Sources & Research
This research skill involves blending ideas from multiple sources to create a new, unified understanding.
What is synthesizing?
This term refers to ending punctuation, capitalization, and spelling that help make writing correct and readable.
What are mechanics?
This term refers to any error in reasoning that weakens an argument, often by distracting, oversimplifying, or misleading the audience.
What is a logical fallacy?
Using vivid sensory descriptions to help readers see, hear, smell, taste, or feel the story world is an essential part of this narrative technique that strengthens scene-building.
What is showing rather than telling?
This type of citation format requires in-text citations with the author’s last name and page number.
What is MLA?
Two independent clauses joined without proper punctuation create this major error.
What is a run-on sentence?
This type of fallacy attacks the person instead of the argument.
What is ad hominem?
These two sensory elements are the most commonly used in narrative writing and help readers visualize characters and settings.
What are sight and sound?
This type of source contains original, uninterpreted information such as interviews, data, or firsthand documents.
What is a primary source?
This type of paragraph should contain one main idea, supporting details, and clear organization.
What is a well-developed paragraph?
This fallacy presents only two choices when more options actually exist.
What is false dilemma (or false dichotomy)?
This term refers to descriptive details that appeal to the five senses to help the reader vividly imagine a scene.
What are sensory details?
To determine whether a source is credible, you should check these three things first.
What are author, date, and publication?
This element of essay structure is achieved when transitions, logical order, and clear relationships between ideas guide the reader smoothly through a text.
What is coherence?
This problem occurs when a writer selects only the evidence that supports their belief and ignores anything that contradicts it.
What is cherry picking?
This genre blends factual accuracy with storytelling techniques such as scene-building, character, and dialogue.
What is creative nonfiction?
This term describes the full process of quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, and explaining how evidence supports your argument.
What is source integration?
This tense-related error happens when a writer shifts from past to present (or vice versa) without reason, disrupting clarity and consistency in a paragraph.
What is verb tense shifting?
This general reasoning error occurs when a writer jumps from limited evidence to a broad conclusion.
What is overgeneralization?
Writers use this technique when they combine multiple sensory descriptions—such as sound, smell, and touch—to create a fully immersive scene for the reader.
What is imagery?