Junior Elements of Style
August 1, 2023 6:51 AM Subscribe
I've got a friend whom I was helping with a freshman composition course just now (via Zoom).
We were talking about having the last sentence of your intro be your thesis sentence, start the intro broad and get narrow, that kind of thing. We didn't get into grammar and mechanics because that is, in a sense, the least of her worries (for now). She needs the Elements of Style, but it's way too bookish for her. Not to mention Well-Tempered Sentence, Eats Shoots and Leaves, etc. Does anyone have a more approachable/more popular suggestion, even (gasp) a website? She's 18 or 19 and in community college in TX. Thank you!
We were talking about having the last sentence of your intro be your thesis sentence, start the intro broad and get narrow, that kind of thing. We didn't get into grammar and mechanics because that is, in a sense, the least of her worries (for now). She needs the Elements of Style, but it's way too bookish for her. Not to mention Well-Tempered Sentence, Eats Shoots and Leaves, etc. Does anyone have a more approachable/more popular suggestion, even (gasp) a website? She's 18 or 19 and in community college in TX. Thank you!
The Transitive Vampire? My copy is old, so I don’t know if it’s even in print anymore, but it was solid grammatical explanation while still being fun.
posted by LizardBreath at 7:11 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by LizardBreath at 7:11 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Specifically from Grammarly, maybe this page: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/five-paragraph-essay/
posted by papayaninja at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by papayaninja at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
One approach I learned (thx, Peg):
1) what’s the problem?
2) why should you care?
3) why’s the problem a problem?
4) how to fix the problem
posted by at at 7:42 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
1) what’s the problem?
2) why should you care?
3) why’s the problem a problem?
4) how to fix the problem
posted by at at 7:42 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Purdue's Online Writing Lab is a great resource for all sorts of writing topics. It is a lot of short, focused, easily-digestible pages, fairly well organized. The most relevant in your case are mostly under General Writing.
You can use it for just-in-time learning, where any time she is facing a specific issue, you can point her to a specific page that addresses just that issue in that moment. Encounter Problem → Read Solution → Immediately Apply leads to much better learning and retention than reading a book, which is more like Read All Solutions → Wait... → Forget... → Encounter Problem. Your role can mostly be in helping her recognize the problems and pointing her to the relevant page(s) in the OWL.
posted by whatnotever at 8:56 AM on August 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
You can use it for just-in-time learning, where any time she is facing a specific issue, you can point her to a specific page that addresses just that issue in that moment. Encounter Problem → Read Solution → Immediately Apply leads to much better learning and retention than reading a book, which is more like Read All Solutions → Wait... → Forget... → Encounter Problem. Your role can mostly be in helping her recognize the problems and pointing her to the relevant page(s) in the OWL.
posted by whatnotever at 8:56 AM on August 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
Patricia T. O'Conner's books are wonderful and would probably be accessible to someone taking an introductory writing course. I would recommend, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing and also Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English.
posted by alex1965 at 9:03 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by alex1965 at 9:03 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
For mechanics at the paragraph level, you might look into the TRIAC format, such as this example.
Harvard also has a straightforward site, Strategies for Essay Writing, that covers everything from how to decipher what the writing assignment is looking for, to the structure and content of well written essays at the paragraph and sentence level. The site also uses helpful analogies to describe the various goals of essays and parts of essays (e.g. job of each paragraph, transition, conclusion).
posted by cocoagirl at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Harvard also has a straightforward site, Strategies for Essay Writing, that covers everything from how to decipher what the writing assignment is looking for, to the structure and content of well written essays at the paragraph and sentence level. The site also uses helpful analogies to describe the various goals of essays and parts of essays (e.g. job of each paragraph, transition, conclusion).
posted by cocoagirl at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
When I was finishing my BA in the mid 2000s I had to buy a Bedford handbook. It’s just a chunky little style book but it’s not all chatty or trying to teach you grammar like strunk & white. It’s just like 300 pages of “do it like this”
posted by toodleydoodley at 3:57 PM on August 1, 2023
posted by toodleydoodley at 3:57 PM on August 1, 2023
Purdue OWL is the gold standard. I know a lot of my university's faculty would need to update their syllabuses if it ever went offline as they often suggest it for learning citation and avoiding plagiarism. I'd also encourage you to help her find out if her college has a writing center. Many colleges and universities have these and their services are very low or no cost.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 11:56 AM on August 2, 2023
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 11:56 AM on August 2, 2023
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posted by adekllny at 7:03 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]