First Aid for Writing

A variety of writing tips from on-line resources: Purdue University, University of Texas, University of Illinois Lingua Center, Capital Community Technical College

• Getting Started
• General Writing/Organizational Guidelines
• Editing and Revising
• Special Assignments
• Grammar and Punctuation

• Brainstorming
• Planning
• When you start to write
• If you're having trouble starting to write

GENERAL WRITING AND ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDELINES

• Writing for the A: keeping your instructor in mind
• General timelines for the writing process
• Coherence
• Wordiness: what is it? How to eliminate it

• Developing an outline
• Writing body paragraphs
• Sentence variety
• Improving sentence clarity
• Transitions

   EDITING AND REVISING

• Editing strategies
• Special concerns when revising
• Checklist for written work
• Proofreading for commas
• William Strunk's Elements of Style

• Sentence fragments
• Run-on sentences
• Grammar Safari
• Apostrophes
• Sentence parts
• Verbs
• Subject-verb agreement

SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS

• Writing about literature
• Writing descriptive essays
• Writing research papers
• Pre-writing questions for writing book reviews
• Step-by-step tutorial for writing an analytical literature essay (really helpful on-line assistance from Olivet College; click on Online Help then Step-by-Step Tutorial)

• Writing comparison-contrast essays
• Writing process essays
• Citing electronic resources in papers (MLA/APA style)
• Using MLA style (to cite electronic sources, includes examples)
• How to organize a research paper and document it using MLA citations

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Page created by Paulette Heidbreder HCCS-NE Guided Studies
Comments and suggestions welcome at paulette.heidbreder@hccs.edu