Saturday, May 5, 2007

Crash Course in Effective Writing

Once you have mastered the material in the previous chapters and have an overall idea of what you want to say in your essay, you can focus on the best way to express it. This part of the E-Rater Guide will develop the skills you need to create well-developed and well-written essays.

We have divided the lessons for writing into two parts:

  • Writing Style: learn to be clear, concise and compelling.

1: Eliminating Fill Sentences

2: Be Concise

3: Qualification

4: Start Strong

5: Active and Passive Voice

6: Self-Reference

7: Redundancy

8: Vague Writing

9: Cliché

10: Jargon


  • Grammar Rules: learn to use grammar appropriately.

Grammar & Syntax

This section covers common grammar and syntax rules that come up on the test.

If your English skills are strong, skim through most of the material.

We suggest you review the 7 common error types in the Sentence Correction section.

This section is broadly divided in 7 categories:

Colloquialisms

Sentences

Commas

Semicolons

Colons

Hyphens

Apostrophe