writing style

“Every style that is not boring is a good one.”—Voltaire

Write a short essay that reflects on your own sense of style. Define what your style is and then discuss whether you think it is more original, defined by you, or more conventional, defined for you by your peer group or by the latest offerings at the mall chain stores. Here are three suggestions to help you reflect on your own sense of style:

– Focus on a thesis. An individual’s style is elusive and sometimes contradictory. You might use an adjective, metaphor, or image to focus your writing (e.g., “My style is G.I. Joe meets goth rock.”).

– Place your style in context.  Tell the reader about where you go and who you meet and how they react to your style.  Reflect on these interactions.

– Organize logically. You might shape your paragraphs around different features of your style and around reasons your style is more or less unique. Order your points from most important to least important.

– Use specifics. Provide specific examples and extensive discussion to help us understand what motivates your style.

To expand your essay, you might interview people with very different styles from your own. What motivates them to wear army boots, cardigan sweaters, a black leather choker, or chinos?

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Where are you right now? Stop and pay attention to your surroundings. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, or even taste? Are there people around? If so, what are they doing? Include in your observational writing specific sensual details, and a point of view supporting the observation’s major idea.

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Write a brief profile of your family. As you write your profile, keep the following suggestions in mind:

 

– Focus on a controlling idea that defines your family and makes the reader understand your relationship to them.

 

– Organize logically. You might want to explore member by member, or perhaps in the order of importance.

 

– Provide specific details. Draw on personal experience to provide specifics and push your thinking to discuss explicitly the values and beliefs at the heart of your definition.

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What type of change would you like to see made on your college campus? Write a short essay proposing this change. Be sure to begin by defining the problem and showing readers why the problem is so important and urgent that it requires attention now. Then, state clearly and succinctly what you are proposing to do, including a summary of costs, benefits, and qualifications. Finally, conclude with a call to action.

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Choose two or three magazine covers which interest you from the gallery of covers available in the “Assignment Resources” section in the right-hand menu.  Write an extended paragraph analyzing each cover you’ve chosen. In your analysis, be sure to identify your covers and try to address some of the ways that each cover may be trying to target a specific audience or convey a certain kind of ethos or specific attitude for the magazine.

Here are some questions to help guide your rhetorical analysis:

– What does each image communicate to you? Why? How?

– What else was going on at that time?

– What about the visual elements (coloring, contrast, angle, arrangement, balance, etc.)?

– Is there specific language used that might give some clue as to the magazine’s target audience?

– Once you’ve “read” the image carefully, think about potential symbols. Are there parts of the cover that are representative of more than the mere literal translation? For example, a cigarette might be just a cigarette, but, on another level, it might also represent a certain ethos or persona (the hard-nosed detective or the rebellious socialite) that goes beyond its literal meaning

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Select a poem that contains a focused image (for example, a mask, a tree in winter, a deserted beach, a necklace, a green light, the wind, a quilt, or the like) that expresses an emotion (such loneliness, contentment, hope, sorrow or the like). The image must be explicit in the text, not implied.

 

Then write a thesis statement that explains what the image is, what emotion you think it stands for, and argues how this image reveals the poem’s theme, or underlying message. After crafting your thesis statement and taking care to choose several quotes and details from the actual text of the poem for supporting evidence, write a brief (300 to 500 word) essay that proves your argument.

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Have you declared a major? If so, what is that major and what discipline is it a part of? How does your major exhibit the qualities of the discipline? What patterns of thought does your major have in common with other majors in that discipline?

 

If you haven’t declared a major, what majors are you thinking of? What disciplines are they a part of? How do those majors exhibit the qualities of the discipline? What patterns of thought do they have in common with each other? With their discipline?

_________________part 5

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Have you written research papers in the past? What went well? What went badly? Write a short essay describing the experience.

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Create a research schedule for a six-page research paper, with at least five sources, given over a period of seven weeks.

3.Instructions

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Surfing the Internet is a form of electronic research. Have you ever used the Internet to find discount airfares, locate a hard-to-find CD, or do some competitive shopping for a car? Think about times you have researched information on the Internet. What worked well for you? What didn’t? Write a short essay about some of your experiences using the Internet for personal or academic research.

4.Instructions

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Find three websites on the topic “the economic crisis of the late 2000s.”  List the URLs, then explain how you can determine whether each site is relevant, reliable, and recent to test a website’s legitimacy.

 

5.Instructions

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Write a short essay about what you know about your school’s policy on plagiarism. What happens to students if they plagiarize? Are these consequences similar to what would happen in the business world?

6.Instructions

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Read the following paragraph.  Write a paraphrase of the paragraph, then skip a few lines and write a summary of it.

Do you keep setting goals and failing to achieve them? Would you be willing to take some advice? You can accomplish your goals if you try one little trick and back it up with a plan. The little trick is to visualize yourself having achieved the goal. For example, if you want to lose weight, visualize yourself thinner. Create a very concrete mental picture of yourself. How do you look? What are you wearing? What are you doing? Of course, visualization alone is not enough. You need a plan, and it should be in writing. What will you do today to achieve your goal? If you want to lose weight, write down what you will eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What will you do for exercise, and when will you do it? Write it down. As the psychologist Nathaniel Brandon said, “A goal without an action plan is a daydreamy

7.Instructions

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Put together an MLA Works Cited page for a topic linked to your major. Try to find at least one actual book, two articles (not just websites), and two additional sources of any kind.

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Put together an APA References page for a topic linked to your major. Try to find at least one actual book, two articles (not just websites), and two additional sources of any kind.

 

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Put together a CMS bibliography for a topic linked to your major. Try to find at least one actual book, two articles (not just websites), and two additional sources of any kind.

 

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Put together a CSE cited references list for a science-based topic linked to your major. Try to find at least one actual book, two articles (not just websites), and two additional sources of any kind.

______________________part 6

1.Instructions

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Write a paragraph outlining the typical day in your life.  What is the first thing that you do when you wake up?  What is the last thing you do before you go to bed?  What are all the things that you do in between?

When you are done, identify the part of speech of each word in your paragraph.  Following each word, place the part of speech in parentheses.   Here is a sample sentence:

I (pronoun) stumble (verb) into (preposition) the (article) kitchen (noun) to make (verb phrase) myself (pronoun) a (article) bowl (noun) of (preposition) Cheerios (noun).

2.Instructions

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Write a paragraph that describes the last movie that you saw.   Was it the latest action packed blockbuster or a romantic comedy?  Did you watch it in a packed theater?  Or as you did chores in the comfort of your own home?

When you are finished, italicize the complete subject and underline the predicate in each sentence.   Then, boldface the simple subject and the main verb.

3.Instructions

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Write a paragraph about what you last ate.  Was it breakfast, lunch, or dinner?  Did you enjoy it?  If not, what could have made it better?

When you are finished, write a list of all of the nouns that you used in your paragraph.  Next to each noun, identify whether the noun is common or proper, count or noncount, and singular or plural.   Here is an example.

spaghetti = common, noncount, singular

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Think of a friend that you find particularly interesting.  Write a paragraph about that friend.  What brought you two together?  How long have you known each other?  What do you do together?

When you are finished, write a list of all of the pronouns that you used in your paragraph.  Next to each pronoun, identify whether the pronoun is subjective, objective, possessive, reflexive, relative, or demonstrative.   Here is an example.

He = subjective

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Write a short paragraph about a time you constructed, fixed, or learned something. How did you do it? Why did you want to accomplish it by yourself?

When you have finished, underline all of the articles that you used in the paragraph.

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On a whim, you bought a lottery ticket last night.  You checked the numbers last night and … you won 1.5 million dollars.  Write a paragraph that describes what you will do with the money.  Will you quit your job?  Go on a vacation?  Pay for school?

When you are finished, underline the verbs.  Check that you have used correct verb tenses.

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What do you do for exercise? Do you have a regular routine? Do you hate to exercise? Write a paragraph about your exercise habits.

When you are finished, underline the verbs.  Check that you have used the verbs correctly.

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Write a paragraph recommending a restaurant to your reader. Talk about the food but also the setting, service, prices, and so forth.  What makes this restaurant a good choice for your reader?

When you are finished, underline the adjectives and italicize the adverbs.  Check that you have used adjectives and adverbs correctly.

9.Instructions

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How did you get to school today?  Write a paragraph that describes how you got to class and traces your commute.

When you have finished writing, underline all of the prepositional phrases that you used, and bold the prepositio

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