Style

The illustration shows a four-quadrant chart with two axes: simple/complex thinking, and simple/complex expression.

Why Don’t Students Use Plain Language?

What Do Students Confuse “Complex Thinking/Complex Writing” with “Simple Thinking/Complex Writing”? As writing instructors and advisors in the Anglo-Saxon world, we often talk about our dislike for elaborate writing that uses long words and complex sentences at the expense of clarity. When writers have English as an additional language, their belief that serious writing must ...

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

What is Coherence? Coherence in writing refers to the logical connections and consistency that hold a text together, making it understandable and meaningful to the reader. Writers create coherence in three ways: What is Logical Consistency? What is Conceptual Consistency? What is Linguistic Consistency? Synonyms Related Concepts: Flow; Given to New Contract; Grammar; Organization; Organizational ...

Student engrossed in reading on her laptop, surrounded by a stack of books

Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community

What is Academic Writing? Academic writing refers to all of the texts produced by academic writers, including theoretical, empirical, or experience-based works. Examples: Different academic fields have distinct genres, writing styles and conventions because each academic field possesses its own set of rules and practices that govern how ideas are researched, structured, supported, and communicated. ...

Wrong Word

What Does it Mean to Use the Wrong Word? English is a tricky language. Words can be easily confused for similar sounding words (homonyms). When in doubt, research the word you are using to make sure that it means what you think it means.  Related Concepts: Audience; Diction; Editing; Rhetorical Analysis; Rhetorical Reasoning Examples Accede—verb—to agree or consent Ex. I ...

Abstract Language is the discourse of published peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings

Abstract Language

What is Abstract Language? Abstract language is Related Concepts Concrete, Sensory Writing; Description; Code Switching; Figurative Language; Given to New Contract; Register; Vague Language; Writer-Based Prose Style Why Does Abstract Language Matter? Abstract language empowers writers, speakers, knowledge makers . . . to Abstract language is widely employed in peer-reviewed journals and publications. It is ...

airport security area with warning signs

Tough, Sweet, & Stuffy Prose Styles

What are Tough, Sweet & Stuffy Prose Styles? In 1966, Walker Gibson theorized “the way we write at any given moment can be seen as an adjustment or compromise among these three styles of identifying ourselves and defining our relation with others”: The Tough Talker “The Tough Talker, in these terms, is a man dramatized ...

An illustration of a professor looking up from his phone to see a student's text: "Let's eat grandpa!" This illustration highlights a punctuation error and its humorous potential for misunderstanding.

Common Sentence Errors and How to Avoid Them

What are Sentence Errors? Sentence errors are deviations from the norms of Standard Written English, including grammar and mechanical rules, that disrupt the clarity, coherence, and flow of discourse. These errors violate established discourse conventions, affecting the text’s brevity, unity, and simplicity. By failing to adhere to grammatical standards and mechanical precision, such mistakes make ...