Metalanguage: Talking to the Reader

I have been told by many of my students over the years that they have problems making their writing flow.  This means that they want the ideas that they put in the text run together smoothly–having a sense of cohesion and coherence (see the link at the end of this post for more explanation of [...]

Main and Supporting Ideas: Part 2

In Part 1, we have looked at main ideas and supporting ideas from the reader’s perspective.  Now we will become the writers ourselves and practice distinguishing main and supporting ideas. Exercise 1 In each group of words, there are a topic and ideas about that topic.  Find the topics and think about why they are [...]

Main and Supporting Ideas: Part 1

In most extended texts, especially in academic writing, a paragraph, essay, article, or book cannot be complete without a main idea.  It is what the paragraph, essay, etc., is all about, and it is exemplified, elaborated, and/or expanded by supporting ideas as we move along in the text.  When someone reads your text, he/she looks [...]

The Tip-of-the-Iceberg Phenomenon

This is a common term that you might hear your writing teachers use. The tip of the iceberg is that part that sticks up above the water and that is visible, for example, to Jack and Rose on the Titanic. But there’s much more to an iceberg, as you can see from the picture. The [...]