This document provides instructions for editing a story text, including checking that verbs agree with subjects, highlighting parts of speech like verbs, adjectives, nouns, and time phrases. It recommends including a variety of tenses beyond just past and present, adding descriptions of characters, places, and events to make the story more interesting, and ensuring correct use of singular and plural forms.

1. Divide your sentences into ones about the past and ones that are always true (e.g.
information about Newcastle). Check that all of the past sentences use a past verb.
Highlight the verb in every sentence. Check that there is a subject in every sentence and
that the verb agrees with it correctly. On the back, write the name of the tense the verb
should be in.
How many tenses have you used in your text? In a B1 level text you should be using a
variety of tenses, not just present simple and past simple. Can you add/change any
sentences to try to include more tenses?
In a different colour, highlight all of the adjectives. How many adjectives have you used?
Are they in the correct form (i.e. adjectives not nouns/verbs)? Do you think you could
have used any more? Are your adjectives adventurous enough?
Divide your slips of paper into events and description. How much description/extra
information have you included in your story? It’s good to include descriptions of the
characters, places etc, either using relative clauses or adjectives.
Arrange the events (not the descriptions) to make a beginning, middle and end to your
story. If you are missing one of these parts, write some more sentences to add them.
Highlight all of the nouns you have used. Are there any nouns that you could add more
description to? This will make your story more interesting.
Highlight all of the time phrases you have used. Are there any other sentences that you
could add a time phrase to?
Check that if you are talking about one thing, you have used a singular form; and a plural
form for more than one thing.
Do you need a/an/the in the sentence? Add/remove it if necessary.
Do you need the verb 'be' in the sentence? Add/remove it if necessary.