Glossary
- abrupt
-
rough, not flowing smoothly, not connected
- academic disciplines
-
fields or subjects of study
- adjacent
-
next to
- anecdote
-
very brief story that is funny, emotional, or interesting in some way
- ball
-
big party with feasting and dancing
- bladder
-
in animals, an internal bag that collects urine
- branch out
-
to start to do something different
- coach
- coherence
-
logical consistency; connection
- Cohesion
-
sticking together; in compositions, forming sentences and paragraphs that relate to each other
- common knowledge
-
information that most people know, or that you can easily find in several readily-available sources
- components
-
pieces
- conclude
-
to finish (noun = conclusion)
- condense
-
to make smaller
- conduct
-
to do
- contemplate
-
to think about
- contradicting
-
saying the opposite
- credibility
-
believability
- debatable
-
a topic that is open to discussion or argument; questionable
- deciduous
-
type of tree that drops its leaves every year
- deck themselves out
-
to decorate themselves
- drive home
-
to stress; to emphasize
- dwindling
-
getting smaller
- embark
-
to start, especially to start something this is difficult
- emerge
-
to come out, to be revealed
- Engage
-
to interest
- entrainment
-
carrying or pulling along
- establish
-
to show
- ethos
-
moral character, credibility, trust, authority
- excerpt
-
short piece or sample, for example a direct quote in writing or a few measures of a musical composition
- exclusive
-
not open to everyone
- Exemplify
-
to give an example of something
- expel
-
to force to leave
- Explicit
-
clearly stated
An explicit topic sentence is easy to find in a paragraph. - formatting
-
layout and appearance of words on the page (heading, title, paragraphs, citations, etc.)
- Hamilton
-
very popular American musical theater show
- hedging
-
being overly cautious
- Implicit
-
not directly stated; implied
- imprecise
-
not exact
- indented
-
given a small empty space at the beginning; see the MLA formatting section for more advice
- inherently
-
fundamentally; naturally; intrinsically
- initial
-
first
- integral
-
necessary; very important
- jargon
-
specialized vocabulary of a particular field, which may not be familiar to a general audience
- Jot down
-
to write quickly
- logos
-
reasoning, logic
- mechanics
-
spelling, punctuation, and capitalization
- Omit
-
to leave out, to delete, to exclude
- opposes
-
goes against; believes the opposite of something
- pathos
-
emotion, feeling, beliefs
- point of view
-
opinion or idea that you want to persuade others about
- ponder
-
to think about
- Preserving
-
keeping
- prompt
-
statement to be responded to, and/or questions to be answered in an essay
- proverbs
-
short popular sayings, usually of unknown and ancient origin, that express effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought
(adapted from Dictionary.com) - recursive
-
"Of or relating to a repeating process whose output at each stage is applied as input in the succeeding stage."
~ American Heritage Dictionary - redundancy
-
repetition
- redundant
-
repetitive; saying the same thing again
- relevant
-
closely connected
- remedy
-
to fix; to make right
- reverse outline
-
an outline created after a draft of an essay
For more information, consult this video from University of North Carolina's Writing Center: Reverse Outline
- revise
-
American English: to look again, and make corrections as needed
British English: to study
- sparingly
-
infrequently; not often
- Subtle
-
understated; not obvious
- take a stand
-
to have an opinion
- theft
-
stealing
- thesis
-
overall main idea; "a proposition that is maintained by argument" ~ American Heritage Dictionary
- unity
-
"the quality of having the ideas and examples in a piece of writing clearly related to the topic and to each other"
~ Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary
- unwieldy
-
awkward
- vague
-
unclear
- vivid
-
producing strong, clear images or emotions
- wraps up
-
finishes