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- Antecedent: A noun or noun phrase that corresponds to a pronoun either within the same sentence or across multiple sentences. In most cases, the antecedent comes before the pronoun. In some cases, the antecedent comes after the pronoun; while this is technically called a postcedent, antecedent is widely used in both cases.
- Article: A word appearing before a noun and identifying it as specific or non-specific. Articles are definite or indefinite.
- Definite article: The is used with singular, plural, or uncountable nouns and identifies the noun as one specific thing
- Indefinite article: A or an is used to refer to a non-specific noun. A is used before a noun beginning with a consonant and an is used before a noun beginning with a vowel.
- Adjective: A word that modifies a noun by describing its features
- Adverb: A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a whole sentence
- Cohesion: A quality of writing indicating its ideas are unified and clearly presented; cohesion is achieved through grammar, vocabulary, and rhetorical strategies.
- Paragraph cohesion or coherence means that the sentences within a paragraph transition logically from one to the next.
- Collective noun: a singular noun representing a group of individuals
- Comparative adjective: An adjective that compares two nouns
- Compound subject: two or more nouns that together form the subject of a sentence
- Conjunction: A word that connects other words, phrases, or clauses
- Coordinating conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses of equal rank. They include: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so—FANBOYS.
- Correlative conjunctions consist of words that work as a pair to connect parts of a sentence to one another. They include: either/or, neither/nor, and not only/but also.
- Subordinating conjunctions join an independent clause to a dependent clause.
- Gerund: A verb that ends in -ing and functions as a noun
- Modifier: A word, phrase, or clause that affects the meaning of a sentence by modifying another word.
- Misplaced modifier: A word, phrase, or clause that is separated from the word it is intended to modify, thus creating confusion.
- Noun: A word that names a person, place, or thing. Within a sentence, the noun will appear as the subject and can also be a direct or indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or modifier.
- Noun agreement: The rule that when nouns in the subject and nouns in the object correspond, they must agree in number, person, and gender.
- Object: A noun, noun phrase, or pronoun affected by the verb in a sentence. Objects can be direct or indirect:
- Direct objects directly receive the action of the verb: She wrote a book—book is the direct object of wrote.
- Indirect objects receive the direct object: She wrote a book about her mother—her mother is the indirect object of book.
- Parallel structure: Ensuring words, phrases, or clauses have the same grammatical form within a sentence
- Part of speech: The role a word or phrase plays in a sentence (e.g. noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun)
- Preposition: A word or phrase indicating the relationship between other words in a sentence. Prepositions can indicate relations of time, direction, location, or space.
- Pronoun: A word or phrase that stands in for a noun
- Pronoun case: The form a pronoun takes according how it functions in a sentence
- Redundancy: Using two or more words that mean the same thing and thus are unnecessary, often leading to wordiness
- Relative pronoun: A word that introduces a relative (aka dependent) clause and links it to an independent clause (e.g. who, whom, what, which, that)
- Style: The way in which something is written, achieve through word choice and sentence structure
- Subject: The part of a sentence that includes the noun carrying out the action
- Subject-verb agreement: The rule that a verb must match the number, person, and gender of the noun or noun phrase in the subject
- Superlative adjective: An adjective that compares three or more nouns
- Tone: The mood or attitude expressed in writing, usually achieved through word choice and usage
- Transition: A word or phrase connecting one idea to another, either within a paragraph or across paragraphs
- Unity: A quality of writing in which all parts of the composition or paragraph are focused on a central idea
- Usage: The customary ways words are used in writing, based on their meaning
- Verb: A word or phrase used to describe an action
- Verb tense: The form a verb takes to indicate when an action took place
- Wordiness: Using more words than necessary