Examples of general words in the following topics:
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- General words and specific words are not opposites.
- General words cover a broader spectrum with a single word than specific words.
- Specific words are a subset of general words.
- You can increase the clarity of your writing by choosing specific words over general words.
- Here's an example of general and specific words in a sentence:
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- Writers use italics to emphasise certain words such as titles, scientific words, and foreign words.
- When using a word processor (like Microsoft Word) italicized words generally look like this:
- In general, italics are used to identify the title of a major publication (such as a book, newspaper, or magazine), for emphasis, for scientific or technical words, and for foreign words.
- Words in foreign languages should also be italicized.
- Otherwise, foreign words
should be italicized.
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- Hyphens ("-") connect two words to make a single
word.
- The dash is
a form of punctuation that comes in between words whereas hyphens combine words.
- Like most components of English punctuation, hyphens have general rules
regarding how they should be used.
- While it is possible (especially in American
English) to attach these prefixes without hyphens, it is generally helpful to
hyphenate when the letters brought into contact are the same.
- In general, values and
units are hyphenated when the unit is given as a whole word:
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- Notice that 5 is written out as "five" because it is one word.
- Numbers that are more than two words long should be written as numerals.
- Back-to-back numbers are written using both words and numerals (six 3-inch screws).
- A number at the beginning of a sentence should be spelled out as words.
- In general, months should not be expressed in terms of numbers.
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- However, there are general rules for capitalization which apply to all writing.
- Always capitalize the very first word of a sentence, no matter what it is.
- Religions and their
adherents, holy books, holy days, and words referencing religious figures are
capitalized.
- In titled works (such as
books, articles, or artwork) the majority of the words are capitalized.
- These words are
only capitalized if they come at the beginning of the title.
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- An abbreviation is the shortened form of a word or phrase.
- An abbreviation is the
shortened form of a word or phrase.
- Acronyms are abbreviations
that form another word.
- In general, acronyms can be used to stand in for job titles (such as
CEO), statistical categories (such as RBI) or the names of companies and
organizations (such as FBI).
- Apostrophes are generally not used
to pluralize abbreviations.
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- Let's break it up into shorter sentences and omit unnecessary words:
- Consider the following general guidelines.
- Eliminate unnecessary words.
- Revised: Last month, many more customers than usual complained about slow service. (11 words)
- Though the title communicates the necessary information about this image, it uses too many words to do so.
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- Adverbial clause: Suddenly, Jane Doe found herself among the most famous botanists of her generation.
- Knowing the difference between the denotation, or literal meaning of words, and connotation, or the wide range of thoughts and impressions made by words or phrases, will improve academic writing.
- You may be unaware of the connotation of some words in addition to their literal meaning.
- Strengthen your diction by ensuring you know the full range of meaning of the words you use.
- Think of the difference in the words "domicile" vs.
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- Direct quotations are words and phrases that are taken directly from another source, and then used word-for-word in your paper.
- A summary outlines a source's most important points and general position.
- When paraphrasing, you may put any part of a source (such as a phrase, sentence, paragraph, or chapter) into your own words.
- You may find that the original source uses language that is more clear, concise, or specific than your own language, in which case you should use a direct quotation, putting quotation marks around those unique words or phrases you don't change.
- It is common to use a mixture of paraphrased text and quoted words or phrases, as long as the direct quotations are inside of quotation marks.
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- Paraphrasing is using a particular idea that you took from another author and putting it in your own words.
- Quoting is using the exact words of another author.
- Generally, you will choose a quotation rather than paraphrasing when you want to add an air of authority to the information you're presenting, when the words you're using are offered by a source important to your particular topic, or when the exact words have historical relevance or are particularly eloquent.
- When using quotations, you need to be very careful to copy the words as they appear in the source text.
- In such cases, square brackets should be used around words not contained in the original quote.