| TERM | DEFINITION | A (Back to top) |
|---|---|---|
| Abstract | A summary of an article often written by the author and reviewed by the editor of the article. The abstract provides an overview of the contents of the reading, including its main arguments, results, and evidence, allowing you to compare it to other sources without requiring an in-depth review. | |
| Academic essay | A formal writing that the author composes using research, a strong thesis, and supporting details in order to advance an idea or demonstrate understanding of a topic. | |
| Academic journal | A scholarly periodical that publishes peer-reviewed research in a particular area of study. | |
| Acronyms | A word that is an abbreviated form of a phrase, term, or organization that is made up of the first letter of each word in the item. Example: NASA is the acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. | |
| Action verbs | A word that tells the reader what the subject of a sentence is doing. Example: Martha washed the dishes. In this sentence, washed is what Martha was doing, so it is the action verb. | |
| Actions | A thing that is done, or the process of doing it. | |
| Active | One of two styles of writing that compares the relationship between the subject and the verb in a sentence. In the active voice, the action described by the verb is done by the subject. These sentences have a clear subject taking a clear action. Example of the active voice: The girl broke the plate. | |
| Adjectives | Words that modify and describe a noun. Examples: old, tall, leafy. | |
| Adverb | Words that modify and describe a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Examples: quickly, awkwardly, lovingly. | |
| Alphanumerical outline | An outline that uses Roman numerals, letters, and Arabic numerals to signify different levels of organization. | |
| Analogy | A comparison of two things based on similarity. | |
| Analyses | To analyze is to make a thoughtful and detailed study of something. An analysis is the end result of analyzing. | |
| Analysis essay | A written evaluation of a topic, such as an article, piece of art, person’s life, etc. An analysis essay may include a summary of the subject, but is mostly used to evaluate and discuss: Is it good? Is it bad? Is it poorly written? Was the author misguided or very accurate? | |
| Analyze | To make a thoughtful and detailed study of something. | |
| Anecdotal | A brief, interesting story that supports a claim in a critical analysis or persuasion essay. | |
| Anecdote | A brief, interesting story that writers often use to demonstrate a point within a work. | |
| Annotating | Making notes within the text of a reading. | |
| Antonyms | A word or phrase that has the opposite meaning from another word. Example: huge is an antonym for small. | |
| AP | A punctuation and grammar guide used mainly in journalism, public relations, and advertising. | |
| APA | A set of guidelines for citing sources used in literary and academic writing. APA style is most commonly used in the social sciences. | |
| Apostrophes | A punctuation mark that has two uses. Apostrophes show where letters are taken out to make a contraction, as in shortening cannot to can't. Apostrophes also show possessive relationships between people or things. For example, the apostrophe in the phrase Emily's book means the book belongs to Emily. | |
| Arabic numerals | Arabic numerals are the ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. | |
| Argument | A set of statements or reasons making a case for or against something. | |
| Argument essay | A writing that takes a position for or against something and tries to convince the reader to accept the same view. Also called a persuasion essay. | |
| Article | A non-fiction, often informative writing that forms a part of a publication, such as a magazine or newspaper. | |
| Articles | In grammar, there are three articles in English: a, an, and the. These words define the specificity of a noun. For example, contrast the meanings of the following sentences: Get in the car. Get in a car. | |
| Assumes | To take for granted that something is true. | |
| Attributive phrase | A short introduction to source material that identifies the author and often the title of a work that will be quoted or discussed in an essay or research paper. | |
| Audience | The group of people a writer expects to read a text. Writers use specific language, details, and examples to speak directly to their intended audience. For example, you would write and organize your work differently if your audience was a group of experts in the field of your work than if it was a group of undergraduate students being introduced to the topic. | |
| Author | A person who wrote a text. | |
| Autobiographical | A form of writing where the author writes a story about his or her own life and experiences. | B (Back to top) |
| Background | Information that describes the history or circumstances of a topic. | |
| Bias | In writing, bias indicates a writer's personal prejudice for or against an idea, person, activity, or object. Being objective, or displaying no tendency toward a preference, is the opposite of showing bias. | |
| Block quotation | A copy of a long section of a text or speech, set off from the rest of a text. Block quotations, like direct quotations, are exact repeats of wording, but because of their length they are indented or printed in a different font rather than placed inside quotation marks. | |
| Blog | A website that hosts a series of articles, photos, and other postings, sometimes by a single writer (blogger) or by a community of contributors. | |
| Body | The main portion of a writing that contains the main ideas and supporting details of the writing. This is where the author's purpose and thesis statement are supported and/or developed. | |
| Body paragraph | The part of an essay that comes after the introduction and before the conclusion. Body paragraphs lay out the main ideas of an argument and provide the support for the thesis. All body paragraphs should include these elements: a topic sentence, major and minor details, and a concluding statement. Each body paragraph should stand on its own but also fit into the context of the entire essay, as well as support the thesis and work with the other supporting paragraphs. | |
| Body paragraphs | The part of an essay that comes after the introduction and before the conclusion. Body paragraphs lay out the main ideas of an argument and provide the support for the thesis. All body paragraphs should include these elements: a topic sentence, major and minor details, and a concluding statement. Each body paragraph should stand on its own but also fit into the context of the entire essay, as well as support the thesis and work with the other supporting paragraphs. | |
| Brainstorm | A prewriting technique where the author lists multiple ideas as he or she thinks of them, not considering one more than another until all ideas are captured. The objective is to create one great idea, or many ideas, on which to base a writing. | C (Back to top) |
| Capitalize | To use capital letters. | |
| Causal | Describing or suggesting a cause. | |
| Causal chain | A series of events, each triggered by the one before. Causal chains have three parts: the initial cause, the final consequence, and all the steps that link the cause to the effect. Also called "the domino effect." | |
| Cause and effect | An examination of the relationship between why and/or how something happened. Causes, which are usually events or actions, lead to effects, or the consequences of those causes. | |
| Cause and effect essay | An essay that covers why and/or how something happened. This type of essay requires that an event or action led to one or more consequences. | |
| Central point | The main issue on which an author focuses a writing. | |
| Centuries | A period of one hundred years. Example: the twentieth century includes the years from 1901 to 2000. | |
| Citation | A reference within a text to an outside source of ideas, quotes, or information. Citations can be placed within sentences or in a separate works cited or reference section, as specified by the style guide in use. | |
| Cite | To give credit to the source of ideas or information. | |
| Claim | A statement that something is true, such as the thesis of an essay. A successful writer must present evidence to prove his/her claim. | |
| Clause | A group of words in a sentence that contains a subject and a predicate. | |
| Cliché | A word, phrase, or situation that has been used so often that it has become dull and meaningless. | |
| Cluster | A prewriting technique where the author creates an informal visual layout of possible ideas, grouping them together. The objective is to create visual clusters of information on which to base a writing. | |
| Coherence | The quality of a writing that is well-organized and where events make sense. Coherence occurs when the ideas in a passage or in an entire piece “stick together,” allowing the reader to make sense of the information. | |
| Cohesive | In writing, ideas and evidence that work together to create a unified statement. | |
| Colloquial | Informal language. | |
| Colon | (:) A punctuation mark that is used in three common cases: before a series of items; between an independent clause and an explanation, rule, or example; and before a quote. | |
| Comma | (,) A punctuation mark used to group and separate information in sentences. | |
| Comma splice | Type of run-on sentence that occurs when two independent clauses (two complete sentences) are joined with a comma instead of a period, semicolon, or comma with a conjunction. | |
| Common expressions | A common word or phrase that is set apart from the rest of a sentence by commas, parentheses, or dashes and that does not contain essential information. Like all parenthetical expressions, common expressions can be removed without changing the meaning of sentences. Yeah, I guess, I think, you know, and of course are all examples of common expressions. Example: You know, I'd rather see a movie instead of going to the party. | |
| Compare | To draw similarities between people, objects, or concepts. | |
| Compare and contrast | A written discussion of both the similarities and differences between people, objects, or ideas. This type of essay shows how things are alike in some ways (compare) as well as how they are different in other ways (contrast). | |
| Comparison | A discussion of two or more things based on the categories of characteristics they share. Written comparisons must include both the subjects being compared and the similarities and/or differences between the subjects. | |
| Complex sentence | One of the four sentence types that is composed of an independent clause and a dependent clause. | |
| Compound | The subject of a sentence when two or more persons or items are joined by a conjunction such as and, or, nor, and but. For example, in the sentence Mike and Tom like to play basketball, the combination of the two boys, Mike and Tom, is a compound subject. | |
| Compound sentences | One of the four sentence types that is composed of two or more independent clauses joined together using proper punctuation. | |
| Compound-complex sentence | One of the four sentence types in which one or both of the independent clauses has a subordinating clause, relative clause, or both. | |
| Comprehend | The ability to understand a subject, reading, or idea. | |
| Concepts | The idea of how something works or exists. | |
| Concise | Describes writing that only uses words that are necessary for clarity, meaning, and interest. | |
| Concluding Paragraph | The end portion of a writing that contains a summary or synthesis of the ideas in the work. This includes a recap of key points and reminders of the author's purpose and thesis statement. | |
| Conclusion | The end portion of a writing that contains a summary or synthesis of the idea in the work. This includes a recap of key points and reminders of the author's purpose and thesis statement. | |
| Conjunction | Part of speech that joins two or more words, phrases, or clauses. Examples of conjunctions include: and, but, if, because. | |
| Conjunctive adverb | A type of parenthetical expression; adverbs that join ideas together. Examples: also, first, however, next. | |
| Connotative | The meaning of a term that departs from the literal meaning. It conjures up other ideas based on how it is used. Connotations can be either negative or positive. | |
| Content | The text in a writing that includes facts, thoughts, and ideas. The information that forms the body of the work. | |
| Context | The larger setting in which something happens; the "big picture." | |
| Context clues | Hints that appear in a text that help readers discover the meaning of an unknown word, usually based on how it is used in a sentence or paragraph. | |
| Contraction | A word that is a shorter form of a longer word or group of words that is made by leaving out sounds and/or letters. Example: can't is a contraction for cannot. | |
| Contrast | To identify what is different between people, objects, or concepts. | |
| Contrasting expressions | Contrasting expressions are parenthetical expressions that tell the reader that you are referring to one thing and not another. Example: Funnel cake, not cotton candy, is my favorite food at the fair. | |
| Controlling idea | The specific idea that controls a paragraph, including the purpose, subject, and the writer's point of view. | |
| Coordinating conjunction | Part of speech that connects words, phrases, and independent clauses. The acronym FANBOYS—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so—can help you remember coordinating conjunctions. | |
| Counterarguments | Ideas, data, or discussion in opposition to a viewpoint. | |
| Cover letter | A letter that is sent along with a resume that provides context and more information for the reader. | |
| Cover page | A page that comes before an essay or article and contains basic information about the work, including its title and author. The format of a cover page (also called the title page) will vary depending on the style guide in use. | |
| Credibility | Describes a person who is trusted and able to be believed; reliable. | |
| Criteria | The standards or rules used to decide or judge something. | |
| Critical analysis essay | A written evaluation of a topic, such as an article, piece of art, person’s life, etc. A critical analysis essay analyzes and evaluates the content or ideas of a work as well as how the author presents his or her ideas or arguments. | |
| Critical reading | A thorough examination of a text to understand and evaluate not just what it says but also its purpose, meaning, and effectiveness. In this context, critical means careful and thoughtful, not negative. | |
| Cultural context | Information about the setting, time, place, community, customs, and beliefs that surround a writing. Thinking about the cultural context helps readers understand what is happening and why. | D (Back to top) |
| Dangling modifier | A modifier gives extra information about a subject. A dangling modifier occurs when that subject is missing from a sentence. For example, in the sentence Driving home, the roads were slippery, the phrase driving home is left dangling and almost seems to suggest that the roads were behind the wheel of the car instead of a person. | |
| Data | Facts, numbers, or information. | |
| Debatable | Open to doubt and differing views. An argument or claim is debatable when reasonable people might disagree with it. | |
| Decades | A period of ten years. Example: the decade of the nineteen-nineties includes the years from 1990 to 1999. | |
| Decimals | A number that is written with a dot between the whole number and the part of the number that is less than one. Examples: 3.75 grade point average; 8.5 ounces. | |
| Decipher | To figure out something confusing or complicated. | |
| Deduce | To use logic to come to a conclusion about something unknown. | |
| Definition | A writing that explains a term or concept using a variety of techniques such as research, statistics, historical and popular references, comparisons, abstractions, and other ideas. | |
| Denotative | The literal or formal meaning of a word. | |
| Dependent clause | Part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb, but it does not express a complete thought and cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Example of a dependent clause: Because it was a freshly picked apple, the boy ate it with delight. In this sentence, Because it was a freshly picked apple is a dependent clause. It has a subject (it) and a verb (was), but it cannot stand on its own without the second part of the sentence. | |
| Dependent clause | Part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb but is unable to stand on its own because it is incomplete in some way. Example of a dependent clause: Because it was a freshly picked apple, the boy ate it with delight. In this sentence, Because it was a freshly picked apple is a dependent clause. It has a subject (it) and a verb (was), but it cannot stand on its own without the second part of the sentence. | |
| Descriptive | A quality of writing that helps the reader understand and visualize specific details about the work. Adjectives that provide details as well as prepositional phrases that change the meaning of a sentence can aid in making a writing more descriptive. | |
| Details | Individual items or ideas that are part of a larger whole. | |
| Dialect | A form of a language that is spoken in a specific area. Dialects vary in their use of word choice, grammar, idioms, and pronunciation. | |
| Dialogue | Spoken conversation described in written form, such as the script for a movie. | |
| Dialogue tag | Words that show when and who speaks in a written work. Examples: Tom said, "This is the worst movie I've ever seen!" "Be quiet," she whispered. | |
| Direct address | A parenthetical expression that occurs when a person is addressed by name in a sentence, because proper names are always set apart by commas. Examples: Brad, please answer the phone. Excuse me, Mr. Morales, can I ask you a question? | |
| Direct quotation | An exact copy of the words from a speech or text. These words are placed inside quotation marks to show that they are a perfect repeat of the original. | |
| Discipline | An area of study, like history, science, or psychology. | |
| Domain | An abbreviation for a portion of the Internet that is connected in some way, such as by purpose or location. Domains are the last part of a website's URL. Examples include .org, .com, .edu, .us, and .de. | |
| Domino effect | A sequence of events, each triggered by the one before. Another name for a causal chain, the domino effect, refers to the result of pushing over the first domino in a row of them - one domino knocks over the domino next to it, which falls and knocks over the domino next to it, and so on. | |
| Draw conclusions | Uncovering the subtext of a reading by thinking about the details the author provides and then considering what may happen as a result of those details. | E (Back to top) |
| Edit | The process of improving a writing by reviewing content and making changes that affect its overall meaning and clarity. | |
| End punctuation | The punctuation at the end of a sentence, which can be a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point. The end punctuation helps define the tone and meaning of a sentence. Notice the difference in tone in these examples: Someone ate my last cookie! (I'm really mad about that.) Someone ate my last cookie. (Oh well, I wasn't hungry anyway.) Someone ate my last cookie? (I'm not sure I even had another cookie.) | |
| Enumeration | To number or list things one after another. | |
| Essay | A short piece of writing that focuses on at least one main idea. Some essays are also focused on the author's unique point of view, making them personal or autobiographical, while others are focused on a particular literary, scientific, or political subject. | |
| Estimated numbers | Numbers that are not exact, but instead formed from an educated guess, usually a rounded number. Examples: about fifty million. | |
| Etymology | The study of the origins of words; where the meaning of a word comes from. | |
| Evaluate | To make a judgment about the quality of something. For example, you can evaluate an essay by examining the accuracy of the information or the strength of the arguments. | |
| Evaluative thesis | A statement that presents an opinion about the topic. | |
| Evidence | Facts, statistics, or expert testimony that supports a claim. | |
| Evidentiary sources | Specific media, such as journal articles, newspapers, and research studies that provide the support for claims or viewpoints expressed in an essay and help convince readers that an argument has merit. Evidentiary sources may provide facts and statistics, expert opinions, or anecdotal evidence. | |
| Evidentiary support | Evidence that supports the claims or viewpoints expressed in an essay and helps convince readers that an argument has merit. Evidentiary support may take the form of facts and statistics, expert opinions, or anecdotal evidence. | |
| Examinations | To observe closely and carefully. | |
| Exemplification | A style of writing that uses personal experience to support an opinion. | |
| Expert | Someone who is very knowledgeable about a topic. | |
| Explanatory thesis | A statement that explains something without judgment. | |
| Explicitly | A clear statement that is made known without leaving any room for doubt. | |
| Expository essays | An essay that explains or describes something with facts and not opinions. How-to guides, timelines, and biographies are all examples of expository writing. | |
| Extended definition | The meaning of an idea or word that has components of both informal and formal definitions, but is presented in a longer, paragraph format. | |
| Extended definitions | The meaning of an idea or word that has components of both informal and formal definitions, but is presented in a longer, paragraph format. | F (Back to top) |
| Fact | A piece of information that can be proven. Something that is true and indisputable. | |
| Figurative language | Vivid, powerful wording that creates a picture in the reader's mind. Effective figurative language helps the reader not just understand but also emotionally connect to an idea. | |
| Final draft | The last version of a writing that has been revised, edited, and proofread. | |
| First | A word form that refers to the writer. Example: I got a new pair of ice skates for my birthday. | |
| First person | A narration style where the writer uses personal pronouns such as I, me, and we. This point of view is often taken when a writer chooses to share personal information or experiences. Example: It took me years to get used to the sounds of the city at night; I couldn't sleep with the police sirens blaring at all hours. | |
| First-person pronouns | A word that takes the place of the writer or narrator. Examples: I, we, me, us, my, mine, our, and ours. | |
| Font | A set of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks that are the same style. Examples: Times New Roman and Arial are fonts. | |
| Formal definition | The meaning of a word that consists of three parts: the term, the part of speech to which it belongs, and all the traits or characteristics that set it apart from every other item in that class. | |
| Formal outline | An outline that is traditional and structured, follows a set pattern, and uses a combination of Roman numerals, letters, and numbers to show a hierarchy of information based on the major and minor details or ideas. | |
| Formatting | The way in which content is arranged, usually following a set of rules. In writing, outlines and essays often follow a format specified by their purpose or where they are published. | |
| Fragment | A grammatical error that occurs when a sentence is missing either a subject or a predicate, making it incomplete. | |
| Freethinking | A technique used in prewriting in which any and all ideas that come to mind are written down for later review. | |
| Freewriting | A prewriting technique where the author begins writing without regard to spelling or grammar about ideas, topics, or even characters, descriptions of events, and settings. Often the writer will freewrite for a set period of time. The objective is to develop a storyline through the writing process itself. | |
| Future | A verb tense that refers to situations that will happen at a later time. These often use the helping verb will. Example: The children will jump into the pool. | G (Back to top) |
| Genres | A category of something. Genres of fiction writing include romance, mystery, science fiction, etc. Biographies, textbooks, and scientific articles are examples of nonfiction genres. | |
| Grammar | A set of rules about how words are used in a particular language. | |
| Grammatical structures | The parts of sentences, such as phrases and clauses, that make up language. | |
| Graphic organizer | Pictorial tools used to brainstorm and arrange ideas before writing, such as webbing diagrams, flow charts, story maps, and Venn diagrams. | H (Back to top) |
| Header | Information that appears at the very top of a page and may appear on subsequent pages of a work. | |
| Headings | Information that appears at the top of a paper, before the main body of writing, that includes the title and other information about a work. | |
| Helping verb | A verb used with an action verb to show what is happening and to provide a tense (past, present, future) for the situation. Examples include: can, may, should. | |
| Hierarchy | A system that is organized into different levels according to importance or power. | |
| Homophones | Words that sound the same when spoken but that have different meanings and often (but not always) different spellings. For example, rain and rein, or rose (a flower) and rose (past tense of rise). | |
| Hook | In writing, a device used to grab a readers' attention, often in the form of interesting, surprising, or provocative information. | |
| Hyperbole | Figurative language that uses extreme exaggeration to make a point. Examples: This backpack weighs a ton. My dad is going to kill me for denting the car. | |
| Hypothesis | A preliminary explanation that needs further study before it can be accepted. A hypothesis is stronger than a guess but less supported than a theory. | I (Back to top) |
| Idea | A thought, opinion, or impression. | |
| Idioms | Figurative language used by a specific group of people that expresses something other than the literal meaning of the words. Idioms are understood within groups because of common usage, but may confuse outsiders. Examples: kick the bucket, dark horse | |
| Implied | An idea that is expressed in an indirect way, not said outright. | |
| Implied main idea | A main idea—the most important idea or central thought in a paragraph or reading—that is not stated directly, as opposed to an explicit main idea. | |
| Implied thesis statement | An indirect overall argument, idea, or belief that a writer uses as the basis of an essay or dissertation but is never stated directly in the writing. | |
| In-text citation | Information about a source, such as the author, date, and page number, in an essay or research paper that helps readers find the source in the works cited or references page. There are different rules for how to use in-text citations depending on the context of the citation and the style of formatting you are using. | |
| Indefinite pronouns | Nouns that may sound plural but are always singular and require a singular verb. Examples: something, enough, nobody, everybody. | |
| Independent clause | Part of a sentence that contains a subject and a predicate and can stand on its own as a complete sentence. Example independent clause: The boy ate the freshly picked apple with delight. The subject is the boy, the predicate is the verb ate, plus the modifiers the freshly picked apple with delight. | |
| Indirect quotation | A summary or paraphrase of another’s words or ideas. An indirect quotation does not require quotation marks. | |
| Infer | To reach a conclusion based on context and your own knowledge. | |
| Inferences | Meaning that has been uncovered by considering the subtext of a reading, drawing from your own experiences, and connecting them to the reading. | |
| Informal definition | The meaning of a word that is explained using known words or examples to define an unknown term. These definitions may be synonyms or antonyms introduced by or, in other words, or like. | |
| Informal outline | A simplified outline that presents an overview of the placement of information in a reading. | |
| Informational writing | A genre of writing that is focused on facts and does not contain bias. Example: a dictionary is an informational writing. | |
| Introduction | The first paragraph of an essay. It must engage the reader, set the tone, provide background information, and present the thesis. | |
| Introductory phrases | A group of words that comes at the beginning of a sentence to provide additional information about the main part of the sentence. | |
| Ironic | Describes something that is funny or odd because it is not what is expected. | |
| Italics | A formatting style where the typeface appears slanted. | J (Back to top) |
| Jargon | Technical language pertaining to a specific activity and used by a particular group of people. | |
| Journalism | Collecting, editing, writing, and presenting news and other information to an audience. | K (Back to top) |
| Keywords | Words that are important to understanding the meaning of a passage or reading. | L (Back to top) |
| Line spacing | The vertical distance between lines of text on a page. The most common types of spacing are single and double. | |
| Link | To connect ideas together within a paragraph or to create a transition from one paragraph to the next, as well as back to the thesis. | |
| Linking verbs | Verbs that work with state of being verbs to describe a subject. The forms of be usually function as linking verbs: be, being, been, is, am, was, were. Example: The weather today is hot and humid. | |
| Listing | A prewriting technique where the author writes down ideas in categorized lists in order to gather ideas. | |
| Literary devices | Any of the various methods writers use to get their ideas across to readers. Examples include figurative language, symbolism, anecdotes, and many other literary elements and techniques. | |
| Logical fallacies | A mistake in reasoning; faulty thinking that weakens an argument or leads to an incorrect conclusion. | M (Back to top) |
| Main idea | The most important or central thought of a reading selection. It also includes what the author wants the reader to understand about the topic he or she has chosen to write about. | |
| Main point | The most important idea in a paragraph. Main points support the main idea of a reading. | |
| Major details | The larger points within a reading that support the main idea. | |
| Major supporting details | Statements within a reading that tie directly to the work's main idea. These can be provided in examples, statistics, anecdotes, definitions, descriptions, or comparisons within the work. | |
| Major supporting details | Statements within a reading that tie directly to the work's main idea. These can be provided in examples, statistics, anecdotes, definitions, descriptions, or comparisons within the work. | |
| Margin | The outer edges of a document that do not contain writing or images. | |
| MEAL concept | An acronym that describes a method of organizing the paragraphs in an essay. Under this plan, each paragraph should have a Main point, Evidence, Analysis, and a Link to the next paragraph. | |
| Memo | A short written message from one person to another or to a group of persons, usually containing business information. | |
| Metaphor | A type of figurative language in which a word or phrase that describes one thing is applied to another thing. This creates a comparison without using the words like or as. For example, calling someone "the black sheep of the family" doesn't mean he is a farm animal, but that he is unlike those around him in the same way a black sheep stands out from the rest of the herd. | |
| Mind mapping | A prewriting technique where the author brainstorms and writes down his or her ideas by grouping and connecting ideas into a type of visual map. | |
| Minor details | Smaller statements within a reading that tie directly to major details. | |
| Misplaced modifier | A modifier gives extra information about a word. A misplaced modifier occurs when a sentence is written so that the modifier appears to refer to the wrong word. For example, the sentence She rode a blue girl's bicycle to school seems to say that the girl was blue instead of the bicycle. | |
| MLA | A grammar and reference guide used mainly by students and scholars writing about the humanities (languages and literature). | |
| MLA | A grammar and reference guide used mainly by students and scholars writing about the humanities (languages and literature). | |
| Modifier | A word or phrase that changes or specifies the meaning of another word, usually the subject or the verb. Example: The red ball quickly bounced over the fence. The adjective red modifies the subject, the ball. Also, the adverb quickly modifies the verb bounced. | |
| Modifies | To change or specify the meaning of another word, usually the subject or the verb. Example: The red ball quickly bounced over the fence. The adjective red modifies the subject, the ball. Also, the adverb quickly modifies the verb bounced. | N (Back to top) |
| Narrative | A story or account of events that is written or told. | |
| Narrator | The "voice" of the person who is telling a story. Sometimes the narrator is the author, other times it is a character within the work. | |
| Nonessential | Extra information in a sentence that is not needed to express its basic meaning. | |
| Noun | A part of speech that refers to a person, place, or thing. Examples include: swimmer, lake, sunscreen. | |
| Nuance | Subtle differences in meaning and style of expression. | O (Back to top) |
| Object | A noun or pronoun in a sentence that receives the action performed by the subject. Example: The man ate the hamburger. In this case, the subject is the man and the object is the hamburger. | |
| Objective | Point of view where the writer is non-biased. Information is based on facts as opposed to personal feelings or opinions. The writer displays no tendency toward a preference. This style of writing is seen as more credible than a biased viewpoint. | |
| Opinion | Point of view that shows a personal belief or bias and cannot be proven to be completely true. | |
| Opposing viewpoints | An opinion that conflicts with another position on the same subject. | |
| Oral | Spoken aloud, as in oral arguments made in a court of law. | |
| Ordinal | A number that shows order. Examples: first, third, fifteenth. | |
| Organizational strategies | A plan for arranging the structure of an outline or essay. There are many different strategies, such as point-by-point, subject-by-subject, or order of events. | |
| Outline | A preliminary plan for a piece of a writing, often in the form of a list. It should include a topic, audience, purpose, thesis statement, and main and supporting points. | P (Back to top) |
| Paper | An academic essay that usually includes research and citations. | |
| Paragraph | A selection of a writing that is made up of sentences formed around one main point. Paragraphs are set apart by a new line and sometimes indentation. | |
| Parallel | Using the same pattern of words to describe ideas in order to create balance in a writing. Parallel structure can be at the word-, phrase-, clause-, sentence-, and even paragraph-level. | |
| Paraphrase | The use of different words to express the meaning of an original text or speech. | |
| Parenthetical expressions | Words, phrases, or clauses that add information that is not needed to provide the basic meaning of a sentence. Think of them as interrupters, asides, and add-ons to a sentence. Parenthetical expressions fall into four major categories: direct address, conjunctive adverbs, contrasting expressions, and common expressions. | |
| Participle | A form of a verb that shows past or present tense. Participles can sometimes be used as adjectives. Example: skipped is a past-tense participle and skipping is a present-tense participle of the verb skip. | |
| Passage | A short portion of a writing taken from a larger source, such as a book, article, speech, or poem. | |
| Passive | One of two styles of writing that compare the relationship between the subject and the verb in a sentence. In the passive voice, the action described by the verb is being done to the subject. A sentence in the passive voice always contains a state of being verb, such as am, is, was, were, or been. Example of passive voice: The plate was broken by the girl. | |
| Past | A verb tense that refers to situations that have already happened. Verbs that are written in past tense often end in –ed. Example: The children jumped into the pool. | |
| Pattern transitions | Words and phrases that help organize a text and make it easier for the reader to follow an argument and help keep the focus on a particular idea. For example, writers may refer back to the thesis statement or main idea throughout the essay. Or they may start paragraphs with words like first, second, meanwhile, or after to show the time sequence of events. | |
| Peer-reviewed | Writings that have been evaluated by experts in a subject before they are published. | |
| Period | (.) A punctuation mark used to separate sentences. | |
| Person | In grammar, a category of word forms according to whether they are referring to the speaker (first person), the reader (second person) or someone else (third person). | |
| Personification | Giving human feelings or qualities to objects, animals, or ideas. Examples: That cheesecake is calling my name. The camera loves her. | |
| Perspective | The point of view from which an author considers a subject or issue. | |
| Persuade | To convince someone of a claim or idea. | |
| Persuasion essay | A writing that takes a position for or against something and tries to convince the reader to accept the same view. Also called an argument essay. | |
| Persuasive writing | A form of writing where the author tries to convince the reader that his or her argument has merit. Example: an editorial article is a piece of persuasive writing. | |
| Phenomena | Happenings or facts that can be observed. | |
| Phrase | A set of words that express an idea. A phrase may or may not form a complete sentence. | |
| Plagiarism | The act of taking someone else's ideas, words, or work and pass it off as your own; copying without giving credit. | |
| Plagiarized | To take someone else's ideas, words, or work and pass it off as your own; copying without giving credit. | |
| Plot | The main idea and events of a story, specifically, how major and minor supporting details are structured and how events lead to changes in characters. | |
| Plural | A grammatical term that indicates more than one person, place, or thing is being described. Plural nouns often end in an -s. Example: The books are red. | |
| Poetry | Writing that relies on the sound, pattern, or rhythm of words to evoke vivid impressions and emotions. | |
| Point of view | The perspective from which an author considers a subject or issue. | |
| Point-by-point | An organizational strategy for a comparison or compare and contrast essay. In this method, the writer lists the major points of comparison/contrast between subjects, and discusses them one at a time. A point-by-point comparison is useful for subjects that have many points of comparison because the reader can consider both subjects side-by-side. | |
| Point-by-point | An organizational strategy for a comparison or compare and contrast essay. In this method, the writer lists the major points of comparison/contrast between subjects, and discusses them one at a time. A point-by-point comparison is useful for subjects that have many points of comparison because the reader can consider both subjects side-by-side. | |
| Points of comparison | The criteria by which subjects are compared and/or contrasted. | |
| Possessives | In grammar, possessive refers to words or forms that show ownership. These include nouns ending with 's or s' as in the phrases the dog's toy or both dogs' toys. There are also many possessive pronouns, for example my, mine, yours, ours, and theirs. | |
| Preconceived notions | An opinion formed ahead of time, without benefit of facts and experiences. | |
| Predicate | Part of a sentence or a clause that has a verb and any modifiers or objects. Example: The girl went for a walk. The subject is the girl. The predicate is went for a walk. | |
| Prefixes | A word part that is attached to the beginning of a root word to enhance or change its meaning or form a new word. Prefixes cannot stand on their own as independent words. | |
| Prepositional phrase | A group of words that starts with a preposition and ends with a noun. For example, in the prepositional phrase, At the desk, At is the preposition and the desk is the noun. | |
| Prepositions | Part of speech including words or groups of words that connect an object (a noun or a pronoun) to other words to describe it. They usually describe space (location) or time. Examples include: over, in, to, around, through. | |
| Present | A verb tense that refers to situations that are happening right now. These may be verbs that end in an –s or an –ing. Example: The children are jumping into the pool. | |
| Primary sources | An original document, painting, recording or other source of information typically used as evidentiary support. An example of a primary source is a philosophical dialog by Plato as opposed to a philosophy textbook about Plato. | |
| Principles | A fundamental belief that guides a person's behavior, or a law that describes the occurrence of natural phenomena. | |
| Prompt | Instructions for a writing assignment given by an instructor. | |
| Pronoun | A part of speech that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. Examples include: I, he, you, they. | |
| Pronoun-antecedent agreement | Correct grammatical form where pronouns agree with the noun they refer to in both number (singular or plural) and gender. | |
| Proofread | The process of carefully searching a writing draft for mistakes at the sentence- and word-level in order to correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. | |
| Proper noun | The name of a person place or thing. Proper nouns should be capitalized. Examples: person: George Washington; place: The White House; thing: The Washington Monument. | |
| Prose | Writing based on ordinary grammatical language, rather than the rhythms or rhymes used in poetry. | |
| Proverb | A short, well-known saying that expresses a common wisdom or gives useful advice. Examples: Two wrongs don't make a right. Don't judge a book by its cover. | |
| Provocative | Describes something that causes interest, debate, argument, or deeper thought. | |
| Punctuate | To use punctuation marks in a text. | |
| Punctuation | Marks such as such as a comma (,), period (.), question mark (?), and exclamation mark (!), among others, that help break a writing into phrases, clauses, and sentences. Different types of punctuation marks give the reader different impressions of the writer’s purpose in that sentence. | |
| Purpose | The reason the writer is writing about a topic. It is what the writer wants the reader to know, feel, or do after reading the work. | Q (Back to top) |
| Qualifiers | Words or phrases that limit or modify the meaning of other words. The adverbs probably, frequently, rarely, may, mostly, slightly, and very are all qualifiers. | |
| Quotation marks | A set of single or double inverted commas (' ' or " ") that are placed around a word or passage to mark the beginning and end of a direct quotation or a title. | |
| Quote | To use the exact words of someone else in a writing. Quotes are indicted in a writing using quotation marks and attributive phrases. | R (Back to top) |
| Reading | A piece of writing to be read. A reading can either be a full work (i.e., a book) or partial (i.e., a passage). | |
| Reading comprehension | The level of understanding of a reading. | |
| Redundant | In writing, wordy or repetitious language, which gets in the way of making a point. | |
| Reference list | An alphabetized list of publication information about the sources used in an APA-formatted essay or research paper. | |
| Reference points | Annotations, such as notes or highlights one makes in a work, providing places to come back to when participating in classroom discussions or when writing an essay on a work. | |
| Referents | The noun or idea that different words or phrases stand for in a sentence or paragraph. For instance, in the following sentences, John is the referent for He. John was a good boy. He always walked his sister to school. | |
| Reflective writing | A type of writing based on the careful thinking of an issue, allowing the author to make personal connections between ideas, events, or situations. | |
| Relative clause | A type of dependent clause that begins with a relative pronoun. A relative clause modifies the words or phrases in the main clause. Example: This is the boy who always finishes his homework on time. The subject: the boy, is modified by the relative clause: who always finishes his homework on time. | |
| Relative pronoun | A word that replaces a noun that it relates to; it also introduces a relative clause. Examples: what, who, whom, whose, whoever, whomever, and which. | |
| Research | The use of outside sources as well as investigations and observations in order to form ideas and support claims. Also, the information obtained from such efforts. | |
| Research paper | An article that supplements the author's ideas or experiences with information gathered from other people and sources with knowledge of the subject. | |
| Response | A written analysis of a reading that shows understanding and fosters deep thinking about a work. | |
| Restatements | Using words or phrases to say something that has been said before in a different way. | |
| Resume | A brief written history of a person's education, work, and volunteer experience, submitted for the purpose of obtaining a job. | |
| Revise | The process of making changes to a work by editing and proofreading it to improve, correct, and increase clarity. | |
| Root words | Basic words that cannot be reduced to a smaller word and have their own meaning. They can sometimes be combined with prefixes and suffixes to change its meaning or create a new word. | |
| Rough draft | The first version of a writing that will undergo rewriting, additions, and editing before it becomes the final draft. | |
| Rounded numbers | Numbers that have been increased or decreased to the nearest whole number. Examples: 1,050,129.88 is rounded down to 1,050,000.00. | |
| Rubric | A guideline that explicitly lays out the expectations and possible scores for an assignment. | |
| Run-on sentence | A grammatical error that occurs when a sentence has two or more independent clauses joined together incorrectly. | S (Back to top) |
| Salutation | A greeting, such as Dear John or To whom it may concern at the beginning of a letter. | |
| Sarcastic | Describes a way of speaking or writing that occurs when your words to mean the opposite of what you really feel. This is done to be insulting, make a point, or express humor. | |
| Scope | The extent or aims of a project. | |
| Second | A word form that refers to the reader. Example: You got a new pair of ice skates for your birthday. | |
| Second person | A narration style where the writer uses pronouns such as you and yours. This point of view is often taken when a writer wishes to directly address or instruct the audience. Example: It could take you years to get used to the sounds of the city at night; you might have trouble sleeping with the police sirens blaring at all hours. | |
| Second-person pronouns | A word that takes the place of the intended audience. Examples: you, your, yours. | |
| Semicolon | (;) A punctuation mark used to connect major parts of sentences of equal grammatical rank. For example, semicolons are used to connect two independent clauses into one sentence. | |
| Sentence | A group of words, phrases, or clauses that expresses a complete thought. A complete sentence has these characteristics: a capitalized first word, a subject and a predicate, and end punctuation, such as a period (.), question mark (?), or exclamation mark (!). | |
| Sentence construction | The grammatical structure of words and punctuation in a sentence. | |
| Sequence of events | A series of things that happen, one right after the other, that typically make up a story line. | |
| Signal words | Words or phrases that connect ideas and alert a reader to important relationships between subjects. For example, signal words in a cause and effect essay could include first, second, then, next, later, because, after, and due to. Signal words in a compare/contrast essay could include also, but, similarly, in contrast, unlike, in the same way, as well as, or on the other hand. | |
| Simile | A comparison between two things using the words like or as. Similes are a type of figurative language. Examples: He's just sitting there like a bump on a log. My boss is as tough as nails. | |
| Simple sentence | One of the four sentence types that contains a subject and a predicate. Example: The girl went for a walk. The subject is the girl. The predicate is went for a walk. | |
| Singular | A grammatical term that indicates one person, place, or thing is being described. Example: The book is red. | |
| Skim | To read over quickly in order to pick out the main ideas but not the details. | |
| Slant | Information presented with a particular focus or from a certain perspective, such as a writer's angle on a topic. | |
| Source | A person, book, article, or other thing that supplies information. | |
| Source material | Information that is quoted or paraphrased from outside works, such as journal articles, online documents, and books. | |
| Spacing | The area between words, titles, and paragraphs. | |
| Squinting modifier | A type of misplaced modifier that could refer to more than one word or phrase in a sentence. The modifier is said to be squinting because it could "look" at the words on either side of it. For example, in the sentence Paul told Mary after work he would go to the store, the phrase after work is squinting because it is not clear whether this modifier refers to when Paul told Mary or when he would go to the store. | |
| Standard English | The established, widely recognized version of English that includes proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar and avoids regional expressions, jargon, slang, and obsolete and invented words. | |
| State of being | Verbs that show how something is existing. Examples include: is, am, are, was, became. | |
| Stated main idea | A main idea that has been explicitly written in an article, essay, or other reading. | |
| Stated thesis statement | A thesis statement that has been explicitly written in an article, essay, or other reading. | |
| States | The condition that something is in. | |
| Statistics | A numerical value that provides information about something. | |
| Story | A description of fictional events that tells how something happened with a beginning, middle, and end. | |
| Style guide | A set of rules for punctuation, grammar, and other facets of writing, used to produce consistency and promote understanding. Different publications and types of writing often follow different style guides. Well-known style guides in the U.S. include The Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA Style Manual, and the Associated Press Stylebook. | |
| Subject | The people, places, things, or ideas being discussed or described. | |
| Subject | In grammar, a part of speech that refers to the “doer” in the sentence (who or what). A subject is usually a person, place or thing. | |
| Subject pretenders | A noun or pronoun in a phrase or clause that is not the subject of the sentence. It is referred to as a "pretender" because it can often be confused as the subject of the sentence. Example: While eating my mom's banana cream pie, I felt relieved to be home. In this sentence, mom could be seen as a subject pretender because I is the actual subject of the sentence, not mom. | |
| Subject-by-subject | An organizational strategy for a comparison or compare and contrast essay. In this method, a single subject is discussed in detail, followed by a similar examination of the other subject. A subject-by-subject comparison is best used for less complex arguments that have fewer points, so that the reader can remember the points made about the first subject while learning about the second. | |
| Subject-verb agreement | A grammatical term that describes when a writer uses subjects and verbs that match each other in both number (singular or plural) and person (first, second, or third). Example: The girls have pretty dresses and bows that match. In this sentence the subject, girls, is plural, so the verb have, and the nouns dresses and bows must also be plural. | |
| Subjective | Wording that shows a writer's feelings or opinions. For example, words such as feel, believe, and think are obvious signs that a writer is being subjective. | |
| Subjective language | Wording that shows a writer's feelings or opinions. For example, words such as feel, believe, and think are obvious signs that a writer is being subjective. | |
| Subordinating clause | A type of dependent clause that begins with a subordinating conjunction. Example: After the game. The subject: the game, is modified by the subordinating conjunction: After. | |
| Subordinating conjunction | Part of speech that connects dependent clauses. A subordinating conjunction comes at the beginning of a dependent clause and shows the relationship between the clauses it connects. Examples of subordinating conjunctions include: after, if, while, unless. | |
| Subtext | Information that is left out of a reading. The author may do this because the audience knows this information, it may be unimportant, or because they want readers to figure out the information on their own by drawing inferences and conclusions. | |
| Subtitle | A secondary part of a title, which often provides explanation or identifies different parts of a series. Example: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | |
| Suffixes | A word part that is attached to the end of a root word to enhance or change its meaning or form a new word. Suffixes often change a word’s part of speech or changes a singular word into a plural one. Suffixes cannot stand on their own as independent words. | |
| Summaries | A brief restatement of an author’s main idea and major supporting details. Summaries are factual and should be written in the third-person with an objective point of view. | |
| Summarize | To give a short version of the main points of a text. | |
| Summary-response | A writing that combines a summary of a reading with personal thoughts and opinions about the reading. | |
| Supporting details | Statements within a reading that tie directly to major details that support the main idea. These can be provided in examples, statistics, anecdotes, definitions, descriptions, or comparisons within the work. | |
| Supporting ideas | Points that supply content and develop a thesis within an essay. | |
| Syllabus | A guide to a class that includes the instructor's expectations, the topics the class will cover, and the texts that are used. | |
| Synonym | A word or phrase that has an identical or very similar meaning to another word. Example: tiny is a synonym for small. | |
| Synthesize | To combine ideas, as in the writing at the end of an essay that ties all the discussion and evidence together into a unified concept. | T (Back to top) |
| Technical report | A formal writing that the author composes using very specific research that describes in detail a scientific or technological project, process, or concept. | |
| Tense | The form of a verb that tells when an action occurs. Verb tenses include past, present, and future. Example to live: past: lived; present: lives, future: will live. | |
| Tense | The form of a verb that tells when an action occurs. Verb tenses include past, present, and future. Example: to live: past: lived; present: lives, future: will live. | |
| Tentative thesis statement | An early form of a thesis statement that can be developed into a more formal thesis statement by creating supporting details. | |
| Text | Words that make up a book, essay, article, poem, or speech. | |
| The Chicago Manual of Style | A set of guidelines for grammar, punctuation, and citations, widely used by students, editors, and general interest publications. | |
| Themes | The main idea or meaning of a text. | |
| Theories | In science, a well tested and widely accepted explanation for a phenomenon. Theories incorporate facts, observations, experiments, laws, and careful reasoning. In more general usage, theory may merely mean an unproven idea, speculation, or guesswork. | |
| Thesaurus | A reference book that lists words with groups of synonyms and related words. | |
| Thesis | An overall argument, idea, or belief that a writer uses as the basis for a work. | |
| Thesis statement | A brief statement that identifies a writer's thoughts, opinions, or conclusions about a topic. Thesis statements bring unity to a piece of writing, giving it a focus and a purpose. You can use three questions to help form a thesis statement: What is my topic? What am I trying to say about that topic? Why is this important to me or my reader? | |
| Third | A word form that refers to someone who is not the writer or the reader. Example: He got a new pair of ice skates for his birthday. | |
| Third person | A narration style where the writer uses pronouns such as he, she, one, it, they. This point of view is often used in academic or professional writings. Example: Some people find that it takes years to get used to the sounds of the city at night; they often have trouble sleeping with the police sirens blaring at all hours. | |
| Third-person limited | A narration style where the narrator only knows one character's thoughts about the story and is told from that perspective. | |
| Third-person omniscient | A narration style where the narrator knows everything about the story and all its characters, including their thoughts, feelings, and motives. This is also called the "God's eye" perspective. | |
| Third-person pronouns | A word that takes the place of persons, places, or things that are not the writer or the intended audience. Examples: he, she, it, they, him, her, them, his, her, hers, its, their, and theirs. | |
| Timeline | A sequence of things that happen in order, from the first event to the last event. | |
| Title | The name that identifies a work. Example: The Old Man and The Sea is the title of a book by Earnest Hemingway. | |
| Title page | A page that precedes the main writing of a book or research paper that includes the title, author's name, and other information about the work. | |
| Tone | The feeling or attitude that a writer expresses toward a topic. The words the writer chooses express this tone. Examples of tones can include: objective, biased, humorous, optimistic, and cynical, among many others. | |
| Topic | The subject of a reading. | |
| Topic | The subject of a reading. | |
| Topic sentence | A sentence that contains the controlling idea for an entire paragraph and is typically the first sentence of the paragraph. | |
| Traits | The specific parts of a person, place, or thing that distinguish it from another. | |
| Transition | Tying two events, passages, or pieces of information together in a smooth way. In writing, transitions are sometimes called links. | |
| Transitional phrases | Phrases within a sentence that help tie one thought to another. Examples: on the other hand, in contrast, for example. | |
| Transitional words | Words within a sentence that help tie one thought to another. Examples: however, similarly, also. | |
| Transitions | Tying two events, passages, or pieces of information together in a smooth way. In writing, transitions are sometimes called links.The larger setting in which something happens; the "big picture." | |
| Typo | A small mistake in spelling or punctuation that is usually caused by mistyping. | U (Back to top) |
| Underlining | A formatting style where the typeface appears with a line underneath. | V (Back to top) |
| Venn diagram | Overlapping circles used to diagram the similarities and differences between two or more things. Common characteristics are written in the area of overlap, while unique characteristics are listed in the outer parts of each circle. | |
| Verb | A part of speech that refers to what is happening, the action, what the subject is doing, or how it is “being.” Examples include: sleep, to be, think. | |
| Verb phrase | The part of the sentence containing the verb and any direct or indirect object, but not the subject. Example: She is working in the garden has the verb phrase is working in the garden. | |
| Verbal phrases | A verbal and any of its modifiers, objects, or compliments. (A verbal is a verb in the sentence acting like a noun or adjective. Example: Running is a great form of exercise has the verbal Running.) An example of a verbal phrase: In the sentence Running to the store was one of his least favorite activities, the verbal phrase is Running to the store. | |
| Verbatim | A word for word repeat of an original text or speech. | |
| Verifiable | Describes something that can be proven to be true. | |
| Vocabulary | All of the words that are known by an individual or group of people. | |
| Voice | The two styles of writing—active and passive—that compare the relationship between the subject and the verb in a sentence. In the active voice, the action described by the verb is done by the subject. In the passive voice, the action described by the verb is being done to the subject. | W (Back to top) |
| Web diagram | A prewriting technique where the author creates an informal visual layout of possible ideas and then draws lines to connect them into a type of "web." The objective is to see connections between events and characters. | |
| Word parts | Basic sections of words that make up larger words, including prefixes, suffixes, and root words. You can use word parts to help you determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word. | |
| Works cited page | An alphabetized list of publication information about the sources used in an MLA-formatted essay or research paper. | |
| Writing process | A series of steps that guides a writer through the process of gathering ideas, outlining, writing, and revising an essay, article, or story. |
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