These documents on writing skills, reading skills, and grammar and style issues are provided for the free use of students in Dr May's courses. All documents are colour coded by category: documents in blue are Writing Documents, documents in red are Reading Documents, and documents in green are Grammar and Style documents.
Download documents in .pdf by clicking on the thumbnails below.
Writing Documents
AI Drawbacks: In addition to being a potential departure from Academic Integrity, using AI tools inappropriately in an academic setting has several drawbacks. Find out about some of them in this document.
Avoiding Plagiarism: What do you have to cite to avoid plagiarism? What do you not have to cite? How do you know the difference? Find out in "Avoiding Plagiarism."
Citing Prose, Poetry, and Drama: Did you know that MLA in-text citations may look slightly different depending on whether you're citing prose, poetry, or drama? Find out the details in "Citing Prose, Poetry, and Drama."
E-Mail Etiquette: How do you maintain a courteous and professional tone when e-mailing your instructor or TA? What information should you include in your message? Find out in "E-Mail Etiquette."
Essay-Writing Notes: What are the main components of an analytical essay? How do you construct effective introductory, analytical, and concluding paragraphs? How do you develop an effective thesis statement? Find out in "Essay-Writing Notes."
Formatting Titles: Do you know when to italicize titles and when to place them in quotation marks? Find out the difference in "Formatting Titles."
Integrating Quotations: Did you know that all direct quotations must be properly integrated into your essay, and not just floating by themselves as their own sentences? Find out how to integrate your direct quotations effectively in "Integrating Quotations."
MLA Cross-Referencing: Are you citing more than one work from the same collection or anthology? Be sure to use cross-references in your page of Works Cited. Find out how to format it correctly in "MLA Cross-Referencing."
MLA Formatting Notes: How do you format your essay correctly according to MLA Style? Where do page numbers go? Where does the title go? How wide do the margins have to be? Find out in "MLA Formatting Notes."
Short vs Long Quotations: Did you know that short quotations are formatted differently from long quotations in MLA Style? When does a short quotation become a long quotation? What are the different rules for short vs long quotations of poetry, prose, and drama? Find out in "Short vs Long Quotations."
Reading Documents
The Elements of Fiction: How do literary critics analyze works of fiction to arrive at their themes? They use the Elements of Fiction: plot, conflict, character, setting, viewpoint, language, and tone.
The Elements of Poetry: How do literary critics analyze works of poetry to arrive at their themes? They use the Elements of Poetry: mode, form, voice, diction, articulation, language, rhetoric, sound, and rhythm.
Grammar and Style Documents
Comma Use: What's the "Oxford Comma"? How do you know when to use a comma and when not to use one? What's a "comma splice"? Find out everything about commas in "Comma Use."
Grammar and Style Notes: Are you putting the final touches on an essay? Avoid the grammatical and stylistic errors in "Grammar and Style Notes" to make your essay writing clearer, more lucid, and more persuasive.
The Passive Voice: What's the difference between "tense" and "voice"? Why is it usually better to use the "active voice" rather than the "passive voice" in formal essays? How do you avoid the "passive voice"? Find out in 'The Passive Voice."
The Split Infinitive: What is the "infinitive" form of the verb? What does it mean to "split" the infinitive? Is splitting the infinitive always grammatically incorrect? Find out in 'The Split Infinitive."
This, That, These, and Those: How do you use the demonstratives "This," "That," "These," and "Those" correctly? When do you follow a demonstrative with a verb, and when do you follow one with a noun?
