Writing styles should follow teacher’s expectations
Writing styles can refer to one of two things: a mechanical approach to
writing or the stylistic approach to writing. When you work on your college
education, you can bank on three things: a lot of
reading, writing, and studying. To maximize the credit you get for writing, make
sure you understand both types of styles.
Stay away from sarcasm or satire unless that’s the education
assignment
Here’s more on each type of style.
1. Mechanical approach to the writing. Don’t pick a writing style by yourself.
Ask your teacher. Educators usually prefer one style over another. There is a
precedent for which style to use depending on the subject matter.
• APA is used for the social sciences. APA stands for American Psychological
Association.
• MLA is used for English and literature courses.
• AMA is used for medical, health and biological sciences.
• Turabian was designed for students to use for all subjects.
• Chicago is used for all subjects in “real” journalism: newspaper, magazines,
and books.
2. Stylistic approach to writing. This part style doesn’t deal with the
mechanics so much as it deals with how the writing is conveyed. Some things
writers do to affect their writing style has to do with the following:
• Which person the piece is written in?
• Which tense the piece is written in?
• The language used. Is it flowery or curt and tense? How easy or difficult are
the words used?
• The tone of the piece. Is it overall sad, happy, flippant, sarcastic,
humorous, etc.?
Ten Tips for Proofreading Online Writing
1) Minimize distractions and interruptions. It is easy to lose your place and
skip over text when there are distractions or interruptions.
2) Don't be the only proofreader of your writing. Others will see mistakes you
can not see.
3) Slow down and concentrate. Focus on individual words and characters (ie.letters,
special characters, punctuation, spaces) and not the meaning.
4) Don't try to find every mistake in one pass. Read through your writing
several times: look for different problems each time, such as: Typos and
misspellings, confused words (e.g., "to" for "too" and "your" for "you're"),
ambiguity, inconsistencies, formatting problems, factual errors, missed words
5) Proofread online on different platforms and in different browsers. Check the
text on a Mac and PC, in Internet Explorer and Netscape.
6) Print out the pages for one final read-through. Proofreading on screen and
proofreading on paper complement each other well. It's easier to catch some
errors on paper and others on screen.
7) Read backwards.
8) Proof any text in all caps separately and more painstakingly. Typos and
misspellings are much more difficult to see in all caps.
9) If there's an outline or table of contents, check it separately. Otherwise
you'll get caught up in the text and miss errors.
10) Proof the most main text separately. The most prominent text is usually the
most overlooked.
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