A phrase is a group of words that lacks a subject (an actor) and a verb (an action): after the market correction (prepositional phrase) the clever stock traders (noun phrase) were ready to buy the dip (verb phrase). An Essential Phrase is a phrase that contains the information needed to complete the meaning of the sentence. ...
What is Vague Language? Ambiguous Language? Vague Language (aka Ambiguous Language) is Examples of vague language are Vague Language may also be called Related Concepts: Concrete Language, Sensory Language; Description; Given to New Contract; Reader-Based Prose Style; Register; Writer-Based Prose Why Does Vague Language Matter? Vagueness undermines interpretation. Readers, listeners, users . . . will ...
What is Word Form? What is a wrong word form? Word Form refers to ways the form of a word in English conveys different meanings. 3 Common Word Form Examples: -s, -ing, -ed The third person singular verb in English has an -s on the end: “He sits on the bus, while I stand, and ...
Choppy writing uses short words and simplistic diction. short, primer-style sentences (i.e., sentences that don’t connect to each other). How can I improve choppy writing? Connect some of your ideas together with conjunctions and/or segues. Make two short sentences into one longer one. Writing feels choppy when the sentences are very short, and the sentences ...
What are Contractions? Contractions are two words that are joined by an apostrophe. Examples: Writers, speakers, knowledge workers . . . cannot join any two words with an apostrophe. Instead, convention dictates that only a certain number of words can be joined as contractions. Wikipedia provides an exhaustive list of English contractions. Related Concepts: Diction; ...
What is Space? Space from the perspective Design Studies and Writing Studies is the unmarked portion of a text, including margins, spaces between lines or columns, and unused spaces in graphics and charts. Space may be called The use of space as a design essential element affects not only the aesthetics of the document, but ...
A verb-tense shift occurs when a writer changes tense within a single piece of writing. Tense is the term for what time frame verbs refer to. Standard American English has a number of tenses, each of which is a variation on past, present, or future. Any switching of tense within a sentence, paragraph, or longer ...
Coordinating conjunctions are words that are used to join two sentences together. Example: I’m reading, and I’m writing. Key Concepts: Flow, Coherence, Unity; Grammar; Organization; Organizational Schema & Logical Reasoning; Parts of Speech; Sentences; Writer-Based vs. Reader-Based Prose Commas are used when two independent clauses are connected by coordinating conjunctions: Ex: She was tired, so ...
A subordinating conjunction connects an independent clause to a dependent (subordinate) clause: an independent clause is a sentence that is a complete thought and therefore can stand alone Example: I survived the class. a dependent clause is an incomplete sentence, a fragment. It cannot express a complete thought. It cannot be punctuated as a sentence. ...
Definition Sentences are a grammatical unit, involving a subject and a verb or a subject, verb, and object the basic building blocks of thought, the ways we encode and decode information a signal, a sign, of education, literacy, professionalism, work ethic. Related Concepts: Edit for AWK(Awkward); Edit for Sentence Fragments; Edit for Parallelism; Edit for ...
