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English 3305

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Repetition

Repetition: Unless necessary try to notrepeat the same word or sentence openingmultiple times in a few sentences. It drawsyour readers eye to something that doesnt

need attention. C has reached temperatures reaching high

enough to ensure that the metal has austeniticmicrostructure and has essentially undergone aheat treatment.

The samples were prepped for mounting inBakelite by grinding one side of the sample andremoving any debris that formed on the sampleduring heat treatment.

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Empty Adjectives

Avoid such adjectives as very, quite, pretty,wonderful. They dont usually add anything toyour writing beyond vagueness and an immatureethos.

Always check your adjectives and ask:1. Do I need it?

2. Is there a more specific word?

Examples:

The crime rates were very high. The crime rates were 10% higher this week than last.

The strawberries were wonderful. The strawberries were juicy (or tart, or delicious)

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Parallelism

When you write a sentence that includes

a pair (one and two), a series (red,

white, and blue), or a list each element

of those structures should be uniform. Not Parallel:Mary likes hiking,

swimming, and rides a bicycle.

Parallel: Mary like hiking, swimming,and riding a bicycle.

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Basic Commas

Oxford Comma:Although the sciences

often dont use a second comma in a

series (and despite what the band

Vampire Weekend claims) I recommendyou use the second (or Oxford)

comma:

Wrong: The flag was red, white and blue

Right: The flag was red, white, and blue.

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Visual Design Basics

Easy to Read: Chunking, Color, Tables,

Headings, White Space

Easy to Recall: Make your most important

statements stick out the most. Make yourdocuments scannable so that if I want to

find a key piece of information again, I

dont have to read a whole paragraph todo so (lists, headings, tables).

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Font Basics

Serif: Times New Roman (better for longer

texts and printed texts)

Sans Serif:Arial (better for web texts as

well as headings)

Font Count: Theres usually no reason to

use more than 2 fonts in a single

document.

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Lists

Punctuate lists as you would any othersentence.

If each piece of your list is its own sentence then put aperiod at the end and capitalize the first letter.

The Martins had three children.

- Mark was the clown of the group.- Cindy was the most quiet.

- Jeffrey talked the most.

If each piece of your list is an incomplete sentence thenend each with a comma and the last with a period.

NIVA accepts administrative writing assignments, including:- policies,

- procedures, and

- annual reports.

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Color

Usually want to stick to around three colorsmaximum if you choose to use colors.

Think about how your document will

appear when printed/photocopied in black

and white. Test out b&w contrast.

Check out color selection sites under our

links section

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Figures and Tables

Theres only the two.

Unless you have a multi-chapter report

dont use decimal number. Just use

whole numbers for table and figure titles.Table 1, Table 2 not Table 1.1, Table 1.2

Capitalize internal references to tables

and figures. The crime rates have gone up because of the

black out, as seen in Figure 3.

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Uniformity