General
Composition
Catching
Up
BASIC
PRINCIPLES IN GOOD WRITING
Essential
Elements in Writing
Qualities
of a Good Essay
The
Standard Topic Outline
Topic
and Closing Sentences
The
Thesis Statement
The
Introductory Paragraph
The
Closing Paragraph
FULL
DEVELOPMENT
Developing
an Idea
Limiting
for Satisfying Discussion
An
Example of "Less is More" (Limiting for fuller development)
Methods
For Providing Full Development
Examples
of Support
Maturity
in Writing
Assertion
or Fact?
Well-Supported Claims?
Citing sources: informal
Figures
for Supporting Your Point
CLARITY
Focus
(Central idea, purpose and method)
Point Fronting
Cohesion
Devices Local and Global
Clarity
Tags
Clarity:
Even when you think the reader knows
Coherence
and Content Schema
Transition:
From one paragraph to the next
Stylish
Global Transitions
Closure
For example...
OTHER
TIPS AND TOOLS FOR GOOD WRITING
Plagiarism
An
Essay's Introduction and Conclusion
Sexist
Language (pronouns, 'man')
Why
Study Writing? (from Virginia Tech's Writing Program)
"Hillary
Bashing"
(A great article about using nouns and verbs instead of adjectives
to provide concrete quality support, from the Chicago Tribune.)
Qualities
of a Good Essay
Writing
a Summary
Technical
Features in Written Work
Standard Formatting in
the ELP
E-mail
Ego
E-mail
Tips (How
to write e-mail in English; a summary of Internet articles, and
results of a study of common mistakes in the e-mail messages of
English learners.)
An
E-mail Exchange: (An e-mail exchange that includes
samples of common problems)
Tips
on Taking a Writing Exam (Click
on "Tips & Techniques" and then click for Tips on
Taking an Essay Exam")
Hyphenation
Guide
Check
the Dictionary for Hyphenation (the
Online Dictionary)
Punctuation
Commas
Proofreading
for Commas (from
Purdue University's On-line Writing Lab)
Punctuation:
Purdue
University Online Writing Lab.
Semi-colons:
What they are and how to use them.
Grammar
Change-of-state verbs
Passive
Voice
Focus
and Time Adjuncts in Tenses
The
Grammar Exchange (Here
you can find some very good answers to questions that you have about
grammar.)
Relative
Clauses
(An explanation of punctuation for restictive/defining and non-restrictive/parenthetical
clauses; with exercises.)
Relative
Clauses EXERCISE
1
Relative
Clauses EXERCISE 2
'This/That'
or 'it'?
Infinitive or Gerund? The Bolinger Principle
Concord:
Noun Number (Tell the children to blow their noses? Nose?)
Concord:
Subject-Verb Agreement
Reported
(Indirect) Speech
Misplaced
Modifiers
Pronoun
reference
Will
or be going to?
Future
in the past (would, was going to; knew, thought)
Some
or
Any?
Noun
Classes
Articles
Reading
Good
Readers Use Strategies
Why Read?
Reading
S.O.P
Context
Clues
Figurative Language:
Metaphors
Using Structure for Efficient Reading
CNN
Student News
Prefixes, suffixes and roots (A
great site that provides a thorough list of affixes and roots, along
with word examples and exercises.)
Listening
BBC
World Service (One
of the best sites for supplementary listening practice. If you want
to save the audio file, you will have to use the software ARWizard.)
The CNN Learning
Resources Site (Another
great site for supplementary listening. Use ARWizard to save the
audio file.)
Video
from The New York Times (The most interesting
is David Pogue.)
CNN
Student News
CBC
(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
(Amazing collection of radio and TV reports.)
English
Bites (Australian English; listening with scripts)
Discovery
School (Easy listening, script not really needed)
Randall's
Cyber Listening Lab
(Lots of listenings with exercises)
Lingualnet.
Learning English through movies (captions available!)
Vocabulary
Word
Choice: Finding the right word in the E-E dictionary
Word
Choice: Longman Language Activator
Word Usage: The British
National Corpus: Use this to find the correct grammar and
lexical neighbors for a lexical.Just type the lexical in the search
box ("Look up") and click "Go." Learn how to
use the search tool: Click on "More information" and then
click on "BNC Corpus Query Language" to find the tools
and how to use them. One tool is the "wild card," which
is a symbol that let's you search for a partial phrase. For example,
to discover what article is used with ride and bicycle,
type "ride _ bicycle."
Word
Usage: Collins Concordance and Collocations
Phrases, Sayings and Idioms: Meanings
and Origins
DENT:
An example of a listing from the British National Corpus.
COULD
Reason
vs. cause
Example
Sentences in Dictionaries
Confirming Lexical Accuracy
Urban
Dictionary.com: Find
words and phrases that have been recently coined; entries are submitted
by ordinary people, not experts.
OneLook.com:
A site with
several tools for finding the right word and using it correctly.
Please check out and experiment with the reverse dictionary.
Lexical Choice and Usage
Synonyms:
Thesaurus.com
Learning
Lexicals
Lexicals: What and How?
(What are lexicals? Instructions for the Lexicals Exercise)
Review:
make, get, let, have
Review:
by and until
Adjectives and Descriptive
Verbs: Rector
Phrasal Verbs: Using Your
Dictionary
Phrasal Verb On-line Dictionaries
The Monolingual or the Bilingual Dictionary?
Arguments Against Using the
Monolingual Dictionary
Affixes:
Prefixes and Suffixes (If you are interested in a book on
stems and affixes, ask Mr. Holstein to show it to you.)
Synonyms: Thesaurus.com
Other
aids
Reconstruction
The
TWE
English
Safari (recommendations
for getting practice with native English speakers)
TOEFL
Practice Test (You need to download and install the "Macromedia
Authorware Web Player" plug-in before you can view the practice
questions, but it's pretty easy. Follow the directions at this link--you
just have to click once.)
Distancing:
Softening What You Say
Polishing
Your Speech
The
Best Approach (Tips on approaching your teacher or superior;
includes "Getting Somebody to Do Something...the right
way.")
Problems
in Communication (Common
mistakes made by English learners. Yours are here too! Read a few
of these at a time. 10 pages; 184kb Adobe Acrobat file.)
Common
Errors
Just
for fun
Crazy
English
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