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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
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