Writing Style and Technique – ipl A+ Research & Writing

Writing Style and Technique

Note: the links below take you further down on this page.

Audience and tone
Logic and developing arguments
Sentences, words and phrases
Paragraphs
Coherence, clarity, conciseness
Transitions
Gender-fair writing
Writing on the computer
Other style and technique issues

Back to Links for Writing Table of Contents

Audience and tone

Tone and Audience Awareness (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Tone.html

 

Audience (Brigham Young U)

http://english.byu.edu/writingcenter/writing%20pages/audience.htm

 

The Essay – Audience And Tone (U Victoria)

Logic and developing arguments

Using Statistics (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_stats.html

Using statistics in your research paper.

 

Argumentation: Anticipating Objections, Making Concessions (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Argumentation.html

How to use two important writing strategies – anticipating objections and making concessions – when writing an argumentative research paper.

 

Making Effective Arguments (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/argument.html

“Persuasive, rational argumentation in writing.”

 

Problem Posing in Academic Writing (Temple U)

http://www.temple.edu/writingctr/student_resources/problem-posing.html

Nice series of questions to get you started again when you’re writing your paper and wonder if you’ll ever reach a conclusion.

 

Logic in Argumentative Writing (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_argpers.html

Elements of logic and how to use them to make arguments in your paper.

Sentences, words and phrases

Note that almost all the OWLs have extensive sections on sentences, words and phrases. This is just a small sample. Jump to the list of OWLs to visit them.

Revising Common Sentence-Level Problems (Hamilton College) (PDF)

https://my.hamilton.edu/academics/resource/wc/Sentence_Revision.PDF

Grammatical and writing style errors such as fragments, wordiness, passive voice, agreement.

 

Antiquated Phrases (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Antiquated.html

 

Avoiding Cliches and Tired Phrases (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/cliche.html

 

Focusing Sentences Through Parallelism (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/parstruc.html

 

Focusing Sentences Through Subordination (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/subidea.html

 

Sources: Past Tense? Present? (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/litpres.html

“When you write an essay, an exam answer, or even a short story, you will want to keep the verbs you use in the same tense. Remember, moving from tense to tense can be very confusing.”

Paragraphs

Note that almost all the OWLs have extensive sections on paragraphs. This is just a small sample. Jump to the list of OWLs to visit them.

 

Writing Effective Paragraphs (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/paragrph.html

 

Constructing Paragraphs (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_pgrph.html

 

Basic Paragraph Format (Utah Valley State Coll.) (PDF)

http://www.uvsc.edu/owl/handouts/revised%20handouts/
content%20and%20organization/pargraph.pdf

Coherence, clarity, conciseness

Cohesion (St. Cloud U)

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/cohesion.html

“Cohesion: Using Repetition and Reference Words to Emphasize Key Ideas in Your Writing.”

 

Strategies for Reducing Wordiness (St. Cloud U)

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/wordiness.html

 

Adding Action & Clarity to Writing (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/clarity.html

 

Concise Writing: Using Lanham’s Paramedic Method (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/concise.html

“Richard Lanham, a professor of English at UCLA, invented an easy-to-use method for making your writing clearer and more concise.”

 

Adding Emphasis (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_emphasis.html

Ways to add emphasis to ideas—visual devices, punctuation, arrangement of words and clauses, with examples.

 

Coherence (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_cohere.html

Coherence is making connections between ideas and sentences. Devices to achieve coherence.

 

Some Strategies for Improving Sentence Clarity (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_sentclar.html

 

Conciseness (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_concise.html

 

Removing Word Clutter (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Clutter.html

 

A Brief Note About Clarity (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Clarity.html

 

Transitions

Transition Cues (St. Cloud U)

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/transitioncues.html

“Transitions help readers connect the ideas in a piece of writing; they’re the glue that shows how pieces of your text fit together.”

 

Using Transitions (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/trans2.html

Transitional Phrases (U Richmond)

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/trans1.html

 

Transitional Devices (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_transition.html

“Transitional devices are like bridges between parts of your paper…. [They] help you carry over a thought from one sentence to another, from one idea to another, or from one paragraph to another with words or phrases.”

Gender-fair writing

Avoiding Sexist Language (Roane State CC)

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Sexism.html

 

Gender-free Writing (St. Cloud U)

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/genderbias.html

Avoiding gender bias in pronouns.

 

Writing with Gender-Fair Language (RPI Writing Center)

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/genderfair.html

 

Non-Sexist Language (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_nonsex.html

Writing on the computer

Using the Computer to Improve your Writing (U Toronto)

gopher://utl1.library.utoronto.ca:70/00gopher_root70:[_services._writing_labs]_computer.

Tips for composing a paper on the computer, to have the computer assist the process rather than impede it.

 

Writing with Computers (Purdue U)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_computer.html

How to use the computer to help you write.

Other style and technique issues

Definitional Techniques (RPI Writing Center)

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/definition.html

“In the course of developing a report, essay, memo, etc. writers are often called upon to define their terms. Some of the more common definitional techniques used in professional and academic writing are described.”