Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham and I'm so glad you've decided to join me for today's lesson.

So today we're going to be editing our letters to Sherlock Holmes, polishing them up to make them really impressive for our reader.

I think we're going to be able to make some really good improvements, so let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called peer editing a persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes, and it comes by a unit called Sherlock Holmes, Descriptive and Letter Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to edit your own and your peer's persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes.

Now, as ensure you know, editing is one of the most important steps of the writing process and any book that we read has likely gone through weeks and months of editing to make it as good as it possibly can be.

So even if we're really proud of our work as we should be, we can always make little tweaks to try and improve it even more for our reader.

So your teacher may have asked you today to edit the whole of your letter to Sherlock Holmes or just part of it.

Either way, you can do the three checks we go through in this lesson to improve it even more.

Now we talk a lot about peer editing in this lesson, editing with a partner, but if you're on your own at home, you can do all the checks just the same on your own.

Let's get to work.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Editing, punctuation, cohesion and vocabulary.

Well done.

So editing is the process of revising and refining a piece of writing, focusing on improving its punctuation, sentence structures and language.

And punctuation is a set of standardised symbols and marks used in written language to structure sentences.

Text cohesion refers to how a text flows to maintain the interest of the reader and achieve its text purpose.

And vocabulary refers to the language choices made by the writer.

So we're going to go through three checks on our piece of work today.

We're going to start off by peer editing for punctuation.

Then we'll edit for cohesion, and finally for vocabulary.

So by the end we will have made three improvements to our writing.

So let's focus on punctuation to start with.

When we finished a draught, as you know, we edit to improve our work and this is a chance to rethink, rephrase, and reconsider our first ideas.

Remember, every piece of work can always be improved.

Even if we think we did our very best writing, then we can be very proud of that, but we can try and then make tiny improvements to try and make it even better and even more impressive for our reader.

And editing a piece of work involves doing several checks.

We check for punctuation, we check our sentence structures and our cohesive devices, and we check our vocabulary and our spelling.

So editing is about polishing your work so it really shows off your skills and impresses your reader and communicates what you want to communicate.

And in this case, what we want to do is be as persuasive as possible to Sherlock Holmes.

So our editing, if it's successful, will make our writing even more persuasive and impressive as well.

So, true or false? Editing is something only children do to their writing.

Pause the video and decide.

Well done, you're right.

That is false, but can you explain why? Which is the best justification here for why that's false? Pause the video and choose.

Well done, good job.

That is A, all writers, including professional authors, edit their work because our first draught is not usually our best possible work.

It can always be polished to improve it.

Now, B said we would need to make big changes every time because our first draught is never very good.

That's not true.

Our first draught could be excellent, it could be the best writing we think we've ever done, but we can still make slight improvements to it by doing careful editing.

And that's why doing these three checks is a great idea.

So first, we're going to check our punctuation.

Now, we're going to go through a couple of rules for punctuation that we need to check for when we run this check for penetration.

Let's start with commas.

As I'm sure you know, commas can be used to demarcate or show the boundaries of clauses and phrases.

For instance, here we've got, "Although they claim to have investigated, they have made no progress." We've got a fronted adverbial clause, "Although they claim to have investigated," with the comma placed after it.

Here, we've got a compound sentence, "I have no idea if this is true, but I'm certain you will find out." If our compound sentence is joined together, our two main clauses are joined with, but or or in a compound sentence, we put a comma before it.

If we use "and" we don't have a comma.

Here, we've got a fronted adverbial, a formal fronted adverbial showing contrast.

We've said, "However, I'm in desperate need of your assistance." And any fronted adverbial, whether it's a single word like this one, or a phrase or a clause, like in the first example, will be followed by a comma.

Because a fronted adverbial is a sentence starter followed by a comma.

Commas and dashes can also be used to show parenthesis.

For instance, "My uncle, Sir Charles Baskerville, was recently discovered dead outside his home.

We have on commas on either side of the parenthesis and that could be removed and the sentence would still make sense.

It would say, "My uncle was recently discovered dead outside his home." Here's an example with dashes.

"The local police have been hopeless - completely hopeless - in this case" Here, the parenthesis dashes emphasising a point.

And again, we could remove that parenthesis and the sentence would still make sense.

It would say, "The local police have been hopeless in this case." So whenever we have parenthesis, the punctuation goes on either side.

A semicolon is another piece of punctuation we need to check for.

And remember, it's used to join what could be two complete sentences.

So here are two complete sentences.

"I am aware your time is precious." Full stop.

"However, I desperately need help." We could join those with a semicolon like this.

And notice how the only change that's happened is that it's now become one sentence.

So that capital H for "however" has become a small letter.

So we've got two complete sentences joined with a semicolon to make one sentence.

And a colon is another great piece of punctuation we can use.

Remember, a colon can be used to introduce an explanation.

And here, the rule is that both parts of the sentence, the one before the colon and the one after the colon, must be capable of being a complete sentence on their own.

So for example, "I do not blame them: they have little experience with such matters." Here, what comes after the colon explains what comes before, explains why I don't blame them.

But both parts could be a complete sentence.

Here's another one.

"This is a very concerning situation: if the hound is real, I am in danger." Again, what comes after explains what comes before.

And both parts could be a complete sentence.

So can you add the missing punctuation into each of these sentences? Maybe it's a comma, maybe it's dashes, maybe it's a semicolon, maybe it's a colon.

Pause the video and decide.

Well done, good job.

So in A, we would add in a colon here to show an explanation.

"We must find out if the hound is real: this will allow us to feel safe." Again, two complete sentences joined to make one by the colon.

B would be a comma after that fronted adverbial.

"Furthermore," another formal fronted adverbial.

C would have a comma before but in a compound sentence.

And D needs both commas and a semicolon.

We've got fronted adverbials, "With your help," and, "Without you," which need commas after them.

But we need a semicolon to show that we've got two separate sentences joined now to make one sentence, but on either side is what could be a complete sentence.

Really well done.

Hope you got all this.

Now here we've got an example paragraph from a persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes.

It's got lots of punctuation missing.

Can you see if you and your partner or on your own if you need to, can see any punctuation mistakes in this passage? Where do you think the punctuation needs to be added? See if you can spot all the places where it should be.

Pause the video and have a try.

Really well done.

Now I'm not going to tell you what punctuation we should add, but let's look at some of the places where it's missing.

I'm sure you spotted, there are loads of places we need it.

We need it after "real" here, and after this "real", after "danger", after "not", after "addition", after "shock", after "police", after "inexperienced", and after "best" as well.

So loads of missing punctuation.

I bet you've thought already what it should be.

Really well done for spotting all those.

So let's do our first task for the session, our first piece of editing.

We're going to peer edit our letter looking only at the punctuation this time.

So you're gonna work in a pair as partner A and partner B.

If you're on your own, that is fine, you can just do the check on your own.

We're gonna place A's work on top of B's work and A's going to follow with a ruler, as B reads their work aloud and looking only at punctuation, work together to make any additions, adding in punctuation or changes, maybe you've used the wrong punctuation, that need to be made in A's work together.

Then when you've done A's work, repeat with B's work.

Remember to check for all of these, commas, colons, semicolons and dashes.

Maybe you've missed a full stop as well.

So make sure you check for those as well.

So pause the video and run that first check for A's work and then for B'S work, have a go.

Well done, really good job.

So here's an example of some of the changes you might have made.

So I've taken that previous passage I showed you with all that missing punctuation and I've added it in.

So here I've added a colon in the first sentence to show an explanation.

In the second sentence, I've got a semicolon and commas after fronted adverbials.

In the third sentence, I needed a comma after that fronted adverbial in addition and then another colon to show the explanation there.

And in the last sentence I had a relative clause, a piece of parenthesis with commas on either side and a comma before "but" in a compound sentence.

So lots of commas added, some semicolons and colons as well there.

So hopefully you didn't have as many changes to make as I did in my passage, but I hope you've managed to spot a few pieces of punctuation you could improve in your work.

Good job.

So let's move on to our second check.

We're now going to edit for cohesion.

So having good text cohesion means making sure that ideas are connected appropriately and the text flows well.

And when we edit our work, we can check for cohesion in a number of ways.

Have we used a range of cohesive devices? And that's things like parenthesis, fronted adverbials, compound and complex sentences, colons to explain, and semicolons to link sentences together.

All of these are examples of cohesive devices.

So we can also think, have we added in any missing words and removed any extra words? Sometimes we write too many words, don't we? And finally, and most importantly, does the writing make sense? It's not gonna be very persuasive to Sherlock Holmes if our writing doesn't make sense.

So we can check for all these things to improve our text cohesion.

So here's an example of the editing we might do for cohesion.

I've again got a passage here which has lots of mistakes in, and this time the mistakes had to do with text cohesion, the way information is connected together.

Let me show you some of the mistakes we've got.

Well, it says this, "I'm certain you'll be anxious to help resolve this issue.

You want to put the community's mind at ease.

With your meticulous methods, I am certain the mystery will soon have been solved.

Without your help, it will remain forever a puzzle." Well, first of all, I see a missing word here.

"You want to put the community's mind at ease." Hmm, that doesn't quite sound right.

We don't know if he wants that.

And here, there's some poor cohesion.

We could connect these sentences somehow because they're linked together.

So we might wanna think about how we can improve the cohesion there.

This part has poor cohesion as well.

We've got kind of a contrast here, haven't we? "With your methods, the mystery will be solved.

Without your methods, without your help, it's going to remain a puzzle." So there's a strong connection there between those two sentences, which we haven't really shown.

So I wonder how we could do that.

And also, this last part doesn't make sense in this sentence.

"I am certain the mystery will soon have been solved." I'm not sure the tense is quite right there.

So here are the changes I would make.

I would say, "I am certain you'll be anxious to help resolve this issue." And I've improved my cohesion by using a compound sentence "That you will," there's that missing word, "want to put the community's mind at ease." And then I've improved the cohesion of these last two sentences by using a semicolon there instead of a new sentence.

So the sentences are more closely connected together.

And I've changed that tense to say, "I am certain the mystery will soon be solved," instead of, "will soon have been." So that's corrected to make more sense.

So what have we done? We've improved the connections between ideas using their cohesive devices.

And in this case, those cohesive devices were a compound sentence using "and" and that semicolon.

But it's just as important to check for any missing words and of course, to check things make sense, as we did there.

So can you try and improve the cohesion of each of these passages? You might want to add cohesive devices or there might be some missing words.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

So in A, it says this at the minute, "I am aware that you're a busy man whose time is precious." Full stop.

"I'm contacting you regarding a serious matter." So I think you could improve the cohesion by using a semicolon and then a fronted adverbial, like, "however".

There, we've shown the connection between those two ideas and the semicolon joins them into one sentence.

B currently says, "Last Tuesday, my uncle was found dead outside his home.

His name was Sir Charles Baskerville." Hmm, we could improve the occasion there by using parenthesis.

We could say, "Last Tuesday, my uncle, Sir Charles Baskerville, was found dead outside his home." C says, "There were no visible injuries on his body.

It was surrounded by the prints of a huge hound." Here, we could add in a complex sentence by using, "although." "Although there were no visible injuries on his body, it was surrounded by the prints of a huge hound.

There, we had two sentences and we've connected them together to make a complex sentence using that subordinated conjunction, "although".

So we've really worked hard here to improve the cohesion of our writing.

Really good job.

So, we often want to connect ideas more closely to promote improved cohesion using different cohesive devices as we've seen.

So let's take these two ideas.

"The police have tried to help.

They have been no use at all." While we could join these ideas together using compounded complex sentences, using parenthesis and using fronted adverbials.

So for instance, here is some parenthesis as a relative clause.

"The police, who have tried to help, have been no use at all." We could use a complex sentence.

"Although the police have tried to help, they have been no use at all." We could use a compound sentence.

"The police have tried to help, but they have been no use at all.

And if we want to keep them as separate sentences, we could use a fronted adverbial at the start of the second sentence.

"The police have tried to help." Full stop.

"However they've been no use at all." None of these ways is better than the other.

It's up to us to choose which we think is right at the time.

All of them improve text cohesion because they show the connections between the piece of information.

So let's try it.

Can you discuss with a partner where you could improve the text cohesion in this passage? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great job.

Now, we won't go through exactly how we're going to improve this now.

We'll do that at the end of this task.

But some of these sentences could be joined together to make complex and compound sentences.

And others could be linked using fronted adverbials and keeping them as separate sentences.

And several pairs of sentences, which are closely related, could be linked by semicolons as well.

And I'm sure you've spotted some opportunities where you could use all of those keys or devices.

Very well done.

So let's do our second task.

Here, we're going to peer edit for cohesion.

So we're just looking at these cohesive devices and these sentence structures.

So as you did before, start off with A's work and edit that and then do B'S work as well.

So again, check for all these things, our missing words, our missing cohesive devices, and of course, sense.

We have to make sure our text makes sense.

So pause the video and peer edit your work.

Or if you're on your own, edit your own work.

Have a go.

Well done, great job.

So here's an example of the changes you might have made.

I've got here that passage I showed you before.

Let me show you how I'd prove it.

So can you see there, I've joined the first few sentences together with the semicolon and I've kept that fronted adverbial, "however," but now it's within the same sentence.

In the next sentence, I've added parenthesis, so there's not a separate sentence for Sir Charles Baskerville.

In the next one, I've got, "although," to make a complex sentence and in the last sentence that I've started it with a fronted adverbial, "however," to show how it relates to the sentence before.

Now again, you probably didn't need to make that many changes in your work, but hopefully you found one or two places where you can improve your cohesion to make the writing flow together beautifully for your reader.

Good job.

Okay, let's do our final check now.

We're going to peer edit for vocabulary.

Now if we're editing a narrative together, we'd often want to try and make our writing more imaginative and descriptive.

And I'm sure you've done that before.

But when we're editing a persuasive letter, we're going to have different things on our mind.

We are gonna think, is the vocabulary formal enough given that our audience, remember, is Sherlock Holmes? A very intelligent, educated man.

So we'll avoid things like contractions, which is where we've taken two words and contracted them together using an apostrophe.

For instance, "don't" and "wouldn't".

And we'll also have to think, have we used vocabulary that adds to the persuasive impact of our writing? For instance, by being emotive, which means are we showing the strong feelings we've got? And in our letter, there are strong feelings, aren't there? We want to show the fear of the community, maybe our own fear as Sir Henry about the hound and whether it's real.

And also our confusion about this story of the hound.

So for example, instead of saying that Sir Charles died with "an expression of fear" on his face, we could say, "an expression of total horror." And that's more persuasive, isn't it? Because it's showing Holmes just how serious this situation is.

So we need to make sure our vocabulary is emotive in the right way.

So let's look at an example of how it can improve our vocabulary.

So here is what I've got written now.

"The locals think poor old Sir Charles was killed by a big dog.

Won't you help us solve this massive problem?" I bet your writing is better than that.

Let's see if we can spot the mistakes here.

We've got, "poor old Sir Charles," which is quite informal, isn't it? We're trying to be formal 'cause we're writing Sherlock Holmes.

We've got "big dog" here.

Well, that's not very emotive, is it? It doesn't make Holmes think this animal is scary in any way whatsoever.

We want him to think that the hound, if it's real at all, is a scary creature.

Using "massive problem" is also to informal, and we've got a contraction here with "won't" as well.

So this does not have a formal tone, does it? So we need to improve that tone by changing the vocabulary.

For instance, we could write this.

Instead of saying, "The locals think," we could say, "The local people believe." Instead of saying, "Poor old Sir Charles," we could say, "My unfortunate uncle, Sir Charles." And then instead of saying, "a big dog," we could say, "Murdered by a vast demonic hound." Instead of that construction "won't", we can say, "Will you not?" Which you wouldn't say if we were speaking normally, would we? But we're writing a formal letter.

So we're going to say that here.

And then instead of "solve", I put "resolve", slightly more formal, and instead of "massive problem", "mysterious puzzle".

So you can see there are loads of opportunities in our writing to try and make things ever so slightly more formal in order to get this tone right for our letter to Holmes.

So which version of the passage here uses the most appropriate vocabulary for a persuasive letter to Sherlock Holmes? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, you're right.

The answer is B.

So we've said, "I know your time is valuable; however, I would be eternally grateful if you were able to help us." In A, we are too informal because we've used a contraction, "we'd", and we've said, "It would be amazing," and things like, "a few minutes," which are not formal at all.

And C, we've got contraction again, we've got "don't" and "you're".

And then we're kind of being a little bit too hostile.

We're saying, "You're going to regret it," which is a bit too threatening for our letter.

Now, we've talked about using veiled threats as a persuasive technique, but this is not a veiled threat.

This is just a threat, and that doesn't get in the right tone at all.

So, really well done if you spotted B.

So using emotive language, as we've said, can be very persuasive.

And let's talk through now some more emotive versions of some common words we might use.

Instead of "big", we could say "vast" or "immense".

That would mean the dog sounds scarier.

Instead of "nasty", we could call it demonic.

Instead of saying that the community is worried, we could say it's in a state of complete shock.

That's more emotive, then it's more persuasive.

Instead of saying, "We're in trouble," we could say, "We're in grave danger." Instead of saying, "It's a worrying situation," we can say, "It's concerning." Instead of a case, we can call it a mystery, a puzzle or an issue.

I think Holmes might be really persuaded by the idea of a mystery or a puzzle because that suggested something we really need his help to solve.

And finally, instead of just saying, "the village," we could say, "the local community," which is just a bit more formal.

And we also want to make sure we're being formal in how we start our sentences.

So instead of saying, "I think that," we could say, "I am certain that." Instead of, "I know that," I could say, "I am aware that." Instead of, "Local people say," "Local people believe." "Instead of, "we need to," we could say a great one here, "It is imperative that we," that means it really needs to happen.

And instead of saying, "I'm sure," I could say, "I have no doubt." And finally, instead of saying, "I'm worried," I could say, "I fear that." So we can see if we can use these more formal ways of starting sentences to make our writing that a little bit more persuasive.

So how can we improve each of these examples by using more appropriate vocabulary? Pause the video and for each sentence, see if you can think of one way you could improve it.

Well done, great effort.

So, A currently says, "I'm sure the lovely Sherlock Holmes will want to help." What about you thought of more than one improvement you could do there? Instead, you wouldn't use, "I'm" 'cause it's a contraction and "lovely" is to informal.

We could say, "I am certain that the remarkable Sherlock Holmes will want to help." B says, "The village is in a bad state; people are scared of the big dog." Well, "scared" isn't very emotive and nor is "big dog", And "in a bad state" is also not very strong.

We are not showing Holmes here how much we are scared of this dog.

So you could say instead, "The local community is in a terrible state; people are petrified of the legendary demonic hound they believe killed my uncle." Much more emotive, much more persuasive.

C says, "Thanks a million for reading this letter - it's so appreciated." But we wouldn't say "it's" 'cause that's a contraction, and "Thanks a million," is much too informal.

So we could say, "Please accept my sincere thanks for taking the time to read this letter.

It really is very much appreciated." That's much more formal and that's part of what makes it so persuasive.

Really well done.

Have you thought of some similar improvements? So, here is another passage that needs improvement.

Here, the improvements are all about vocabulary.

So can you discuss with a partner what problems you see with the vocabulary in this passage? Where would you make some changes? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, great edit.

So you probably noticed some examples of informal language being used.

For instance, "You're really busy," "You've got a on your plate." "I'm" here is a contraction.

"Something really serious", "really nasty expression", and, "a load of dog prints." All of these are pieces of vocabulary we would want to improve.

And I bet you thought some ideas for how you'd improve them already.

So now let's do our final task for this lesson.

We're going to peer edit our letter, looking only this time at vocabulary.

We're going to follow the exact same steps as before.

And this time we're going to look for these key things, the formal language we know is appropriate for our audience, for Sherlock Holmes, and the emotive vocabulary, that we want to be persuasive, to show the level of fear that we've got at the moment.

So pause the video and with your partner or on your own if needed, let's check and improve and edit our work.

Have a go.

Well done, good job.

So here's that passage I showed you before.

Remember, it's quite informal.

I've got, "You're really busy", "you've got a lot on your plat", "I'm contacting you", "my poor uncle", "really nasty expression" and "load of dog prints", all things which are quite informal.

Let's see how I would change it.

Instead, I could write this.

"Dear Mr. Holmes, I know you're a very busy man and that your time is precious; however, I am contacting you about a very serious matter.

Last week, my unfortunate uncle was found dead outside his home, with an expression of sheer terror on his face.

There were no signs of injury on his body; however, the prints of a large hound were visible all around the area." It's much more formal now, and I've got some good emotive language here too, things like "sheer terror", and then "large hound" are much more persuasive than saying "big dog".

So hopefully you've managed to make some similar changes as well, but maybe not quite so many.

So we've now edited for punctuation, for cohesion and vocabulary.

Doing those three checks means we've given ourselves the best possible opportunity of having polished our workup to make it really, really good.

So well done for your effort with that.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that editing is an essential part of the writing process, during which we refine and improve our ideas.

We've said that we can check the punctuation that has been used correctly following rules we've been taught.

We can check for cohesion by looking at the sentence structures we've used and connecting ideas more closely where needed.

And we know that we can check our vocabulary to ensure that it's formal and emotive in order to be persuasive in this letter.

You've done a fantastic job in this lesson and in this unit.

I hope you're really pleased with the letter that you've produced and I'm sure that Sherlock Holmes will be persuaded by it.

Really well done.

I hope to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.