Stylistic Strategies

Wordiness (pdf) – Excessive modifiers, unnecessary phrases, redundancy, clichés, jargon, flowery writing, and useless wording result in wordiness that can compromise clarity and distract the reader from your intended message. 

Passive Voice vs. Active Voice (pdf) – For more lively and persuasive sentences that engage your reader, structure sentences using clear and strong subjects along with active verbs (where the subject is performing the action) rather than passive verbs (where the subject receives the action). 

Writing With Deductive Strategy (pdf) – Understanding the pattern of deductive thinking for written composition helps you to better organize the structure of your writing.

Writing with Inductive Strategy (pdf) – Clarifying the pattern of inductive thinking for written composition helps you to better develop general conclusions in your writing. 

Graduate Level Writing (pdf) – Writing at the graduate level requires a professional level of style, tone, and substance that demonstrates you have done sufficient research and know your subject matter well enough to write with clarity and coherence, free from filler phrases, and aware of your audience.

Applying Critical Thinking to Source Analysis (pdf) – Learn how critical thinking relates to evaluating the quality of and reasoning behind information gleaned from your source materials.