贯自如地表达思想。一句多译，句型转换，是书面表达能力的关键。总的来说，教师在平时的教学中要将日常生活中经常出现的词、句作为材料让学生训练，使学生乐于接受，轻松完成，享受成功感。

例如：以study为中心组成句子。

I study in No.3 Middle School.I study very hard.My sister studies in the same school.But she studies harder than me.等等。

三、创设情景

例如，学生举行运动会，开“生日聚会”，以“A sports meeting”和“My birthday party”为语境，让学生在活动中仔细观察，亲身体验，然后试着用自己所学的语言知识，表达“A sports meeting”和“My birthday party”这些话题。在我们新教材的每个单元中，都设有写作训练题，它们用英语设置语境，用英语提示内容，这些写的练习，与我们平时用汉语给语境、用英语完成段落的方式相比，更为理想。当然，教师在设立语境话题时要与学生的水平和能力相适应，应从简到难，从浅到深进行。否则，学生会无从下笔，久而久之，他们会失去信心。

四、注重听、说和阅读的培养

在英语写作中听、说、读、写应同步发展。写作是一种语言输出形式，只有语言输入大于语言输出，语言输出才有可能。英语写作训练作为英语综合能力训练之一，是与英语的听说读不可分割的，它们是相互影响、相互作用的有机统一体，必须注重听、说、读、写能力的同步发展。

比如笔者实施多年的“五分钟课前演讲”：在上正课前五分钟里，要学生用英语讲述一个故事(积累素材);或者课前朗读一篇短小精 的文章，让大家课后模仿;或者就大家平时关心的话题写一个发言稿或演讲稿进行课前发言;或者让学生自立主题，围绕自己喜欢的主题写一段话。这种课前训练取得了很好的效果。

五、写英文日记

要养成记英语日记勤练笔的习惯。经常用英语记日记等于天天在练笔，这无疑是提高英语写作行之有效的好办法。在记日记时，不要总是用简单句，要有意识地用一些好的词组、句型和复合句等，使文句更优美生动。对一些所给情景写的文章，写好后要对照一些范文，找出差距，然后再去练习，不仅能促使学生及时巩固所学的知识，还能锻炼他们的恒心和学习毅力，同时对提高英语作文也是很有帮助的。只有这样，学生才能通过多练习提高英语写作水平。

总之，学生英语写作水平的提高不是一朝一夕的事，英语写作能力培养的训练方法也是多方面的，因此需要我们英语教师在教学工作中不断探索、不断研究，总结出一些更富有创新活力的英语写作方法。鼓励学生平时要多积累语素材，要求他们坚持长期写作训练，做到善于思考、勤于训练、勇于探究，充分发挥学生的潜力。久而久之，学生的写作水平就会有大幅度的提高。

下面是由语文迷为大家整理的英语写作百搭句子，赶紧学会吧。

1. 完全同意……这种观点(陈述)，主要理由如下：

I fully agree with the statement that ______ because______.

2. 面临……，我们应该采取一系列行之有效的方法来……。一方面……，另一方面，

Confronted with______, we should take a series of effective measures to______. For one thing，______For another, ______

3. 相反，有一些人赞成……，他们相信……，而且，他们认为……。

On the contrary, there are some people in favor of ___.At the same time, they say____.

4. ……对我们国家的发展和建设是必不可少的，(也是)非常重要的。首先，……。而且……，最重要的是……

______is necessary and important to our countrys development and construction.First，______.Whats more, _____.Most important of all,______.

5. 然而，正如任何事物都有好坏两个方面一样，……也有它的不利的一面，像……。

However, just like everything has both its good and bad sides, ______also has its owndisadvantages, such as ______.

6. 早就应该拿出行动了。比如说……，另外……。所有这些方法肯定会……。

It is high time that something was done about it. For example. _____.In addition,_____.All thesemeasures will certainly______.

7. 尽管如此，我相信……更有利。

Nonetheless, I believe that ______is more advantageous.

8. 有几个可供我们采纳的方法。首先，我们可以……。

There are several measures for us to adopt. First, we can______

9. 但是，我认为这不是解决……的好方法，比如……。最糟糕的是……。

But I dont think it is a very good way to solve ____.For example，____.Worst of all，___.

10. 为什么……?第一个原因是……;第二个原因是……;第三个原因是……。总的来说，……的主要原因是由于……

Why______? The first reason is that ______.The second reason is ______.The third is ______.For all this, the main cause of ______due to ______.

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

对于素材中用黑体字的部分，特别建议你熟读，背诵，因为它们在语言和观点上都值得吸收。学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。

因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！

1.?????? Proverbs

1. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.

2. The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.

3. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

4. The classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

5. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

6. It is the purpose of education to help us become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.

7. You see, real ongoing, lifelong education doesn’t answer questions; it provokes them.

8. People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

9.the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.

10. The essence of our efforts to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each as equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

11. A great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.

12. If you can read and don’, you are an illiterate by choice.

2. Damaging Research

A study by National Parent-Teacher Organization revealed that in the average American school, eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out. The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade, 80 percent of them feel pretty good themselves, but by the time they get to the sixth grade, only 10 percent of them have good self-images.

3. Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating equality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950s, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nations would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.

Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, t is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain. In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different have different expectations. Some feel that children should be taught basic job-related skills; still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity (and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language). On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to improve parents in their children’s education.

Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Corps, Vista, and Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail “the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages” and serve for at least one year. In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.

Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. At this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in the United States, although the concept is steadily gaining support among educators and social critics.

4. The Teacher’s Role

Given the undeniable importance of classroom experience, sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom. Often they start from the premise that, along with the influence of peers, students’ experiences in the classroom are of central importance to their later development. One study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students’ subsequent adult status. The surprising results of this study have important implications. It is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children’s lives, a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching. The reforms carried out by educational leaders like James Comer suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.

Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some way, the teacher-student relationship is an important part of education. Sociologists have pointed out that this relationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced, with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher. In other words, in conventional classrooms there is little opportunity for the students to become actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher’s authority: mentally withdrawing, interrupting, and the like. Hence, much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

5. Education Philosophy

For the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey (1859-1953), an American educator and writer. Dewey believed hat the school’s job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child, rather than to pour information, for which the child had no context, into him or her. In the Dewey system, the child becomes the active agent in his own education, rather than a passive receptacle for facts.

Consequently, American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching “life skills” –logical thinking, analysis, creative problem--solving. The actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process, which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present, including all the unknowns of the future. Students and teachers both regard pure memorization as an uncreative and somewhat vulgar.

In addition to “life skills”, schools are assigned to solve the ever growing stoke of social problems. Racism, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, reckless driving, and are just a few of the modern problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.

This all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

6. Student Life

To the students, the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start “changing classes”. This means that rather than spending the day in one classroom, they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers. This gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways, where a great deal of the important social action of high school traditionally takes place. Students have lockers in these hallways, around which thy congregate.

Society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously. Schoolchildren have a great deal of free time, which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities—sports, clubs, cheerleading, scouts—supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership, sportsmanship, ability to organize, etc. those who don’t become engaged in such activities or have afterschool jobs have plenty of opportunity to “hang out”, listen to teenager music, and watch television.

Compared to other nations, American students do not have much homework. Studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children’s success in school than other nationalities do. (Historically, there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life.) “He’s just not a scholar”, the American parents might say, content that their son is on the swim team and doesn’t take drugs. (Some of the young do choose to study hard, for reason of their own, such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)

What American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method. In innumerable ways children are pitted against each other—whether in classroom discussion, spelling bees, reading groups, or tests. Every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A’s and F’s (teachers often grade A=excellent; B=good; C=average; D=poor; and F=failed). A teacher who gives all A’s looks too soft—so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.

Foreign students sometimes don’t understand that copying from other people’s papers or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously. Here, it is important to show that you have done your own work and are displaying your own knowledge. It is more important than helping your friends to pass, whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers. Group effort goes against the competitive grain, and American students do not study together as many Asians do. Many Asians in this country consider their group study habits a large contributor to their school success.

7. Adult Education

After complaining about many aspects of American life, a 40-year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded, “But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work? Here you can change your whole life, start a new business, do what you really want to do.”

So at least to this person, school requirements weren’t inhibiting. And to millions of others, adult education is the path to a new career, or if not to a new career, to a new outlook. Schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew, and besides regular classes, schedule evening classes in special programs. Today there are so many people of retirement age in college that it is no longer remarkable.

8. Moral Relativism in American

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing (and remembering) some good old things. At the time of our nation’s founding, Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia. In this landmark statement on American education, Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writing, and of reading history, and geography. But he also emphasized the need “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests, and duties, as men and citizens.” Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one’s “morals” and “faculties”. That has been the dominant view of the aims of American education for over two centuries. But a number of changes, most of them unsound, have diverted schools from these great pursuits. And the story of the loss of the school’s original moral mission explains a great deal.

Starting in the early seventies, “values clarification” programs started turning up in schools all over America. According to this philosophy, the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values; rather, they were to allow the child to “clarify” his own values (which adults, including parents, had no “rights” to criticize). The “values clarification” movement didn’t clarify values; it clarified wants and desires. This form of moral relativism said, in effect, that no set of values was right or wrong; everybody had an equal right to his own values; and all values were subjective, relative, and personal. This destructive view took hold with a vengeance.

In 1985 The York Times published an article quoting New York area educators, in slavish devotion to this new view, proclaiming, “They deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong.” The article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors. In the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been foolish to return one thousand dollars she found in a purse at school. According to the article, when the youngsters asked the counselor’s opinion, “He told them he believed the girl had done the right thing, but that, of course, he would not try to force his values on them. ‘If I come from the position of what is wrong,’ he explained, ‘then I’m not their counselor.’”

Once upon a time, a counselor offered counselor, and he knew that an adult does not form character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering “choices” or “options”.

In response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals, one can expect from some quarters indignant objections (I’ve heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years): “Who are you to say what’s important?” or “Whose standards and judgments do we use?”

The correct response, it seems to me, is, is we ready to do away with standards and judgments? Is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swindling is as worthy as a life of honest, hard work? Is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities) going to argue seriously the intellectual corollary, that a Marvel comic book is as good as Macbeth? Unless we are willing to embrace some pretty silly position, we’ve got to admit the need for moral and intellectual standards. The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgment as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded “elitist” trying to impose his view on everybody else.

The truth of the real world is that without standards and judgments, there can be no progress. Unless we are prepared to say irrational things—that nothing can be proven more valuable than anything else or that everything is equally worthless—we must ask the normative question. It may come, as a surprise to those who fell that to be “progressive” is to be value-neutral. But as Matthew Amold said, “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things” and if the world can’t decide what the best things are, at least to some degree, then it follows that progress, and character, is in trouble. We shouldn’t be reluctant to declare that some things, some lives, books, ideas, and values are better than others. It is the responsibility of the schools to teach these better things.

At one time, we weren’t so reluctant to teach them. In the mid-nineteenth century, a diverse, widespread group of crusaders began to work for the public support of what was then called the “common school”, the forerunner of the public school. They were to be charged with the mission of school felt that the nation could fulfill its destiny only if every new generation was taught these values together in a common institution.

The leaders of the common school movement were mainly citizens who were prominent in their communities—businessmen, ministers, local civic and government officials. These people saw the schools as upholders of standards of individual morality and small incubators of civic and personal virtue; the founders of the public schools had faith that public education could teach good moral and civic character from a common ground of American values.

But in the past quarter century or so, some of the so-called experts became experts of value neutrality, and moral education was increasingly left in their hands. The commonsense view of parents and the publicthat schools should reinforce rather than undermine the values of home, family, and country, was increasingly rejected.

There are those today still that claim we are now too diverse a nation, that we consist of too many competing convictions and interests to instill common values. They are wrong. Of course we are a diverse people. We have always been a diverse people. And as Madison wrote in FederalistNo.10, the competing, balancing interests of a diverse people can help ensure the survival of liberty. But there are values that all American citizens share and that we should want all American students to know and to make their own: honesty, fairness, self-discipline, fidelity to task, friends, and family, personal responsibility, love of country, and belief in the principles of liberty, equality, and the freedom to practice one’s faith. The explicit teaching of these values is the legacy of the common schools, and it is a legacy to which we must return.

9. Schools Should Teach Values

People often said, “Yes, we should teach these values, but how do we teach them?” this question deserves a candid response, one that isn’t given often enough. It is by exposing our children to good character and inviting its imitation that we will transmit to them a moral foundation. This happens when teachers and principals, by their words and actions, embody sound convictions. As Oxford’s Mary Warnock has written, “You cannot teach morality without being committed to morality yourself; and you cannot be committed to morality yourself without holding that some things are right and others wrong.” The theologian Martin Buber wrote that the educator is distinguished from all other influences “by his will to take part in the stamping of character and by his consciousness that he represents in the eyes of the growing person a certain selection of what is, the selection of what is ‘right’, of what should be.” It is in this will, Buber says, in this clear standing for something, that the “vocation as an educator finds its fundamental expression.”

There is no escaping the fact that young people need as example principals and teachers who know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and who themselves exemplify high moral purpose.

As Education Secretary, I visited a class at Waterbury Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont, and asked the students, “Is this a good school?” They answered, “Yes, this is a good school.” I asked them, “Why?” Among other things, one eight-year-old said, “The principal Mr. Riegel, makes good rules and everybody obeys them.” So I said, “Give me an example.” And another answered, “You can’t climb on the pipes in the bathroom. We don’t climb on the pipes and the principal doesn’t either.”

This example is probably too simple to please a lot of people who want to make the topic of moral education difficult, but there is something profound in the answer of those children, something education should pay more attention to. You can’t expect children to take messages about rules or morality seriously unless they see adults taking those rules seriously in their day-to-day affairs. Certain must be said, certain limits lay down, and certain examples set. There is no other way.

We should also do a better job at curriculum selection. The research shows that most “values education” exercises and separate courses in “moral reasoning” tend not to affect children’s behavior; if anything, they may leave children morally adrift. Where to turn? I believe our literature and our history are a rich quarry of moral literacy. We should mine that quarry. Children should have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we believe to be right and wrong, good and bad—examples illustrating what are morally right and wrong can indeed be known and that there is a difference.

What kind of stories, historical events, and famous lives am I talking about? If we want our children to know about honesty, we should teach them about Abe Lincoln walking three miles to return six cents and conversely, about Aesop’s shepherd boy who cried wolf if we want them to know about courage, we should teach them about Joan of Arc, Horatius at the bridge, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. If we want them to know about persistence in the face of adversity, they should know about the voyages of Columbus and the character of Washington during the Civil War. And our youngest should be told about the Little Engine That Could. If we want them to know about respect for the law, they should understand why Socrates told Crito: “No, I must submit to the decree of Athens.” If we want our children to respect the rights of others, they should read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham jail.” From the Bible they should know about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Jonathan’s friendship with David, the Good Samaritan’s kindness toward a stranger, and David’s cleverness and courage in facing Goliath.

These are only a few of the hundreds of examples we can call on. And we need not get into issues like nuclear war, abortion, creationism, or euthanasia. This may come as a disappointment to some people, but the fact is that the formation of character in young people is educationally a task different from, and prior to, the discussion of the great, difficult controversies of the day. First things come first. We should teach values the same way we teach other things: one step at a time. We should not use the fact that there are many difficult and controversial moral questions as an argument against basic instruction in the subject.

After all, we do not argue against teaching physics because laser physics is difficult, against teaching American history because there are heated disputes about the Founders’ intent. Every field has its complexities and its controversies. And every field has its basics, its fundamentals. So they are too with forming character and achieving moral literacy. As any parent knows, teaching character is a difficult task. But it is a crucial task, because we want our children to be healthy, happy, and successful but decent, strong, and good. None of this happens automatically; there is no genetic transmission of virtue. It takes the conscious, committed efforts of adults. It takes careful attention.

10. College Pressures

Mainly I try to remind that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don not want to hear such liberating news. They want a map—right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

My wish, of course, is na?ve. One of the national gods venerated in our media—the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive—and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains—to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains: only victims.

“In the late 1960s.” one dean told me. “The typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world’ or ‘how I can make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They are trying to find an edge—the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh. Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000.

It’s all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it’s nice to think that admission officers are ready reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with As that they regard a B as positively shameful.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C.” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses-music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion—that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I do not know if they are getting As or Cs, and I do not care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cannot.

Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now come to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what college receives in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now, the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs—higher every year—of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in American the creation of a brotherhood of paupers—colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debt.

Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years—loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used “he,” incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society has not yet caught up with this fact.

Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know tem in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to medical school?” I asked them.

“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They are paying all this money and …”

Poor students, poor parents, they are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean will; they are trying to steer their sons and draughts toward a secure future. But the sons and daughter want to major in history or classics or philosophy—subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics—an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective—are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward specific profession—courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or, as I sometimes heard it put, “pre-rich.”

But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obliged to fulfill their parents’ expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them.

I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one—she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-round person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a “dumb” thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the “dumb” courses her father wants her to take—at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students—no small achievement in it—and she deserves to follow her muse.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.

“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I could not tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is almost funny—except that it is not. It is symptomatic of all the pressure put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

Probably they won’t. They will get blocked. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out.

Part of the problem is that they are expected to do. A professor will assign five page papers. Several students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic work, psychologically.”

Why cannot the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can, and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He did not sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That’s what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.

To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their figure nails onto a shrinking profession.

If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments—as departmental chairmen or members of committees—that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe.

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing into themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

“Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,” says Carlos Hortas. “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist-that they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slot.”

“They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing.”

I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story; if they were so dreary I wouldn’t so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known.

Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extracurricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it.

This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the ‘60s they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions—as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians—with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies.

They also cannot afford to be the willing slave of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one-hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper—who’s past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.—much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that “newsies” routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I’ve never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet.

If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it’s because that’s where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead—that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell neither them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway products, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians—a mixed bag of achievers.

I asked them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

11. To Err Is Wrong

In the summer of 1979, Boston Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski became the fifteenth player in baseball history to reach the three thousand hit plateaus. This event drew a lot of media attention, and for about a week prior to the attainment of this goal, hundreds of reports covered Yaz’s every more. Finally, one reporter asked, “Hey Yaz, aren’t you afraid all of this attention will go to your head?” Yastrzemski replied, “I look at this way: in my career I’ve been up to bat over ten thousand times. That means I’ve been unsuccessful at the plate over seven thousand times. That fact alone keeps me from getting a swollen head.”?

Most people consider success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process. As Yaz suggest, an activity that produces a hit may also produce a miss. It is the same with creative thinking; the same energy that generates good creative ideas also produces errors.

Many people, however, are not comfortable with errors. Our educational system, based on “the right answer” belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more conservative way. From an early age, we are taught that right answers are good and incorrect answers are bad. This value is deeply embedded in the incentive system used in most schools:

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

Right over 70% of the time = “C~” Right over 60% of the time = “D~” Less than 60% correct, you fail.

From this we learn to be right as often as possible and to keep our mistakes to a minimum. We learn, in other words, that “to err is wrong.

Playing It Safe

With this kind of attitude, you aren’t going to be taking too many chances. If you learn that failing even a litter penalizes you (e.g., being wrong only 15% of the time garners you only a “B” performance), you learn not to make mistakes. And more important, you learn not to put yourself to situation where you might fall. This leads to conservative thought pattern designed to avoid the stigma our society puts on “failure”.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college with a Master’s degree in Journalism. For the last six month, she has been trying to find a job, but to no avail. I talked with her about situation, and realized that her problem is that she doesn’t know how to fail. She went through eighteen years of schooling to try any approaches where she might fail. She has been conditioned to believe that failure is bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping-stone to new ideas.

Look around. How many middle managers, housewives, administrators, teachers, and other people do you see who are to try anything new because of this failure? Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experience except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances.

Different Logic

From a practical point of view, “to err is wrong” makes sense. Our survival in the everyday world requires us to perform thousand of small tasks without failure. Think about it: you wouldn’t last very long if you were to step out in front of traffic or stick your hand a pot of boiling water. In addition, engineers whose bridges collapse, stock brokers who lose money for their clients, and copywriters whose ad campaigns decrease sales won’t keep their jobs very long.

Nevertheless, too great an adherence to the belief “to err is wrong” can greatly undermine your attempts to generate new ideas. If you are more concerned with producing right answers than generating original ideas, you’ll probably make uncritical use of the rules, formulae, and procedures used to obtain these right answers. By doing this, you’ll by-pass the germinal phase of the creative process, and thus spend litter time testing assumptions, challenging the rules, asking what-if questions, or just playing around with the problem. All of these techniques will produce some incorrect answers, but in the germinal phase errors are viewed as a necessary by-product of creative thinking. As Yaz would put it, “if you want the hits, be prepared for the misses.” That’s the way the game of life goes.

Errors as Stepping Stones

Whenever an error pops up, the usual response is “Jeez, another screw up, what went wrong this time?” the creative thinker, on the other hand, will realize the potential value of errors, and perhaps say something like, “Would you look at that! Where can it lead our thinking?” and then he or she will go on to use the error as a stepping stone to a new idea. As a matter of fact, the whole history of discovery is filed with people who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as stepping-stones to new ideas. Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to India. Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of interplanetary gravity because of assumptions that were right for the wrong reasons. And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.

The following story about the automotive genius Charles Kettering exemplifies the spirit of working through erroneous assumptions to good ideas. In 1912, when the automobile industry was just beginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engine efficiency. The problem he faced was“knockthe phenomenon in which gasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder-thereby reducing efficiency.

Kettering began searching for ways to eliminate the “knock.” He thought to him, “How can I get the gasoline to combust in the cylinder at an earlier time?” the key concept here is “early”. Searching for analogous situations, he looked around for models of “things that happen early.” He thought of historical models, physical models, and biological models. Finally, he remembered a particular plant, the trailing arbutus, which “happens early,” i.e., it blooms in the snow (“earlier” than other plants). One of this plant’s chief characteristics is its’ red leaves, which help the plant retain light at certain wavelengths. Kettering figured that it must be the red color, which made the trailing arbutus bloom earlier.

Now came the critical step in Kettering’s chain of thought. He asked himself, “How can I make the gasoline red?” perhaps I’ll put red dye in the gasoline—maybe that’ll make it combust earlier.” He looked around his workshop, and found that he didn’t have any red dye. But he did happen to have some iodine—perhaps that would do. He added the iodine to the gasoline and, lo and behold, the engine didn’t “knock”.

[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分

南瓜灯(Jack-O-Lantern)是庆祝万圣节的标志物。下面语文迷网整理了关于南瓜灯的故事作文，希望对你有帮助。

One story about Jack， an Irishman， who was not allowed into Heaven because he was stingy with his money. So he was sent to hell. But down there he played tricks on the Devil (Satan)， so he was kicked out of Hell and made to walk the earth forever carrying a lantern.

Well， Irish children made Jacks lanterns on October 31st from a large potato or turnip， hollowed out with the sides having holes and lit by little candles inside. And Irish children would carry them as they went from house to house begging for food for the village Halloween festival that honored the Druid god Muck Olla. The Irish name for these lanterns was "Jack with the lantern" or "Jack of the lantern，" abbreviated as " Jack-o-lantern" and now spelled "jack-o-lantern."

The traditional Halloween you can read about in most books was just childrens fun night. Halloween celebrations would start in October in every elementary school.

关于万圣节有这样一个故事。是说有一个叫杰克的爱尔兰人，因为他对钱特别的吝啬，就不允许他进入天堂，而被打入地狱。但是在那里他老是捉弄魔鬼撒旦，所以被踢出地狱，罚他提着灯笼永远在人世里行走。

在十月三十一日爱尔兰的孩子们用土豆和萝卜制作“杰克的灯笼”，他们把中间挖掉、表面上打洞并在里边点上蜡烛。为村里庆祝督伊德神的万圣节，孩子们提着这种灯笼挨家挨户乞讨食物。这种灯笼的爱尔兰名字是“拿灯笼的杰克”或者“杰克的灯笼”，缩写为Jack-o-lantern 。

现在你在大多数书里读到的万圣节只是孩子们开心的夜晚。在小学校里，万圣节是每年十月份开始庆祝的。孩子们会制作万圣节的装饰品：各种各样桔红色的南瓜灯。

1. In general, I don’t agree with

2. In my opinion, this point of view doesn’t hold water。

3. The chief reason why… is that…

4.There is no true that…

5. It is not true that…

6. It can be easily denied than…

7. We have no reason to believe that…

8. What is more serious is that…

9. But it is pity that…

10. Besides, we should not neglect that…

11. But the problem is not so simple. Therefore…

12. Others may find this to be true, but I believer that…

13. Perhaps I was question why…

14. There is a certain amount of truth in this, but we still have a problem with regard to…

15. Though we are in basic agreement with…,but

16. What seems to be the trouble is…

17. Yet differences will be found, that’s why I feel that…

18. It would be reasonable to take the view that …, but it would be foolish to claim that…

19. There is in fact on reason for us so believe that…

20. What these people fail to consider is that…

21. It is one thing to insist that… , it is quite another to show that …

22. Wonderful as A is , however, it has its own disadvantages too。

23. The advantages of B are much greater than A。

24. A’s advantage sounds ridiculous when B’s advantages are taken into consideration。

修辞手段一般主要用于文学性写作中。但在大学英语的英文写作中有时也需要运用一定的具有英文特征的修辞手段，而且运用得好，会使语句生动从而增添语句亮点。因此，掌握一些一般常用修辞手段对于实现语句亮点也是非常必要的。对于大学英语写作来说，主要应该掌握以下修辞手段，又称语句辞格，包括结构辞格与语义辞格。对比、排比、重复、倒装等为结构辞格，转义、双关、矛盾等则为语义辞格。

1.对比正反对比就是要巧妙地运用对称的英文句式来表达互为补充的意思，因此恰当地运用反义词语往往是必不可少的。如果一旦所要表达的内容具有这种情况，就应尽力选用这种对称的句式并选用适当的反义词语来加强语句，实现语句的亮点。

1)如“很多人很快就会发现，他们在物质上是富裕了，精神上却很贫乏”，可以这样达：

Many people will soon find themselves rich in goods，but ragged in spirit.(注：句中rich in与ragged in，goods与spirit具有正反对比的关系和效果。)

2)如“利远远大于弊”，可以这样表达：

The advantages for outweigh the disadvantages.(注：句中the advantages与the disadvantages具有正反对比的关系和效果。)

3)如“他们注意到了这些说法中的一些道理，但他们却忽视了一个重要的事实”，可以这样表达：

They have noticed a grain of truth in the statements，but have ignored a more important fact.(注：句中have noticed与have ignored，a grain of truth in the statements与a more important fact具有正反对比的关系和效果。)

4)如“这样做既有积极效果也有消极效果”，可以这样表达：

It will have both negative and positive effects by so doing.(注：句中negative与positive具有正反对比的关系和效果)

5)如“我们既有与我们很为相似的朋友，又有与我们很为不同的朋友”，可以这样表达：

We have friends similar to us and friends different from us.(注：句中similar to与different from具有正反对比的关系和效果)

2.排比英文中有时也使用排比句式，这种句式整齐而有气势，又不会使人感到单调。例如，如“读书使我们聪明，锻炼使我们强健”，可以这样表达：

Reading makes us wise while exercises make us strong. 3.重复英文一般讲求简洁，因此为表达强调偶尔使用重复可以使语句的强调内容得到突出。英文的重复又根据被重复词语在语句中的位置分为句首重复、句尾重复、首尾重复、尾首重复等。

1)如“现在是忘掉过去一切的时候了。现在是言归正传的时候了。现在是为未来而奋斗的时候了”，可以这样表达：

Now is the time to forget everything in the past. Now is the time to get down to the business. Now is the time to work hard for the future.(注：此句为句首重复，重复部分为句首的now it the time to)

2)如“我们渴望成功，而且正在为成功而努力工作”，可以这样表达：

We long for success and we are working hard for success.(注：此句为句尾重复，重复的部分为句尾的for success.)

3)如“我相信我们能够成功，我相信我们也一定会成功”，可以这样表达：

I am convinced that we can succeed，and Iam convinced that we must succeed.(注：and所连接的两个语句的句首与句尾部分同时重复，重复的部分为句首的I am convinced that与句尾的succeed)

4)如“我们现在生活在一个新的时代，而一个改革充满着风险与机遇”，可以这样表达：

We are now living in a new era，and a new era of reform is always full of ventures and chances.(注：and之前的句尾与and之后的句首重复，重复部分为a new era.)

4.倒装这里说的倒装不同于前述非修辞性的语法结构倒装。非修辞性的语法结构倒装是语句的语法结构所限定的，没有自由选择的余地，只要运用需要倒装结构的句型就要采用倒装结构。这里所说的倒装是指修辞性语义结构倒装，是进行强调的一种手段，它利用了语句句首(或句尾)的特殊位置。例如，如“充满着风险与机遇的改革的新时代正向我们走来”，可以这样表达：

Now on coming to us is the new era of reform full of ventures and chances. 5.转义转义是一种对词语灵活运用的修辞手段，主要有比喻、拟人、夸张、反语、婉转等，比喻又包括明喻、暗喻、换喻、提喻等。

1)如要表达“过去的经历就像图片一样总是在脑海中萦绕”，英文可为：

What had been experienced in the past was always looming in memory like a picture.(注：此句采用明喻，明喻的特点是使用了like一词)

2)如要表达“我们的英语老师就是我们最好的英语辞典”，英文可为：

Our English teacher is our best English dictionary.(注：此句采用暗喻，暗喻的特点是利用事物之间的相似之处进行比喻，与明喻不同之处在于不使用like一词)

3)如要表达“我正在读莎土比亚的书呢”，英文可为：

I am reading Shakespeare.(注：此句采用换喻，换喻的特点是直接借用一事物的名称宋代替另一事物的名称，使用通过联想理解其含义，但不是所有的事物都是可以用换喻来表达的)

4)如要表达“这里需要一个帮手”，英文可为：

A hand is needed here.(注：此句采用提喻，提喻的特点是用一个事物的部分来代表事物的整体或用一个事物的整体来代表事物的部分。这里用hand一词代表整个人)

5)如要表达“巨大的不幸笼罩着整个城市”，英文可为：

A great misfortune crept over the whole city.(注：此句采用拟人。拟人的特点是将事物人格化)

6)如要表达“这种想法可真是伟大的愚蠢”，英文可为：

This is really a great stupid idea.(注：此句采用反语。反语的特点是故意将话反说，具有讽刺意味)

7)如要表达“我太渴望成功了。听到成功的消息我欣喜若狂”，英文可为：

I was mad for success and on the news of success I went mad with joy.(注：此句采用夸张。夸张的特点是为表现事物的特征故意夸大其词)

A good laugh is sunshine in a house.令人愉快的欢笑是房间里的阳光。(英国小说家萨克雷。W.M.)

A man who is never satisfied with himself and whom therefore nobody can please.人要是从来不满意自己，就不会有人能够使他满意。(德国诗人歌德.J.W.)

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without its dew? The tear, by the smile is made precious above the smile itself.笑容带上泪珠总是最鲜艳、最娇美的。正如没有露水，还算什么清晨?而泪珠带上了笑容，就变得甚至比笑容还珍贵。(美国哲学家、教育家兰格。S.K)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 只工作不娱乐使人愚钝。(英国作家贺维尔.)

Anticipating pleasure is also a pleasure.预期快乐本身也是一种快乐。(德国剧作家、诗人席勒.F.)

Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remem-ber and be sad.笑一笑而忘掉，比愁眉苦脸地记住要好得多。(英国女诗人罗塞蒂.C.G. )

But headlong joy is ever on the wing. 轻率的快乐总是瞬息即逝。(英国诗人 弥尔顿.)

Energy is eternal delight.精力充沛是永恒的快乐。(美国诗人、艺术家布莱克.W.)

Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.不管怎样，娱乐比工作更令人乏味。(法国诗人 查尔斯.B.)

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces ofgoodfortune that seldom happen , as by little advantages thatoccurevery day.(Benjamin Franklin ,American president).与其说人类的幸福来自偶尔发生的鸿运，不如说来自每天都有的小实惠。(美国总统 富兰克林.B.)

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their mindstobe.(Abraham Lincoln ,American president)对于大多数人来说，他们认定自己有多幸福，就有多幸福。(美国总统 林肯.A.)

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to botheraboutwhether you are happy or not.(George Bernard Shaw ,Britishdramatist)痛苦的秘密在于有闲功夫担心自己是否幸福。(英国剧作家 肖伯纳.G.)

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that weareloved.(Victor Hugo , French novelist)生活中最大的幸福是坚信有人爱我们。(法国小说家 雨果.V.)

There is no dise on earth equal to the union of loveandinnocence.(Jean Jacques Rousseau, French thinker)人间最大的幸福莫如既有爱情又清白无暇。(法国思想家 卢梭.J.J.)

To really understand a man we must judge himinmisfortune.(Bonaparte Napoleon , French emperor)要真正了解一个人，需在不幸中考察他。(法国皇帝 拿破仑.B.)

We have no more center to consume happiness without producingitthan to consume wealth without producing it.(George Bernard Shaw,British dramatist)正像我们无权只享受财富而不创造财富一样，我们也无权只享受幸福而不创造幸福。(英国剧作家 肖伯纳.G.)

A lifetime of happiness ! No man alive could bear it ; it wouldbehell on earth.(G.Bernard Shaw ,British dramatist)终身幸福!这是任何活着的人都无法忍受的，那将是人间地狱。 (英国剧作家 肖伯纳.G.)

Happiness is form courage.(H.Jackson , British writer)幸福是勇气的一种形式。(英国作家 杰克逊.H.)

Happy is the man who is living by his hobby.(G.Bernard Shaw,British dramatist)醉心于某种癖好的人是幸福的。(英国剧作家 肖伯纳.G.)

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money ; it liesinthe joy of achievement , in the thrill of creativeeffort.(FranklinRoosevelt , American president)幸福不在于拥有金钱，而在于获得成就时的喜悦以及产生创造力的激情。(美国总统 罗斯福.F.)

He laughs best who laughs last.远行者见闻多。(英国科学家雷伊.J.)

He who can conceal his joys is greater than he who can hide his griefs.能隐藏欢乐的人比能隐藏悲痛的人更了不起。(瑞士作家 拉瓦特)

I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, that shows at the same time pearls and the soul.我喜欢能不开启双唇和心扉的笑声，喜欢能展示皓齿和灵魂的笑声。(法国作家雨果)

I never condider ease and joyfulness as the purpose of life itself.我从来不认为安逸和欢乐就是生活本身的目的。(美国科学家爱因斯坦)

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.我愿宣扬的信条是艰苦奋发的生活，而不是卑微低下的安逸。(美国政治家罗斯福.T.)

It is a curious fact that in bad days we can very vividly recall the good time that is now no more; but that in good days we have only a very cold and imperfect memory of the bad.奇怪得很，人们在倒楣的时候，总会清晰地回忆已经逝去 快乐时光，但是在得意的时候，对恶运时光只保有一种淡漠而不完全的记忆。(德国哲学家叔本华)

It is a poor heart that never rejoices.永远不快乐的心很可悲。(英国小说家马里亚特)

Joys are our wings, sorrows are our spurs.欢乐是人们的双翼，哀愁是人们发愤的动力。(法国作家里克特.J.P)

Labor is often the father of pleasure.劳动常常是快乐之父。(法国哲学家、历史学家伏尔泰)

One of the greatest pleasure in life is conversation.生活中最大的乐趣之一是交谈。(美国作家史密斯L.P.)

Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.完全的理解有时几乎会使乐趣消失。(英国学者、诗人豪斯曼.A.E.)

Never less idle than when wholly idle, nor less alone than when wholly alone.要清闲就完全清闲，要清静就完全清静。(英国诗人克莱尔J.)

People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.腾不出时间娱乐的人，早晚会被迫腾出时间生病。(美国商人 霍梅克.J.)

Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain, the enjoying of something I am in great trouble for till I have it.快乐不过是痛苦的间歇，享受之前要进行艰苦的努力。(英国法学家 塞尔登.J.)

Praise is ilde sunlight to the human spirit, we cannot flower and grow without it.对于人的精神来说，赞扬就像阳光一样，没有它我们便不能开花生长。(英国作家 格林.G.)

Where possible, reduce the use of "which," "who" "that" "whom" "whether... or not" etc.

少用关系代词

学会运用关系代词是你学习英文过程中的一个重要的阶段。学会少用它们则表明你取得了更大的进步。在校对你的作品时，仔细检查一下所有的which’s, who’s that’s和whom’s是否必要。删除不必要的关系代词会使你的文章更精彩。

Example:

Unnecessary: It is a truth that is universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

(用两个 that’s，读起来很别扭)

Better: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

-- Jane Austin

注：被动语态修饰的名词通常不须用关系代词。

Unnecessary: In 1970 India dedicated a nuclear power plant near Bombay, which was built with American assistance.

Improved: In 1970 India dedicated a nuclear power plant near Bombay, built with American assistance.

Unnecessary: During this period, Churchill spoke for a nation which was undivided and curiously happy, as it has never been in my lifetime, before or since.

Improved: During this period, Churchill spoke for a nation undivided and curiously happy, as it has never been in my lifetime, before or since.

Unnecessary: Justice theories have a long tradition, which goes back to Plato and Aristotle in the 5th century B.C.

Improved: Justice theories have a long tradition, going back to Plato and Aristotle in the 5th century B.C.

Unnecessary: Shirley Temple’s father blew nearly the entire $3 million that she made by tap dancing which made her famous in the movies.

Improved: Shirley Temple’s father blew nearly the entire $3 million she made tap dancing her way to fame in the movies.

Unnecessary: We told them they were the victims who deserved sympathy the most.

Improved: We told them they were the victims, most deserving of sympathy.

Unnecessary: Only a person who is oblivious* to the facts of modern life would doubt the need of vocational education today.

Better: Only a person oblivious to the facts of modern life would doubt the need of vocational education today.

Unnecessary: Not everyone in North America likes the taste of green tea, whether it contains caffeine or not.

Better: With or without caffeine, not everyone in North America likes the taste of green tea.

Unnecessary: Usually the Washington family married people who were socially better off than themselves, but the second marriage of George’s father was an exception.

Better: Usually the Washingtons married their social betters, but the second marriage of George’s father was an exception.

Unnecessary: In some instances, a letter can take ten days by air and six to eight weeks by ship to reach the person to whom the letter is addressed.

Better: In some instances, a letter can take ten days by air and six to eight weeks by ship to reach its intended receiver.

Let‘s cross the bridge when we come to it.船到桥头自然直。下面是小编为你带来的初中英语写作常用谚语，欢迎阅读。

1. All roads lead to Rome.

条条大路通罗马。

2. Well begun is half done.

好的开端是成功的一半。

3. East, west, home is best.

金窝、银窝，不如自己的草窝。

4. First think, then act.

三思而后行。

5. It is never too late to mend.

亡羊补牢，犹为未晚。

6. Time is money.

时间就是金钱。

7. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

患难见真交。

8. Great hopes make great man.

远大的希望，造就伟大的人物。

9. Where there is a will, there is a way.

有志者，事竟成。

10. Stick to it, and you‘ll succeed.

只要人有恒，万事都能成。

11. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

早睡早起，富裕、聪明、身体好。

12. A good medicine tastes bitter.

良药苦口。

13. It is good to learn at another man‘s cost.

前车之鉴。

14. Let‘s cross the bridge when we come to it.

船到桥头自然直。

15. No pains, no gains.

不劳则无获。

16. Nothing is difficult to the man who will try.

世上无难事，只要肯登攀。

17. Where there is life, there is hope.

生命不息，希望常在。

18. An idle youth, a needy age.

少壮不努力，老大徒伤悲。

19. A plant may produce new flowers; man is young but once.

花有重开日，人无再少年。

20. God helps those who help themselves.

自助者，天助之。

21. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

只工作，不玩耍，聪明孩子也变傻。

22. Diligence is the mother of success.

勤奋是成功之母。

23. Truth is the daughter of time.

时间见真理。

24. No man is wise at all times.

智者千虑，必有一失。

25. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

今天能做的事绝不要拖到明天。

26. Kill two birds with one stone.

一石双鸟。

27. Easier said than done.

说起来容易做起来难。

28. Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

天才一分来自灵感，九十九分来自勤奋。

29. He who laughs last laughs best.

谁笑在最后，谁笑得最好。

30. He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.

身体健壮就有希望，有了希望就有了一切。

31. No man is born wise or learned.

人非生而知之。

32. Action speak louder than words.

事实胜于雄辩。

33. Courage and resolution are the spirit and soul of virtue.

勇敢和坚决是美德的灵魂。

34. There is no smoke without fire.

无风不起浪。

35. Many hands make light work.

人多好办事。

36. Reading makes a full man.

读书长见识。

37. Wisdom in the mind is better than money in the hand.

胸中有知识，胜于手中有金钱。

38. Seeing is believing.

百闻不如一见。

39. Money is a good servant but a bad master.

要做金钱的主人，莫作金钱的奴隶。

40. It‘s hard sailing when there is no wind.

无风难驶船。

41. The path to glory is always rugged.

通向光荣的道路常常是崎岖的。

42. Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.

没有目标的生活如同没有罗盘的航行。

43. Quality matters more than quantity.

质重于量。

44. The on-looker sees most of the game.

旁观者清。

45. Joys shared with others are more enjoyed.

与众同乐，其乐更乐。

46. Happiness takes no account of time.

欢乐不觉日子长。

47. Time and tide waits for no man.

岁月不等人。

48. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it.

若要求知，必须刻苦。

49. Learn to walk before you run.

循序渐进。

50. From words to deeds is a great space.

言行之间，大有距离。

51. Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.

技能和信心是无敌的军队。

52. Habit is a second nature.

习惯成自然。

53. Two heads are better than one.

三个臭皮匠顶个诸葛亮。

54. Nothing is impossible to a willing mind.

世上无难事，只怕有心人。

55. You can‘t make something out of nothing.

巧妇难为无米之炊。

56. Nothing for nothing.

不费力气，一无所得。

57. He who makes no mistakes makes nothing.

不犯错误者一事无成。

58. Nothing seek, nothing find.

无所求则无所获。

59. A little of every thing is nothing in the main.

每事浅尝辄止，事事都告无成。

60. A great ship asks deep waters.

大船要走深水。

小作文一般以书信居多，因此，在写作时要注意一下两点。

第一，既然是书信，一定要按照书信的格式写作。阅卷老师最先注意到的就是格式，其次才通过阅读看看内容是否符合要求。不注意格式，肯定被扣分。还不熟悉书信格式的同学赶紧多多练习。

第二，要仔细审题。这个问题年年在强调，但是年年有人不注意，写作时往往会跑题。这样怎么能得高分?考试时时间很紧张，怎样快速审题?笔者建议大家首先要脑子里要迅速构建一副写作场景，接下来要抓住关键词，然后围绕场景和关键词进行扩展。这一点不是说一说看一看就能掌握，需要同学们现在多做强化训练。

具体写作就按照题目要求一个点写一段，总共分三段。这样给人的印象是重点突出、条理清晰。下面就以2014年小作文为例，简单分析一下每一段怎么写。

称呼：Dear John,注意称呼中，所有实词首字母全部大写，Dear John后面的逗号不可丢，也不能写成冒号。

正文：

第一段：写作内容需涵盖两点：自我介绍，写信目的。文章开门见山就是自我介绍，用到了这样的表达：I am Li Ming who will go to study in your university and live together with you in one department. 其中的“I am …who…”这个句型来自于建议信的表达，放在这里也十分贴切。接下一句话表明了写信目的：Now I am writing this letter to tell you some of my habits and ask you for some suggestions to adapt myself there.

第二段：写作内容为习惯介绍以及寻求建议。首先，介绍自己的生活习惯，自己一般早上六点起床外出锻炼;周末一般在图书馆看书;其次，希望John就如何适应当地生活给自己一些建议。

第三段：写作内容表示期待，良好祝愿。用到了这样的表达：I am looking forward to seeing you soon and wish everything goes well.

落款：Yours sincerely, 特别提醒sincerely后面逗号不能丢;

签名：Li Ming，特别注意Li Ming 后面一定不能出现句点。

附注：

1、格式

称呼：英语应用文称呼有这样的特点，如果是不认识的人，一般称呼为敬词+尊称。例如，DearSirorMadam或者ToWhomItMayConcern(需注意每个单词首字母都大写);如果是写给关系正式的某团体或个人，称呼为敬词+尊称+名。例如，DearMr.xx或DearMs.xx;;对于关系较亲密的人可以直呼其名，即Dearxx。需要注意的是：1.称呼要顶格写;2.称呼之后要加逗号或者冒号(推荐大家用逗号，因为历年的高分范文都是用逗号的)。

正文：正文格式一般有两种格式，一是缩进式，即首段开头空四个字母，段落之间不空行;一是齐头式，即每段开头不空格，但是各段之间空一行。老师建议考生采用缩进式，因为如果用齐头式，段间空行的话很可能答题空间不够，导致字数不够。

2、语言

写作用词准确是最基础的要求之一。其次，句型可以多变，例如既有并列句，也有复合句，还有从句，但注意语法运用要正确。此外还要注意，正式语言一般是写给具有正式关系的团体或机构，这种情况不用缩略语和口语用法。除了正式的文体以外，其他的文体皆为非正式文体，像写给朋友的书信等。

一般小作文的考查要求中会体现出写该篇的目的和场合，所以考生在写作时要注意针对不同场合使用不同语言，使交流得以进行。另外，考生也要注意不同的应用文有不同的用语。建议考生对某些应用文的格式和习惯用语，应该加以熟悉和背诵，以便运用自如。

3、其他

考生在考试时注意在看到题目要求后不要忙于动笔，虽说小作文的字数充其量在一百多个单词，但是依旧要在脑子里理清思路。最好能够在仔细审题以后，认真列个提纲，这样更有利于思路清晰。写作时，注意表达清楚以下几个方面：首先交代清楚写信目的;其次为了让阅卷者对你的文章结构及表意一目了然，注意关联词或衔接词的运用;接下来，应该对个人的观点进行阐述(在写作有此必要的时候)。最后，行文间要注意简化描述，用简短的语句代替冗长的语句。在作文完成的时候，应该检查、修改，以免遗漏一些需要表达清楚的要点和细节。

英语写作的开头结尾是写作的重点。下面语文迷为大家带来了经典的句型，供大家阅读参考。

一.开头句型

1.As far as ...is concerned 就……而言

2.It goes without saying that... 不言而喻，...

3.It can be said with certainty that... 可以肯定地说......

4.As the proverb says， 正如谚语所说的，

5.It has to be noticed that... 它必须注意到，...

6.Its generally recognized that... 它普遍认为...

7.Its likely that ... 这可能是因为...

8.Its hardly that... 这是很难的......

9.Its hardly too much to say that... 它几乎没有太多的说…

10.What calls for special attention is that...需要特别注意的是

11.Theres no denying the fact that...毫无疑问，无可否认

12.Nothing is more important than the fact that... 没有什么比这更重要的是…

13.whats far more important is that... 更重要的是…

二.衔接句型

1.A case in point is ... 一个典型的例子是...

2.As is often the case...由于通常情况下...

3.As stated in the previous paragraph 如前段所述

4.But the problem is not so simple. Therefore 然而问题并非如此简单，所以……

5.But its a pity that... 但遗憾的是…

6.For all that...对于这一切...... In spite of the fact that...尽管事实......

7.Further, we hold opinion that... 此外，我们坚持认为，...

8.However , the difficulty lies in...然而，困难在于…

9.Similarly, we should pay attention to... 同样，我们要注意...

10.not(that)...but(that)...不是，而是

11.In view of the present station.鉴于目前形势

12.As has been mentioned above...正如上面所提到的…

13.In this respect, we may as well (say) 从这个角度上我们可以说

14.However, we have to look at the other side of the coin, that is... 然而我们还得看到事物的另一方面，即 …

三.结尾句型

1.I will conclude by saying... 最后我要说…

2.Therefore, we have the reason to believe that...因此，我们有理由相信…

3.All things considered,总而言之 It may be safely said that...它可以有把握地说......

4.Therefore, in my opinion, its more advisable...因此，在我看来，更可取的是…

5.From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw the conclusion that….通过以上讨论，我们可以得出结论…

6.The data/statistics/figures lead us to the conclusion that….通过数据我们得到的结论是，....

7.It can be concluded from the discussion that...从中我们可以得出这样的结论

8.From my point of view, it would be better if...在我看来……也许更好