Types of paragraphs:   Chronological/Narrative: the writer is telling a story and the details/events are in chronological order as events happened. Descriptive: you are giving the readers information about what something or someone looks like/sounds like/smells like—the details still need to be organized in a logical flow. Instructional: you are telling about a process or describing how something works. You should follow the correct sequence in your paragraph so the reader co

Writing a Literature Paper   Having trouble getting started with a paper for your literature class. When you are writing a literature paper, you begin by creating a thesis statement that offers insight into one aspect of the book. Your paper uses literary criticism to back up that thesis. Every aspect of the paper must relate back to the thesis. Thesis statements can revolve around: The characters in a work and how those characters develop; The religious or political symbols

The semicolon is one of the most misunderstood forms of punctuation even though the rules for use are fairly simple. Beware, students—ACT creators loves to test on this punctation mark. When do you use a semicolon? When there are two independent clauses (can stand alone as sentences) on either side. The two clauses are not joined by FANBOYS (coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). The semicolon is only correct if it could be replaced by a period. A semic

The hyphen, the em dash, and the en dash are all easy to confuse. They are all lines used for punctuation, but they vary in length. Many writers mistakenly think they are interchangeable. They serve different purposes, however. The hyphen is the shortest of the three. It primarily serves to separate numbers (account numbers, phone numbers, etc.) and to combine words. For example, two words can be joined by a hyphen to make a compound descriptive word such as brother-in-law o