Tense use for research papers

This post is written by one of our contributors: BL. A general guideline for using tense would be this: use the tense according to the actual time of the event. It is not that simple, of course (what is?). The tenses can be mixed; it always depends on what you want to communicate to the [...]

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 [...]

Types of Writing

How many kinds of writing are there that you can think of? What I write most often is a shopping list (lettuce, watermelon, detergent, Kleenex, milk, …).  Is that a kind of writing?  Yes.  The writing I’m talking about mostly in this blog, however, is extended; that is, there are many or at least 3 [...]