Building Tools
This is the first sentence of an essay, designed to grab the reader's attention.
What is the hook or attention getter?
This pre-writing technique involves writing down everything that comes to mind without stopping or worrying about grammar.
What is freewriting?
A complete sentence must have a subject, a verb, and express one of these.
What is a complete thought?
This part of speech takes the place of a noun, like he, she, it, or they.
What is a pronoun?
This is the act of using someone else's words or ideas without giving them proper credit, whether intentional or accidental.
What is plagiarism?
These are words or phrases like however, therefore, and in addition that help connect ideas smoothly.
What are transitions?
This is the specific group of readers a writer intends to reach, which determines the tone and vocabulary used.
What is an audience?
This error happens when two complete sentences are joined together with only a comma and no coordinating conjunction.
What is a comma splice?
This grammatical rule states that a singular subject must have a singular verb, and a plural subject must have a plural verb.
What is subject/verb agreement?
This type of modifier is misplaced or poorly attached, as seen here: "Walking to class, the rain soaked my backpack."
What is a dangling modifier? (The rain wasn't walking to class).
This is the name for the sentence that states the main idea of an individual body paragraph.
What is the topic sentence?
This visual pre-writing strategy involves drawing circles and lines to connect ideas and map out relationships between thoughts.
What is mapping or clustering?
This is a broken piece of a sentence that is missing either a subject, a verb, or a complete thought.
What is a sentence fragment?
These are action words, or words that show a state of being (like is, are, was).
What are verbs?
This appeal establishes the writer’s credibility, character, and trustworthiness.
What is ethos?
This paragraph restates the thesis in a new way and leaves the reader with a final thought, without adding new evidence.
What is the conclusion?
While editing focuses on fixing grammar and typos, this "R-word" step involves changing the big picture, like reordering paragraphs or adding support.
What is revising?
This type of clause has a subject and a verb but cannot stand alone as a sentence because it starts with a dependent word like because or although.
What is a dependent clause?
This part of speech modifies or describes a noun or a pronoun.
What is an adjective?
MLA requires this type of citation inside the text, usually consisting of the author's last name and a page number in parentheses.
What is an in-text citation?
To avoid plagiarism, college writers use this system (like MLA or APA) to give credit to their sources.
What is works cited?
This is the main point or central argument of an entire essay, usually found at the end of the introduction.
What is a thesis statement?
These are the seven coordinating conjunctions used with a comma to join two independent clauses, often remembered by the acronym FANBOYS.
What are For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So?
In the phrase "running quickly," quickly is this part of speech because it modifies the verb.
What is an adverb?
An advertisement featuring a sad puppy or a heartbreaking story is primarily utilizing this emotional rhetorical appeal.
What is pathos?