Writing

Welcome to the writing page.

Read the article and watch the video before you start anything else. 

• Introduction to Writing for an English Audience ( A MUST READ)  

•  Academic Writing: A Three Minute Video 

• What is effective writing? ( An easy and excellent introduction to effective writing that is  MUST for you to read.  

Major Writing Centers with Many Writing Resources 

• Daily writing Tips  

• Guide To Grammar and Writing   The biggest and best known writing and grammar site in North America. This site has four major sections to help you with grammar and writing:  The Sentences,  The Paragraph , the  Essay and the Research Essay. Each section includes tutorials and practice activities that are helpful to ESL students.

• The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue 
  
  One of the biggest and best known online writing labs in North America. This site has information to help you with all aspects of writing from the basic prepare to the research essay. It also has grammar and mechanics practice particularly aimed at  higher level ESL students.

• The University of Victoria Writing Tips Page                                                                The first section details all aspects of the writing process including, pre-writing methods, planning and organizing your writing, dealing with main ideas and support, outlining. You can also practice working on coherence, unity, revising a first draft for content,. coherence and unity. 

• Sentence Sense: An online textbook in basic writing that offers a lot of interactive online exercises and tests. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 focuses on how sentences work by themselves and within the paragraph. Part 2 focuses on common errors in written English. Part 3 focuses on writing techniques and topics for writing

• Garbl's "Fat Free" Writing Links Garbl's Fat-Free Writing Links is an annotated directory of websites that give advice on cutting the fat from your writing--so your readers can easily chew, digest and be nourished by your top-choice words. Also available here through my association with Amazon.com are several books that provide excellent advice about concise writing.

• Techniques for Writing
• University of Victoria Writer's Guide
• Guide to Writing a Basic Essay
• Writing Resources from the University of North Carolina
• Paradigm Online Writing Assistant 
• Academic Writing in English University of Finland  
• The Write Way  
• The Writing Den 
• Style in writing 
• Developing Your Own Style
• Keeping a Journal
  
  Logic in Writing  
  Using Logic in Writing What does that mean? 

• Diana Hacker's Writer's Resources 
• Writing Exercises from Diana Hacker's Website  
• Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Style ( difficult)

THE SENTENCE:

• Sentences: Simple, Compound and Complex
• A short introduction to adjective clauses
• Sentence Structure Writing Practice 
• Sentence Master Blog  
• Building Better Sentences with Adjectives NEW

 Sentence Combining

• Sentence Combining Practice  
• Sentence Combining: A Complete 11 Unit Program from Jon's English site NEW *****

Sentence Transformation NEW
There are many ways to say the same thing in English. These exercises will give you practice changing sentences to different forms without changing the meaning.

• 25 Sentence Transformation Quizzes from English Test Store 
• 40 Sentence Transformation Pre Intermediate Level  from English Test Store 
• 47 Sentence Transformation Intermediate Level   from English Test Store

THE PARAGRAPH 

• Introduction to the paragraph    ( easier) 
• Beginner Academic Paragraphs  
• Perfecting Paragraphs  
• Basic Structure of the Expository Paragraph  
• Paragraph Writing Practice (on all parts of the paragraph)  
• Basics of the Paragraph ( high level) 
• Paragraph Writing from the Virtual Language Centre  (academic)
• Developing the basic Introduction  

• Practice Exercises on composing and revising, academic writing, sentence style, word choice, ESL challenges, Punctuation, Mechanics and Basic Grammar 

TYPES OF PARAGRAPH  

• The Argument Paragraph  
• Classification Paragraph
• Comparison AND/OR Contrast Paragraphs
• Definition Paragraphs
• Description Paragraph
• Explanation Paragraph  
• Illustration Paragraph  
• Illustration or Generalization and Example Paragraph
• Narrative or Recount Paragraph

TOPIC SENTENCE: ( MAIN IDEA) 

• Paragraphs and topic sentences
• Topic Sentences
• Practice with Topic Sentences 

 SUPPORT: DETAILS: GENERAL VS SPECIFIC : 

• Specific Concrete Details 
• Generalization and Examples  
•  Using Examples to Support a Thesis  

ORGANIZATION: COHERENCE AND UNITY 

• Structure and Organization in the paragraph 
• Connecting your Ideas in Paragraphs  
• Coherence in writing   
• Analyzing Coherence in a Paragraph  
• Coherence Though Consistency  
• Coherence with Writing: Transition Cues 
• Transitions and Connectors + quiz 
• Coherence in Writing from Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute  
• Coherence and Unit from TOEFL Prep 
• Unity and Coherence: Pronouns and other ways to referring to the same thing   
• Parallel Structure 

TRANSITIONS

• Transition List 
• Transition List + Practice  
• Transition Word Game 

COHERENCE PRACTICE ACTIVITIES 

• Practice with Coherence  
• Practice with Coherence and Unit 2  
• Coherence Strategies: Transitions and Transitional Phrases  
• Coherence in Writing (Tutorial and 2 practices)  Advanced level  
• Mapping Patterns of Coherence in Writing 
• Practice with Coherence  
• Exercises in Coherence  
• Revising Paragraphs for Coherence by adding Transitions 
• Practice Developing paragraph coherence ( Longman)
  
• Coherence in Story 

 The CONCLUSION 

• Strategies for Writing Conclusions
• Writing Conclusions

Working with key words in writing: Agree/Disagree

NARRATIVE WRITING:

• Narration : Online Practice
• Sample Narrative Paragraph (short)  
• What is a Narrative and What Makes it Effective? 
• The Right Narrative Support for Your Opinion 
• Ordering Events in a Narrative 
• Transitions and Time Expressions in the Narrative  
• Supporting an Opinion with a Narrative
• Editing a Narrative Composition

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING 

• Descriptive Writing PDF
• How to Write a Descriptive Paragraph 
• Vocabulary to help you describe someone's physical appearance  
• Model Descriptive Paragraphs  
• Practice Supporting an topic sentence with specific details  
• Drafting a Descriptive Paragraph  
• Practice Organizing a Descriptive Paragraph  
•  Describing a Person 
• Choosing Vocabulary to Describe a Place  
• Describing a Person or a Place  
•  Writing A Descriptive Essay:( Guided) Go Though all the Steps

ESSAY WRITING:  

• Rationale for the 5 Paragraph Essay  
• Contrasting Text Types  
• Zoos: A Five Paragraph Essay ( Analyzing an Essay) 
• Planning a Five Paragraph Essay ( Vegetarianism)   

Writing Outlines 



 Guided Essay Writing Practice

• Television Does More Harm Than Good
• Computer Games Good or Bad? 
• Living in the City: For or Against? 
• Cause and Effect: Global Warming  
• Identity A Personal Essay  

THE ILLUSTRATION ESSAY: 

• Unit I of an Advanced Online Course: The Illustrative EssayThis is the University of Victoria's first unit of its online writing course. Take advantage of the practice activities that are offered.
• Illustration: Online Practice 
• Online Practice : Editing an Illustration Composition

GIVING INSTRUCTIONS: 

• Giving Instruction Essays
• Sample student writing: Giving instructions

THE CAUSE EFFECT ESSAY

• Cause Effect Essays 

THE COMPARE/CONTRAST  ESSAY

•  Writing Effective Compare Contrast Essays
  

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING

• Vocabulary for Argumentative Writing
  

WRITING ABOUT DATA IN GRAPHS, STATISTICS AND TRENDS

• Understanding How to Discuss Data in Graphs
  
• HIV Statistics How To Discuss Trends

 WRITING A SUMMARY: 

• Learn How to Write a Summary
• ESL Summary Writing Lesson Based on Video 

Content Resources for Academic Essays: 

• Speakout.Com

 College or College Preparatory English 

Research Essays:

• Tutorials on paraphrasing, citing and summarizing 
• How to Do Research and Documentation Online
• Model ( Sample) Research Papers from Diana Hacker 
•  Re Writing from Bedford St Martin's
•  The Write Site: The Research Page

 

STUDENT WRITING SAMPLES:
Note: These student writing samples are only meant to be used as examples to show you how to approach different topics. 
Please do NOT copy these writing samples and pretend that you have written them. This is CHEATING. Stealing someone else's work and pretending it is yours is called plagiarism . It is dishonest in the west, and students can fail or get kicked out of school for doing it. Also, even though you think your teacher will not notice, you are wrong. Teachers will immediately know it is not your writing because they already know what your writing is like. Finally,this kind of plagiarism is very easy to detect by doing a simple internet search. 
 

• Model Student Writing Websites
• Student Writing Samples ona Variety of Topics  
• Sample Student Essays from the Mosaic Textbook 
• Sample Narrative Essay  
• Sample Illustration Essay: Murphy's Law  
• Sample Compare Contrast Essay  
•  Sample Cause and Effect Essay: The Budget Crisis  

• PLAGIARISM:

• How Students Plagiarize: Examples 

•  ESL Video Writing Activity - Blind

Writing in the Real World

• A Beginner's Guide to Writing Email 
• The Informal E Mail from Daily Writing Tips  
• The Vocabulary of E mails and Letters : Key words to use in letters and emails  
• Generator for business letters 
• Sample Police Report 

 

Applying for a Job 

• Resumes ( tutorial + examples and templates)
•  Cover Letter ( tutorial on all aspects+ vocabulary, examples and templates)

SAMPLE IELTS LETTERS 

Formal Letters 

• Complaining to a Hotel 
• Explaining to a Bank  
• Requesting a Letter of Reference  
• Making Recommendations to a College Magazine  

Semi-Formal Letters
Complaint to a Landlord

The TWE ( Test of Written English) for TOEFL  

• The TWE Six Point Scoring Guide 
• Timed TWE Practice Writing  

Practice Writing Assignments:

• TWE Practice Writing Topics
• Timed Writing Practice for the Test of Written English TWE ( 30 minutes)
•  Practice Writing Tests with 100s of topics you can submit and compare with samples
• Send a Postcard Writing Assignment

Proofreading and Editing:

If you want to improve your writing and learn how to reduce the number of mistakes you make, you must practice proofreading and editing. 
Proofreading means looking for and identifying grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes.
Editing means correcting those errors. 

To practice identifying and correcting mistakes ESL students commonly make in their writing go to the EDITING AND ERROR CORRECTION PAGE.  You will find many tutorials and practice activities at identifying and correcting specific mistakes and mixed mistakes

Two essential skills you must learn when you trying to improve your writing are proofreading and editing.