In this serious game, imagine you were asked to hire an instructional designer for your college or company. Who would you hire? Use the audio players below to hear the candidates talk about their views on instructional design. At the end of the first part of the interview, the candidates will ask you if you
Read on »Posts By: Nicholas Walker
Comma Rules and Errors
There are 7 essential comma rules to learn. Learn when to use them, when not to use them, and how to avoid comma errors. 7 Comma Rules Comma Rule #1: Use a comma after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before “and” or “or” (e.g. an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect).
Read on »Wordiness
Writers commonly use more words than they need to. The more words you throw at a reader, the more words the reader will have to process to get at your ideas. When the words are meaningless or redundant, there is more to for the reader to ignore, slowing attempts to understand your message. Proofreaders, editors,
Read on »For vs Since
What’s the difference between for and since? Choosing between prepositions can be tricky. For French speakers, choosing which preposition to use can be especially difficult because the French equivalents are used differently. Don’t worry. This article should clarify when to use “for” and “since.” Rules and Examples RULE: Use FOR with a length
Read on »Apply to vs Apply for
What is the difference between apply to and apply for? Do you find prepositions confusing? Do you sometimes wonder which preposition to use, unsure of its effect on meaning? You are not alone. In the article below, you will learn the difference between “apply to” and “apply for,” and you will learn how to correct this common
Read on »On Monday or on Mondays
Which is correct, “I always work on Monday” or “I always work on Mondays”? On Monday or on Mondays, on Tuesday or on Tuesdays, on Wednesday or on Wednesdays, on Thursday or on Thursdays, on Friday or on Fridays, on Saturday or on Saturdays, on Sunday or on Sundays? Rules and Examples RULE: Use the
Read on »Said or Told
Do you know when to use said and when to use told? Some students find these words confusing. This article should clarify things for you. Rules and Examples RULE: Say cannot be followed by a direct personal object (for example, me, him, her, us, them, John, Peter, Mary). Use told instead. INCORRECT: I said her to send me the document. CORRECT: I told her to send
Read on »Random Error Checker Game
Have you tried the Random Error Checker Game? The new interactive version of the game is located on the Games page.
Read on »200 Day-in-the-Life Career-Related Articles
A Day in the Life of a Professional in Your Field of Study Click on one of the links below to open a new tab with a day in the life article related to one of these 224 professions. Paraphrase and summarize the article you choose. Try the VirtualWriting Tutor’s Paraphrase Checker to check how close your
Read on »Products
ESL Textbooks Check out our award-winning Actively Engaged series of textbooks for CEGEP ESL from BokomaruPublications.com. On June 8th, 2017, Nicholas Walker, the creator of the Virtual Writing Tutor, was awarded the TESL Canada Innovation Award in Niagara, Canada for his Actively Engaged series of books. On June 6th, 2019, he received the AQPC Mention d’Honneur for teaching excellence
Read on »Free Error Correction Card Game
Research has revealed that some of the strongest influences on student learning include reciprocal teaching, cooperative learning, and computer-assisted instruction (Hattie, 2009). ESL teachers can make excellent use of all three of these powerful pedagogical levers at once by having students play a simple card game, like this one in Actively Engaged Online (Walker, 2015) from
Read on »Free Grammar Checker Visual Style Guide
Get your free grammar checker style guide here. It’s free! Share it on social media or print it for your students. Learn grammar rules, punctuation tips, compare tenses, identify false cognates, and see examples of 50 of the most common errors learners make on the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker.
Read on »Adverb Word Order
Adverbs of manner tell us how an event happens and adverbs of frequency tell us how often it happens. Rules and Examples of Adverb Errors RULE: Put the adverb of frequency before the main verb in a sentence, not after it.INCORRECT: I go often camping. I took fast my shower. I painted carefully the house. I
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