It is well known that backstepping method suffer from the problem of "explosion of terms", which is solved by dynamic surface control (DSC) method. This paper presents an improved dynamic surface control (IDSC) method, which constructs the state errors by directly using virtual control signals, rather than using the signals produced by first-order filters in DSC method. The signals produced by first-order filters will only be used to construct the virtual control laws and actual control law. This modification makes the state errors to be more free from the influence of first-order filters. The stability of systems controlled by the proposed IDSC method is proved based on Lyapunov theorem. Finally, the advantage of IDSC method has been shown by simulation results, and it can be seen in the simulation results that IDSC method has better tracking performance and is more stable than DSC method.@en