Brief Menu

• PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
• PART 1 A Process for Writing
  • 1 Exploring, planning, and drafting
  • 2 Building effective paragraphs
  • 3 Revising, editing, and proofreading

  How can I write a stronger thesis? See 1c or 6c.

• PART 2 Academic Reading and Writing
  • 4 Reading critically; writing analytically
  • 5 Reading arguments
  • 6 Writing arguments
  • 7 Writing in the disciplines
• PART 3 Clear Sentences
  • 8 Active verbs
  • 9 Parallelism
  • 10 Needed words
  • 11 Mixed constructions
  • 12 Misplaced and dangling modifiers
  • 13 Shifts
  • 14 Emphasis
  • 15 Variety

  What’s the difference between affect and effect? See 19.

• PART 4 Word Choice
  • 16 Wordy sentences
  • 17 Appropriate language
  • 18 Exact words
  • 19 Glossary of usage
• PART 5 Grammatical Sentences
  • 20 Sentence fragments
  • 21 Run-on sentences
  • 22 Subject-verb agreement
  • 23 Pronoun-antecedent agreement
  • 24 Pronoun reference
  • 25 Pronoun case (I vs. me)
  • 26 who vs. whom
  • 27 Adjectives and adverbs
  • 28 Standard English verb forms
  • 29 Multilingual topics

  How do periods and commas work with quotation marks? See 34d.

• PART 6 Punctuation
  • 30 The comma
  • 31 Unnecessary commas
  • 32 The semicolon and the colon
  • 33 The apostrophe
  • 34 Quotation marks
  • 35 End punctuation
  • 36 Other punctuation marks
• PART 7 Mechanics
  • 37 Abbreviations, numbers, and italics
  • 38 Spelling and the hyphen
  • 39 Capitalization
• PART 8 Grammar Basics
  • 40 Parts of speech
  • 41 Sentence patterns
  • 42 Subordinate word groups
  • 43 Sentence types
• PART 9 Researched Writing
  • 44 Thinking like a researcher; gathering sources
  • 45 Managing information; taking notes responsibly
  • 46 Evaluating sources
  • 47 Writing a research paper
  • 48 Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism
  • 49 Integrating sources

    How should I format my essay? See 51 (MLA) or 53 (APA).

  • MLA STYLE
  • 50 Documenting sources in MLA style
  • 51 MLA format; sample research paper
  • APA STYLE

    Where can I see model citations? See 50 (MLA) or 52 (APA).

  • 52 Documenting sources in APA style
  • 53 APA format; sample research paper
• ANSWERS TO EXERCISES
• INDEX