Argument Overview

Longer is not always better! Limit your sentences to a few clauses, and alternate long sentences and short sentences. Academic writing in English tends to have long, sophisticated noun phrases, but it is not a requirement to include complex sentence structure and long strings of joined clauses.

Actionable tips and examples to help you move deeper into the evidence you’ve already got.

Understanding how most teachers view student attitudes and approaches to work can help you succeed.

The first step to effective communication? Understanding your audience – including TEACHERS. Specific help for writing for the teacher audience.

Summary of APA document formatting basics with a sample paper you can download from the Online Writing Lab at Purdue. The sample includes annotations explaining the various rules (PDF).

Using articles appropriately is one of the most difficult grammatical points in English to master. It is not necessarily essential in speech, but it’s something that should be checked for when writing.

It may be confusing, even annoying, but some of the structures you may have learned in test prep classes and English language classes, such as the five-paragraph essay, may not be appropriate for use in other classes. Be careful to follow assignment instructions.

Reflection writing assignments are common in many classes, especially as a response to reading assignments. It is distinctive from other types of academic writing because it encourages the writer to write in the first person, but usually it has the same expectations as other academic writing assignments in other ways.

Hedging is a way of using language to make an argument more effective by softening or strengthening it. An idea expressed without appropriate hedging may seem too general, too confident, or too extreme. Specific vocabulary and writing strategies can be learned and used to hedge appropriately.

Attempt to cultivate objectivity. Objectivity is an overall goal in academic writing, even if the goal is to convince the reader of something. It demonstrates that the emphasis is on the object – your writing, your research – not on you yourself.

Fallacies are statements that sound logical but, if you stop and think, really aren’t. Avoid in your own writing and critique in others’.

As you learn to write in English, you will learn how to balance repetition and variety, to ensure cohesion. One strategy to accomplish this purpose is to vary the way you refer to people and things. After the first reference to a noun form, you can refer to it with pronouns and demonstratives until the topic changes.

Think you’re the only one who stares at the blank screen with feat/anxiety/anger/boredom? Nope. Every writer who ever lived has felt the same way. This resource will walk you through the most common and suggest some ways to deal. There’s always cleaning the bathroom or doing your taxes – if you REALLY want to avoid writing.

When you sit down to write, do you immediately think of 23 other things you’d rather be doing? Does your hand itch to grab your phone and start texting, or does Facebook suddenly seem more alluring than ever? Does your mind just seem filled with clouds instead of thoughts and words you can use?

Need some ideas for writing assignments that help learners “dig down” into a subject and think about it in complex ways? Try asking students to write about Hollywood ‘reboots’ of 80s and 90s entertainment – like ’21 Jump Street’ and ‘Red Dawn.’

Choosing the right word is often more complicated than translating, which often leads to issues of appropriacy. Translating without a clear understanding of vocabulary can lead to the use of words that are rare, obsolete, or belong to an inappropriate genre or register.

In any high school or college class where you’re reading texts and writing about them, your writing will be more effective if you know how to perform what teachers call a “close reading.” Similarly, if you’re writing a business report or proposal, you’ll be much more likely to reach your goals if the document reflects a close, careful reading of your primary sources.