LUOA English 11: Writing Review: Audience, Style, and Citations

What sort of style should you use when you submit a writing assignment or communicate with your teacher?

Academic

In both of the preceding sentences, which voice made a stronger sentence: active or passive?

Active

Which of the following is not an example of common knowledge?

Information you find in a scholarly journal published for a very particular audience.

How often should you use forms of "to be" verbs in your writing?

When they are vital

Paraphrase the following passage. Include an introductory tag and an in-text citation, and be careful not to plagiarize. "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books . . . "None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books . . . The only palliative [or relief] is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books." Taken from Lewis, C. S. "On the Reading of Old Books." On the Incarnation. Pantianos Classics, 1944, pp. 6.

C.S. Lewis, in his quote "On the Reading of Old Books" outlines why reading old books is beneficial to society. He observes that every age has its own outlook and this means that each one will be good at seeing some truths but will be specifically liable to making certain mistakes. Lewis says that "We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books..." Lewis then goes on to say that nobody can escape this blindness that comes with every age, but will definitely increase it if only modern books are read. He claims that the only relief is the reading of old books

Which of the following require quotation marks? Select all that apply.

Direct quotations

Which of the following require an in-text citation? Choose all that apply.

Direct quotations Summaries Paraphrases

As often as you can, you should use long, complicated sentences, with multiple dependent clauses and extra adjectives and adverbs, instead of short, direct, and precise sentences.

False

If you just avoid grammatical errors, your writing will be strong.

False

When you paraphrase, you can keep the structure of the sentences and the order of the ideas the same as long as you switch the words around.

False

Which of the following sentences more strongly conveys a student's responsibility to meet deadlines?

I missed the deadline because I ran out of time.

Which of the following sentences more strongly conveys an agent, or who did it.

I ran the stoplight when it was dark and foggy.

Which of the following are not considered a part of a strong academic writing style? Check all that apply.

Long rambling sentences A pretentious word you've never seen before from a thesaurus Textese 1st and 2nd person pronouns

Which style guide will we use in this course?

MLA (Modern Language Association)

Which of the following require you to put an author's idea into your own words? Select all that apply.

Summaries Paraphrases

When is the passive voice appropriate in academic writing?

When the recipient of an action is more important than the actor When you want to avoid needless repetition of a subject's name When multiple sentences focus on one subject

In order to maintain a strong style, you'll want to avoid choppy sentences. Which of the following contribute to choppy writing? Check all that apply.

When the same sentence form is used over and over. When all thoughts—major and minor—seem equally as important. A string of short sentences without variety.