Placement of Punctuation

There are two schools of thought concerning the placement of a comma or a period when writing a quotation: American and British.

For Americans, who like to do things the easy way, the rule for placement is that periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark.

Some writers in the US follow the British style, which places the period on the outside of the closing quotation mark when it finishes a sentence and inside when it punctuates only the quoted material. The British always place commas outside of the quotation mark.

So you see, adopting the American style allows less room for error — always place commas and periods on the inside of the closing quotation mark. Just remember not to mix the two styles in your writing; adopt only one.

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Paragraphs

A paragraph is a basic unit of writing, which unites sentences into meaningful groups. Contrary to what many of us were taught in school about the five-sentence paragraphs, a paragraph can be anywhere from one sentence to half a page long as long as it presents ideas in a unified manner. A strong paragraph should be unified around a central or main idea.

A new paragraph can begin

* when the topic or one aspect of the topic has been fully discussed; or

* when the focus shifts to a new or different thought (as well as new time or location).

For example, if you are discussing business meetings scheduled for Monday, start a new paragraph when you switch to the discussion of the Tuesday’s meetings.

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Vocabulary - 'normal' and its synonyms

normal, natural, ordinary, regular, typical

All of these words are applied to that which is usual or expected because it conforms to a standard or rule. Normal implies that a particular person or thing does not exceed certain limits, or does not deviate far from an average or a standard established for a group, class, or species. [Normal body temperature ranges between 96.80 and 98.60 Fahrenheit; Normal temperature in New York City for June is around 70^o.

Regular implies accordance with some rule, plan, or method: to follow regular army procedures.

Typical indicates possession of those properties or characteristics that represent a particular class of things and differentiate it from all other classes of things: the typicalclubbed antennae of the butterfly.

Ordinary, as an equivalent for normal or regular, emphasizes common ness or usualness and often stresses the absence of superior qualities. [An ordinary man is no genius;Ordinary ways of doing things keep within the rules but do not initiate improvements.]

Natural emphasizes the agreement between an action and the in nate character of the agent involved. Thus, it is natural for man to seek happiness, for birds to migrate, for the sun to set.


Antonyms: abnormal, atypical, irregular, queer, unnatural, unusual.


Ref: Hayakawa, S. I. (1982). Use the Right Word: Modern Guide to Synonyms and Related Words. Reader's Digest. 726 pp.

Essay Formatting - Headings

Adding emphasis

Emphasis in text can be added through underlining, italicizing, or using quotation marks. Italics are preferred unless their use would not be sufficiently noticeable.

Emphasis is typically added in the following cases:

• When identifying special words. The identified word is introduced with the phrase "the term" or "the word." Ex: The term "cougar" refers to older women dating younger men.
• When using foreign expressions that are not part of the English language. Ex: Pardone moi, I was not familiar with the rules.
• When identifying a word or phrase that would have been stressed in speech. Ex: The timesheets must be submitted before five o’clock.
• When writing titles of books, magazines, journals, or newspapers. Ex: Have you read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People?

Quiz
Add emphasis where needed:
1. The article in the New York Times focused on the state of the current economy.
2. Safety rules absolutely have to be enforced.
3. The word bloke is used in Britain to refer to a man.
4. Dios mio! That was awful.


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APA format for headers

APA format for short essays