Writing

Welcome to the Writing Page

 
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
• Guide to Writing a Basic Essay
• Writing Resources from the University of North Carolina
• The Write Way  
• Style in writing 
• Developing Your Own Style

THE SENTENCE: 

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

 Sentence Combining 

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

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  

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  

  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

 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  

 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 A SUMMARY:  

• Learn How to Write a Summary

• ESL Summary Writing Lesson Based on Video 

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  

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.