One of the coolest things that we can do as a species is write, and write you definitely have to on every aspect of life and also the IGCSE First Language English exams.

Almost every good writer is also a good reader, and how appropriate that is given that language is so vast, so wide, and so infinitely creative that people can even write books about writing.

Here are a couple of recommendations for you on your writing journey for those of you who are interested in writing for pleasure (thinking about how to put your sentences together and wanting to get new perspectives apart from those which I offer through this website).

Each of these is going to be an interesting read, and I definitely recommend at least exploring them.

Here we go!

1. Foundational Writing Guides

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
  • Why: Strunk & White is a standard issue writing guide for university students, but don’t let that deceive you – it is filled with rules that, although may seem simple, are actually both deep and very effective. This book taught me how to cut out unnecessary words, tighten up my sentences, and make every word count. If you want to learn to write with strength and confidence, this book is a good first step!
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/eltsofstyle 
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser
  • Why: This is a great book for those of you who are interested in nonfiction. When I first started out, I struggled with trying to be “fancy” in my writing—overloading it with unnecessary complexity. Complexity is often the enemy of delivering a message across. And for those of you who understand what writing is about, this book will provide helpful tips and also a good message to remember.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/onwritingwellzinsser 
• Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup
  • Why: Small changes—like adjusting sentence structure— Can elevate your work, and this book will help you refine your voice and improve your flow by teaching you small lessons in clarity and grace that you may very well nee
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/clarityandgrace 

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2. Creative Writing and Inspiration

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
  • Why: This is more of a memoir about a very famous writer’s writing process. It’s not just about the craft or the discipline, which you’ll certainly learn about—King also talks about the perseverance needed to get through the tough days, which should be an interesting look into the mindset of someone who has reached world-renowned status when it comes to writing.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/onwritingbyking 
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
  • Why: Lamott’s writing is filled with humor and wisdom; she teaches that writing doesn’t have to be perfect from the get-go and that revising is part of the process – a good book on embracing imperfection can add a lot of colour into how we process the world and construct it with our words.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/birdbybirdlamott 
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
  • Why: Dillard’s vivid descriptions and meditations on the act of writing inspired me to approach my work with more reverence and commitment. It gave me the perspective I needed to continue writing, even when it felt like the world wasn’t interested in what I had to say – a good reflection point for those of you who are students and just exploring your writing identities.
    
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/writinglifedillard 

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3. Writing Techniques and Craft

• Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark
  • Why: This book gives you a toolbox of practical, hands-on techniques that you can apply immediately. What’s great about this book is that you can pick it up, read a short chapter, and start applying the advice right away.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/writingtools 
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
  • Why: As someone who writes both fiction and nonfiction, McKee’s insights into story structure were eye-opening. While the book is aimed at screenwriters, the principles of character development, plot progression, and creating emotional engagement resonate with all kinds of writers and provide some pretty interesting insights into screenwriting, which is something that not everyone is familiar with and that is definitely worth learning about.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/mckeesss 
• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
  • Why: Every writer knows that self-doubt and procrastination are constant companions. This book helped me see those moments as part of the process, and it showed me how to fight through them. It gave me the mental tools to treat my writing like a professional, no matter how tough things got.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/twoa 

4. Grammar and Sentence Craft

• Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose by Constance Hale
  • Why: Grammar isn’t just about rules; it’s about style. Learning to break the rules intentionally for effect opens up a whole new level of writing, and Sin and Syntax is an interesting introduction to that.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/sinandsyntax 
• Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner
  • Why: O’Conner’s approach to grammar is lighthearted and accessible, and that’s what makes it so valuable, and it helps you understand that proper grammar is not just about being “correct”—it’s about making your writing clearer and more effective.
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/woeisi 

5. Miscellaneous (but interesting!)

• The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker
  • Why:  Ever wonder about how the brain processes style? Discover that from world-renowned Harvard linguistics professor Steven Pinker as he talks about how our writing styles are processed through people’s brains as you think about how your words impact the minds of the people around you.
    
    It’s definitely a fascinating read and highly recommended if you’re interested in not just writing but also the connection with linguistics and the scientific method!
  • Purchase: https://geni.us/pinkersenseofstyle 

As a teacher of English, it’s natural that I want my students to have both a good understanding of language and also a strong ability to produce language.

Luckily for all of you, I have a (no-brainer?) recommendation for all of you – both of these are improved by reading because of how it exposes students to the English language, and that is what I thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend to you today:

Please read!

Before you start reading TikTok captions and Instagram posts as a reaction of annoyance though, please note that I don’t think that’s going to get you very high-quality information. Articles? Sure, they can be good and valuable for niche information and you can definitely learn a lot if you have high-quality information sources, but if you want to get advanced knowledge in something, take in really good quality ability to write and read… You will have to break the curse of your generation, reclaim your attention span, and pick up a good book!

As you know from perhaps reading my previous posts or the simple fact that I teach English and am catering to all of you here who are interested in the English language, you may well realize that there is a sort of special joy for me when I think about the books of my early days: 

It is that interest that has powered me in many ways towards a steady interest in English as a language and the world that it’s opened up and the ideas that it made possible:

I believe that they are one of the reasons why I ended up developing the English language mastery that I developed. 

That said, I realise that not everyone is aware of what books are the very best, so I thought I’d give it a shot to tell you about what to read. I’ll probably be coming up with a couple of these lists here and there over the course of the next week, covering a range of different topics for your reading pleasure. 

In the coming days, I hope to share a couple of different book recommendations that I have had over the course of the days – not just for students but also for those of you who are parents out there and who are thinking about the kinds of things that you should read and think about in the course of your journey.

I hope that it is going to be helpful for you! 

As a disclosure, I will be using affiliate links, and I may earn a small portion of what you choose to purchase. Thank you in advance for supporting my journey!

I’m including my first post on this in the next entry, although I might make this into something a little more extended soon!

P.S. My first entry in this series is up! Happy reading!

In this blog, I often talk about how to get better at the English language.

Today, I thought I would do something a little different:

I’d like to share a story with you – the story of what I genuinely believe made me good at using English.

I was born in Johor Bahru, Malaysia – but I never really stayed there for long, never really got to know the place very well; because of my father’s job, we often moved from place to place, scattering ourselves across the country – from the south part to the north part of Malaysia. To say the least, it was a bit of a chaotic childhood.

One of the anchor points of that childhood was the Kedah public library.

I remember the scene distinctly, though the details escape me – I am sitting down at a table in morning sunlight, which casts the scene in a soft shade of what I would call resplendent calm; in the path of a ray of light emitted from a window, small dust particles flicker in and out of existence, attendants to the light.

The book appears to me, yet it fades out of memory – but what I remember is how the plastic chair supports me and my mother does as well, sitting behind me as she turns the pages, which flicker and rustle in the sunlight as words sound out softly in the still air.

I couldn’t tell you why that scene is one of the most meaningful I’d ever experienced in my life, but it is there that I remember everything: the library, the smell of books wafting from the shelves – the old and brown paper that touched my fingers as I opened each little book.

There was the wonder of my childhood years – the memories that stream out from small moments that took place when I was just five.

That memory has never escaped me, and the emotions that come with it abide with me whenever I think about books, about what they meant to me growing up, and what they continue to mean to me whether I teach, I read, I learn about the world.

When I think about learning, I think about that ancient memory enshrined in my heart – it causes me to remember that there is a meaning in my learning that converges in escaping back into a time of wonder and towards a time when I was younger, more impressionable, more free-spirited, where a life that could take any shape was a possibility.

Does such a moment exist for you, dear reader?

I wonder.

As students, you may know, writing isn’t always easy. Beyond the idea of getting inspiration and just knowing what to talk about even as you write, it’s often not easy to know exactly what you’re going to say along the way. Often you may know certain rules of grammar or words intuitively but you may not know how to actually translate them onto the page. Well, here’s an interesting way in which technology offers a bit of an advantage.

Automated Speech Recognition (ASR).

Apps like Wispr Flow and also MacWhisper work effectively and allow dramatically more accurate and longer transcriptions that serve niches such as creating subtitles, as can the ChatGPT app on your phone along the way, which you can download on iOS or Android, Which allows you to use your voice to interact with your devices in ways that have historically not been possible and that also transform the way that we use our technology and therefore interact with the world.

In this article, I’ll talk about some of the advantages that I’ve seen from using Wispr Flow and also from ASR technology in general, and hopefully these will help you understand how it is that using these tools can be beneficial for you in writing and creating, transform your productivity and give your work a new edge, and maybe also add a bit of a twist onto your creative process. Ready for the ride? Let’s go!

ASR helps you…

1.Let Your Authentic Voice Shine Through

When you type, your writing can sometimes feel forced or overly formal, as you tend to follow traditional writing structures.

However, when you speak, your language often flows more naturally, mimicking the way you would actually converse with someone.

It’s no surprise that teachers of writing, including myself, encourage people to learn how to do this:

Write the way you speak, with an eye towards engaging the person who’s on the other side and towards thinking about the experience that they must be having while listening to our words.

ASR allows us to bring the modality of voice into the world of text, which effectively helps us to follow that advice naturally, and can translate into a more engaging and conversational writing style which resonates better with readers.

Using Wispr Flow for voice-based writing encourages you to embrace your authentic voice and craft content that feels less stiff and more relatable. It’s a way of letting your personality shine through, giving your writing a touch of humanity and connection.

Having said that, I do acknowledge that not everybody is a master of speaking. That leads me directly to the next point.

2. Practice of Public Speaking: Sharpen Your Verbal Communication Skills

Using voice technology to write doesn’t just help with document creation — it also helps you become a better speaker.

When you dictate your thoughts, you’re practicing the art of spoken communication, which is a valuable skill in its own right.

Speaking your ideas aloud helps you refine your verbal expression, giving you a chance to practice public speaking without even realizing it.

Real-time transcription capabilities mean that you can listen back and see how your spoken words translate into written form, making it a powerful tool for improving your clarity and persuasiveness in everyday conversations and professional settings, and a tool that is definitely useful beyond just document creation but also extends into learning how to engage with people and to persuade, inform and entertain with our voices as practiced in a unique modality that promises to improve the way that we speak, present and articulate ourselves whether at home and on our laptops or in front of an audience.

It’s also worthwhile to note that ASR helps us to…

3. Get Ideas Down in Record Time

Typing has long been the standard for writing, but typing speed can be a bottleneck, especially when you’re trying to keep up with a fast-moving train of thought. With automated speech recognition, the speed at which you can create content is no longer limited by your typing skills.

You can speak several times faster than you type, allowing you to capture ideas as they come, with no slowdown.

If you are able to speak out your ideas with the same level of quality as what you get when you are typing them out manually, you would theoretically be able to work much faster, create much more content, and just generally move onward with much greater speed compared to others around you!

Wispr Flow’s advanced speech recognition capabilities can transcribe your voice into text almost instantly, enabling you to turn even long-winded brainstorms into text documents quickly and easily.

This speed translates into more productivity and less time spent staring at a blank screen.

Of course, speaking is not exactly the same as typing because with typing you do look at a screen, think about the words that you’re going to say and then type them down one after another. That’s materially different compared to what you have with speaking, and it does recruit a slightly different network.

Typing does recruit a more slow and deliberate method of thinking that can result in slightly different documents, partly because the way that typing works is that you look at what you’ve written and then you look back and think about the new possibilities, while for speaking, you are very much just coming up with ideas on the fly as you think about the things that you had said before.

Some may argue that this leads to less detailed writing than what you’d have if you were simply to just type or handwrite but…

4. Minimize Strain, Maximize Comfort

Many of you are students right now, and you may not even think about this, but you will in the future.

Speaking, unlike typing doesn’t put any strain on your hands and wrists.

You might not have thought that this was important at the outset, but the reality is that writing can be a physically demanding task, especially if you spend hours on a keyboard. It can lead to wrist, neck, and back strain, making it challenging to stay comfortable while working. Also, if you have carpal tunnel syndrome or pinched nerves, using a keyboard for long periods of time can be painful.

I know that that’s definitely what I personally experienced while I was using a keyboard very extensively and trying to type along the way. I would often find myself with wrist pain as a result of typing and would have to stop after a while.

Automated speech recognition (ASR) helps to resolve these problems, because…

• Being able to articulate things very quickly means that you will spend less time on a computer overall, and as a result would spend less time than you would otherwise spend typing.
• You would be able to eliminate almost all the stress that you normally sustain while typing because the only thing that you would need to do on Wispr Flow is just press a single button and then begin speaking along the way. Sure, you might need to drink a little bit more water along the way, but that’s always good. And all the other advantages that I mentioned also apply as well.
• You can compose your content while sitting, standing, or even walking, freeing you from the constraints of the traditional workstation setup. It’s worthwhile to note that sitting down itself is an aspect of work life that poses unique new challenges in the workforce. Simply put, it’s not great for you. It’s even what some might call a generational challenge that is associated with the modern day paradigm of work and the development of the computer as a key device in creating, developing, and executing our work (I might talk more about this in the course of future LinkedIn posts!)

This ergonomic benefit makes voice writing an excellent option for anyone who spends a lot of time writing and wants to protect their long-term health and well-being.

Conclusion:

Automated speech recognition has many core advantages which I’ve deeply enjoyed and am proud to share. I hope that you’ve enjoyed thinking about some of them.

Let’s recap:

ASR is a technology that historically hasn’t been the best at reporting down what people say, but it has remarkably improved although the best of it is something that still evades the modern and widely available voice assistants on iPhones and Android phones.

However, on apps such as Wispr Flow, ChatGPT, and MacWhisper, the technology has matured to the point where it can help you get your ideas down in record time, it lets your authentic voice shine through, it helps you sharpen your verbal communication skills and practice public speaking, it helps minimize strain and maximize comfort as a result of the better ergonomics allowing you to work for longer in a fashion that is better for your body and that ultimately allows you to get things done more quickly, more efficiently, with less strain and in a way that teaches you crucial skills of interacting verbally and composing along the way.

I strongly think of ASR as a tool that will fundamentally change the way that we interact with technology and reshape the paradigm that we use nowadays for creating documents, projects, and ideas along the way, helping us create documents faster and more comfortably while also sharpening your public speaking skills and enabling a more natural writing style.

If you’re ready to take your writing to the next level and experience the benefits of using your voice for document creation, give Wispr Flow a try, and potentially MacWhisper as well, as you enjoy the transformation of our world through the development of this new technology and look forward to everything that there is to come that will improve the efficiency of our work and lives while at the same time freeing us up towards greater and more ambitious projects.

Affiliate disclosure: I have a financial relationship with both Wispr Flow and MacWhisper. They are incredible technologies that I completely believe in. If you happen to use the links here, I may receive a small commission that helps support my work. Thank you in advance if you choose to use these links! Hope you will enjoy using these new technologies; they are quite the ride!