Professor

Jenifer Paquette

- Hillsborough Community College

Dr. Jenifer Paquette teaches English in higher education with her areas of expertise running from the history of the English language and the intricacies of grammatical rules to guidelines for effective writing and communication across disciplines.

Author of the Klauden’s Ring Saga and the Conjuring Fascination series, JM Paquette writes fantasy and paranormal romance novels. When she isn’t writing, she can be found teaching English, discussing Tolkien, editing books, guest co-hosting the podcast Drinking with Authors, and watching Russian dragon shifter movies.

You may also find her guest co-hosting the podcast Drinking with Authors. Even though she doesn’t drink, she loves getting to know fellow authors! Check out JM Paquette at authorjmpaquette.com and 4horsemenpublications.com, on Twitter @authorjmp and @editorjmp13, and as Author JM Paquette on Facebook and Instagram.

Articles:

Archaism

Archaisms are out-of-style words or phrases, such as “whilst,” “thusly,” or “thou.” Use of archaisms in your writing creates a stilted, inauthentic voice, tone, persona. Use of archaisms in your writing creates a stilted, inauthentic tone. Learn to identify archaisms in your work and the work of others.


Articles


Choppy Writing


Conjunctions


Coordinating Conjunctions


Coordination & Subordination

What is Coordination & Subordination? Learn how to identify and correctly employ coordinate and subordinate sentence structures. These are the basic building blocks of Standard Written English.


Description

Learn, when composing

so that you can access the readability of your work or the work of others.


Edit for Diction

Being a good editor from the perspective of diction requires declarative knowledge about Archaisms; Bias-Free Language; Cliché; Concrete & Sensory Language; Figurative Language; Homonyms; Jargon; and Vague Language, Generalizations

Diction matters a great deal to writers, speakers, knowledge workers . . . becauses audiences are likely to ignore information and texts if it employs inappropriate diction. Use these strategies to edit your texts for diction.


Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Writing teachers, writers, and readers have different definitions for the concept of flow. For writers, flow is a mind set, a sense that you feel creative and articulate. For students and aspiring writers, flow may also refer to stylistic principles related to coherence and unity,  For readers and writing teachers, flow refers to a style of writing that is smooth and logical, seamlessly transitioning from one idea to the next in a way that engages the reader and enhances their understanding of the text. This article focuses primarily on this latter conception of flow. By mastering flow, alongside coherenceinclusivenesssimplicity, and unity, you’ll be well-equipped to craft professional or academic pieces that engage and inform effectively.


Hyphens


Independent Clauses, Dependent Clauses & Phrases


Modifiers, Modification

How do dangling, misplaced, limiting, or squinting modifiers cause confusion in sentences? How can I avoid these modification problems?


Overgeneralization

Readers are likely to ignore your prose or dismiss it as an uneducated rant when you make overgeneralizations. Learn how to avoid this error.


Parallelism, Parallel Structure, Parallel Construction

Learn about parallelism as a foundational grammatical structure in English. Learn about parallelism from a rhetorical perspective: use parallel structure to facility brevity, clarity & rhythm.


Parts of a Sentence

Learn about the parts of a sentence in Standard Written English: subjects, verbs, and objects and Independent Clauses, Dependent Clauses & Phrases.


Primer Sentences


Pronoun – Guide to Writing with Pronouns

This Guide to Writing with Pronouns in 2022 provides everything you need to know about pronouns. The Guide defines the different types of pronouns in English, analyzes the function of pronouns in sentences, and explains how to identify and fix pronoun errors. Learn about correct pronoun usage so you can establish a professional tone in your communications and ensure your language is clear, concise, inclusive and gender-sensitive.


Research Question


Revise for Thesis or Research Question


Sentence Patterns

What are the four most common sentence patterns in Standard Written English? How can I identify which sentence patterns to use in my texts?


Sentence Structure – Syntax

Learn to identify 1. Simple, 2. Compound, 3. Complex, and 4. Compound-Complex Sentences. Understand how to use these sentence structure depending on the message and the occasion.


Sentence Types

Learn to identify the 4 sentence types in English: 1. declarative, 2. imperative, 3 interrogative, and 4. exclamatory sentences.


Sentences

Sentences are more than a basic unit of thought: they are a signal of education, self regulation, and professionalism. Sentence errors undermine a professional prose style: Learn to distinguish independent clauses from dependent clauses and phrases. Develop your understanding of the tao of the sentence in order to avoid common errors: modification errors, comma splices, run-on sentences and sentence fragments.


Subject-Verb Agreement


Subjects, Verbs, & Objects


Subordinating Conjunctions


Vague Language

Vague language is abstract, undecipherable, underdeveloped, fragmented prose. Use of vague language can be a form of rhetrickery–an intentional rhetorical move. Yet more commonly vagueness is unintentional, a signal that the writer, speaker, knowledge worker . . .  needs to think more deeply about the matter. Learn how to eliminate vague language from your work and the work of others.


Verb-Tense Shift