MANUAL HIGHSchool
Writing Style Guide
MLA-Business Letters-APA-Spelling-AP Essays-Honors-Peer Editing
Table of Contents
Page Number
2……………………………………………………………………………………..Academic Honesty
3……………………………………………………………………………… Grammar and Mechanics
6……………………………………………………………………………………………….Sentence
7. …………………………………………………………………………………………...Punctuation
10…………………………………………………………………………………………….. Commas
11……………………………………………………………………………….. Punctuating Dialogue
12………………………………………………………………….. Writing paragraphs and Transitions
13. …………………………………………………………………………………………..Parallelism
14. ………………………………………………………………………………………………Usage
17. ………………………………………………………………………………………….Agreement
18………………………………………………………………………………………………..Verbs
20…………………………………………………………………………………………. Wordiness
21. ………………………………………………………………………………………………Voice
22………………………………………………………………………………………………. Format
23. ………………………………………………………………………………….AP Writing Rubric
24. ………………………………………………………………………………..CDE Writing Rubric
25…………………………………………………………………………………..Peer Editing Rubric
26………………………………………………………………………………….. Formal vs. Informal
28…………………………………………………………………………..Writing a Thesis Statement
29………………………………………………………………………………………… Paraphrasing
31……………………………………………SUMMARIZING vs. PARAPHRASING vs. QUOTING
31…………………………………………………………………………………….Evaluating Sources
32. ………………………………………………………………………………Works Cited Guidelines
34…………………………………………………………………………………………………MLA
34. …………………………………………………………………………………………………APA
39……………………………………………………………………………Writing DOs and DON’Ts
40…………………………………………………………………………….Model 1: A Business Letter
41……………………………………………………………………….Model 2: A Five-Paragraph Essay
45……………………………………………………………………………...Model 3: Literary Analysis
46……………………………………………………………………………………………. Appendices
47. ……………………………………………………………………………...Spelling Rules and Advice
49…………………………………………………………………………. Commonly Misspelled Words
50. ……….………………………………………………………………………………..Literary Terms
52. ………..……………………………………...………………………………..Suggestions and Advice
ACADEMIC HONESTY EXPECTATIONS
Manual High School expects its staff and students to be honest in all their behaviors and decision
making. Manual High School asks that all individuals abide by the following guidelines:
Infractions of the academic honesty expectation would be:
- Looking on another’s paper during a test/quiz.
- Allowing someone to look at your paper during a test/quiz.
- Copying, using text-messages, verbally sharing, or using a cell phone camera to share any ideas or items on a test, quiz, or assignment.
- Using any kind of notes or information to complete a test or quiz without the instructor’s permission.
- Turning someone else’s work as your own.
- Allowing another to turn in your work as their original work whether in part or as the whole assignment.
- Misrepresenting information from another source as your own whether it’s a phrase, sentence, or paragraph.
- Sharing/showing another student a test, quiz, or assignment that another student has not completed.
Asking another student to show you a test, quiz, or assignment you have not completed.
- Turning in work done with others when the assignment was to be completed independently.
- Buying, stealing, or borrowing someone else’s work and claiming it as your own work. For example, using/accessing someone’s server file to copy that person’s work.
- Selling any portion of your work for another student to use.
- Hiring someone to write your paper or do your assignment.
- Seeking credit for work that is not your own.
PLAGIARISM:
Definition: Any uncredited (whether intentional or unintentional) piece of work that has been presented as the individual creation of the student. This is including, but not limited to photography, music, and drawings, as well as written work.
NOTE: If you need additional information regarding this definition of plagiarism, please refer to the MLA HANDBOOK and the Manual High School Writing Style Guide. Faculty and staff at MHS will help you eliminate plagiarism and dishonesty as an accident or a practice in your school experiences. DON’T TAKE ANY RISKS!
CONSEQUENCES:
A student who does any of these identified behaviors is violating the Manual High School Honesty Code. The consequences of the behavior will be as follows:
a)A zero on the assignment, test, or quiz with no opportunity to make up the work for credit
and/or
b)Referral by an MHS Faculty member to the Dean of Students and documentation into the Infinite Campus conference log.
c)A conference with your parent/guardian and the teacher(s) involved.
Continued dishonesty will be handled as willful disobedience.
GRAMMAR & MECHANICS
Parts of Speech
Traditional English grammar divides all words into eight parts of speech, according to how each word functions in a sentence:
Nouns and Pronouns name things.
Verbs assert (express doing or being).
Adjectives and Adverbs modify (describe or limit).
Conjunctions and Prepositions connect.
Interjections exclaim.
Nouns
A NOUN is a word that is the name of something—a person, place, thing, or idea:
Person: child, Kevin, lawyer, Jennifer Lopez
Place: forest, office, Mount Everest, Colfax Avenue
Thing: wrench, oatmeal, building, zebra, Sphinx
Idea: love, height, democracy, motion
A PROPER NOUN names a particular person, place, thing, or idea. Propernouns are always capitalized.
--Tim Tebow, New York, World Series, Judaism
A COMMON NOUN is any noun that does not name a particular person, place, thing, or idea. Commonnouns are not capitalized.
--person, woman, president, baseball, government, park
A CONCRETE NOUN names a thing that can be seen, touched, heard, smelled, or tasted. Concretenounsare either proper or common.
--Harper Lee, Grand Canyon, speedboat, pizza
An ABSTRACT NOUN names an idea, a condition, or a feeling—in other words, something that cannot be perceived by the senses.
--New Deal, greed, poverty, freedom, hope, love
A COLLECTIVE NOUN names a group or unit.
--United States, Denver Nuggets, team, crowd, jury
Pronouns
A PRONOUN is a word that takes the place of a noun. Pronouns can be: Personal, Demonstrative, Interrogative, Relative, or Indefinite.
Personal Pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, me, they, my, mine, ours, your, yours, its, him, his, her, hers, we, their, us, himself, themselves.
Demonstrative Pronouns—(point out): this, that, these, those.
Interrogative Pronouns—(ask questions): who, whose, whom, which, what.
Relative Pronouns: who, whose, whom, which, what, that and the –ever forms (whomever, whichever, whatever)
--Use who for persons, which for things, and that for either (though in most cases who is better for persons.
Indefinite Pronouns—(refer to no particular person or thing): all, another, any, anybody, anything, both, each, each other, either, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, most, much, neither, nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such.
All pronouns have ANTECEDANTS. An antecedent is the noun that the pronouns refers to or replaces.
Rosa brought a friend with her to the rally. (Rosa is the antecedent of her)
When the trees turn color, they bring out hordes of tourists. (Trees is the antecedent of they)
Bill brought his book to class. (Bill is the antecedent of his)
A person must learn to wait his or her turn. (Person is the antecedent of both his and her)
Verbs
A VERB is a word that expresses action or state of being.
Joe ran while Emilio hid. Sally grew bored.
An action verbtells what the subject does, did, or will do.
Hummingbirds fly up to sixty miles per hour.
(tells what the subject, Hummingbirds, does)
A linking verbtells that the subject is, was, or will be something.
The hummingbird is nature’s helicopter.
(tells that the subject, hummingbird, is something)
Some verbs contain two or more words: a main verbpreceded by one or more helping verbs.
The hurricane has devastated the Gulf Coast. (has=helping, devastated=main)
It will soon be moving northeast. (will be=helping, moving=main)
A verb of more than one word is referred to as a verb phrase.
List of helping verbs: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, has, have, had, do, does, did, shall, will, should, would, may, might, must, can, could
Adjectives
An ADJECTIVE describes or modifies a noun or pronoun by describing it or limiting it. The articles, a, an, and the are adjectives.
Descriptive Adjectives (tell what kind of):
bumpy road. (what kind of road?)
energetic teenagers. (what kind of teenagers?)
incredible courage. (what kind of courage?)
long, boring speech. (what kind of speech?_
Limiting Adjectives (tell which one(s), how many, or how much). There are several types:
Possessive: my auto, her grades, their policy (tells which auto, grades, policy)
Demonstrative:this auto, those grades, that policy
Indefinite:any auto, either grade, many policies, enough tea.
Interrogative: which auto? whose grades? what policy?
Numerical: one auto, two grades, third policy
Articles: an auto, the grades, a policy
As these examples show, an adjective usually appears directly before the noun it modifies. A descriptive adjective can appear also after a linking verb (describing the subject).
The song is lively. (Lively describes the subject, song)
The statistics seem reliable. (Reliable describes the subject, statistics)
Adverbs
An ADVERB modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. An adverb tells how, when, where, why, how often, and how much.
Time--(tell when, how often, and how long): today, yesterday, daily, weekly, briefly, eternally
Place--(tell where, to where, and from where): here, there, nearby, yonder, backward, forward
Manner--(tell how something is done): precisely, regularly, regally, smoothly, well
Degree--(tell how much and how little): substantially, greatly, entirely, partly, too
Preposition
A PREPOSITION is a word (or group of words) that shows how the noun that follows it is related to another word in the sentence.
Snow fell on the old house.
The family stayed in the old house.
Wind whistled through the old house.
Weeds grew around the old house.
Each of these prepositions shows a different relationship between the noun house and the action of the sentence.
A PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE includes the preposition, the object of the preposition, and the modifiers of the object
List of Prepositions
aboard / as / concerning / inside / out of / underabout / as well as / despite / inside of / outside / underneath
above / at / down / in spite of / outside of / until
according to / away from / down from / instead of / over / unto
across / back of / during / into / over to / up
across from / because of / except / like / owing to / up to
after / before / except for / near / past / upon
against / behind / excepting / near to / prior to / with
along / below / for / next to / regarding / within
alongside / beneath / from / of / since / without
alongside of / beside / from among / off / through
along with / besides / in / on / throughout
amid / between / in addition to / onto / till
among / beyond / in front of / opposite / to
around / by / in regard to / out / toward
Conjunctions
A CONJUNCTION joins other words or word groups.
Elmo loved chocolate, but he hated fudge.
When we came back to Italy, it was clear and cold and lovely.
There are three types of conjunctions: Coordinating, Subordinating, and Correlative.
Coordinating--(joins words or word groups of the same kind and same importance): and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so
Subordinating--(joins a dependent clause to an independent clause): after, although, as if, as long as, as though, because, before, if, in order that, provided that, since, so, so that , that, though, till unless, until, when, where, whereas, while
Correlative: either, or; neither, nor; not only, but also; both, and; whether, or; just, as; just, so; as, so;
Interjections
An INTERJECTION is included in a sentence in order to communicate strong emotion or surprise. Punctuation (often a comma or exclamation point) is used to set off an interjection from the rest of the sentence.
Oh, no! The TV broke. Good grief! I have nothing to do! Yipes, I’ll go mad!
The Sentence
A SENTENCE is made up of one or more words expressing a complete thought; a sentence must have a subject and a verb. (NOTE: A sentence begins with a capital letter; it ends with a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point)
The boys passively flopped onto the couch. (Boys is the subject, flopped is the verb)
There are four kinds of sentences “I DIE”: Interrogative, Declarative, Imperative, Exclamatory
Interrogative: asks a question
Did you know that the Statue of Liberty is over 150 feet tall?
Declarative: makes a statement (The majority of sentences are declarative)
The Statue of Liberty is in New York Harbor.
Imperative: makes a command (The subject is often an implied “you”)
Go see the Statue of Liberty.
Exclamatory: communicate strong emotion or surprise.
Climbing 168 stairs to reach the top is a dumb idea!
There are four other ways to classify sentences: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex.
Simple: may have a single or compound subject and a single or compound predicate; either way, a simple sentence has only one independent clause, and it has no dependent clause.
My back aches. (Single subject and single predicate)
My teeth and my eyes hurt. (Compound subject; single predicate)
My hair and my muscles are deteriorating and disappearing. (Compound subject and compound predicate)
Compound: consists of two independent clauses. The clauses must be joined by a coordinating conjunction, by punctuation, or by both.
Energy is part of youth, but both are quickly spent.
My middle-aged face is wrinkled; my middle-aged body is sore.
Complex: contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
People often say wise things, such as age is a state of mind.
(independent clause; dependent clause)
Compound-Complex: contains two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.
My body is rather old, and age is not a state of mind, unless my bald head is an allusion.
(two independent clauses; dependent clause)
A FRAGMENT is not a sentence at all. Sentence fragments are groups of words that are missing either a subject or a verb, or they do not express a complete thought.
Thinks he’s really funny. My brother and his bright ideas. Not my definition of success.
Sentence fragments cab useful, however, for emphasis and rhythm. Just make sure you know when and why you’re writing one, and be sure to use them sparingly.
I stepped out on the balcony hoping to talk to her. She, of course, was gone. Story of my life.
A RUN-ON sentence occurs when two or more simple sentences are joined without punctuation or connecting words.
I thought the ride would never end my eyes were crossed and my fingers were going numb.
By adding punctuation, you can correct run-on sentences.
I thought the ride would never end. My eyes were crossed, and my fingers were going numb.
Punctuation
Every punctuation mark should help the reader. Just like Stop and Go signals at an intersection, marks of punctuation will keep the reader, like the traffic, from getting entangled.
PERIOD
Use a PERIOD
--After every sentence except a direct question or an exclamation
--After an Abbreviation or Initial
--After a number or letter in a Formal Outline
--In a spaced group of three (...) to show
--Ellipsis: The intentional omission of words in a quoted passage. Keep the punctuation before the ellipsis.
George Higgins has written, “I think the only way to find out whether the story in your mind is any good is to sit down by yourself and try to put all of it on paper. … If the story interests you enough, … it will interest other people.”
--Pause and hesitation in dialogue and interrupted narrative (DO NOT OVERUSE)
This room. Yes, this room...You... was it you?... were going out to look for something...The tree of knowledge, wasn’t it?
-J. M. Barrie
--After a Non-sentence (non-sentences are found mostly in dialogue)
A greeting: Good evening.
A mild exclamation not within a sentence: Oh. Darn.
An answer to a question: Will you accept? Perhaps.
DO NOT USE A PERIOD
--After a title at the head of a paper, even if that title is a sentence:
The Prospects for National Electoral Reform
The Electoral System Can Be Reformed
--Well-Known sets of initials: IBM, FBI, NBC, MTV
--Postal Abbreviations of states: CO, MI, AZ
--Radio and Television stations: KYGO, WSQK
--Money in even dollar denominations: $40
--Nicknames: Rob, Pat, Sid, Pam
QUESTION MARK
Use a QUESTION MARK
--After a direct question:
Did you get a call? When? From whom? It was from Mr. Ward, wasn’t it?
You testified earlier--do you recall?--that you didn’t know him.
You met him at a party?
--Within parentheses to indicate doubt or uncertainty:
Joan of Arc was born in 1412(?) and died in 1431.
--In the title of a paper if warranted
Can Electoral Reform Succeed?
--Inside quotation marks if the question mark belongs to the quotation:
Earl asked, “Which way is the arena?” (The quotation is the question)
--Outside quotation marks if the question does not belong to the quotation:
Did Earl say, “I know the way”? (The part outside the quotation is the question)
Did Earl ask, “Which way is the arena”? (Both are questions, use only one question mark; the outside one)
DO NOT USE A QUESTION MARK
--After an indirect question (a statement about a question)
Senator Bennett asked what the program would cost.
--After a polite request in question form:
Would you please sign the enclosed papers.
--Within parentheses to express humor or irony
That purple suit shows his exquisite(?) taste. WRONG
EXCLAMATION POINT
Use an EXCLAMATION POINT
--After a strong interjection, an emphatic sentence, or an emphatic expression
Never! How gross! He has a gun! What a night!
--In the title of a paper if warranted
We Can Reform the System!
--Inside quotation marks if the exclamation point belongs to the quotation:
“We’re lost!” Earl exclaimed.
--Outside quotation marks if the exclamation does not belong to the quotation:
How angry I felt when Earl said, “We’ll be late for the game”!
DO NOT USE AN EXCLAMATION POINT
--After a mild interjection or mild emotional expression: The exclamation point is a strong signal, but it loses its effect if overused. Except in quoted dialogue, reserve the exclamation point mostly for expressions that begin with what or how (and are not questions). Elsewhere, use the less dramatic comma or period.
What a fool I was! Why, I never knew that.
--More than once or with other pause or stop marks
That’s a lie !!! WRONG (one is plenty)
You failed again?! WRONG (Use either ? or !)
SEMICOLON
Use a SEMICOLON
--Between independent clauses when there is no coordinating conjunction:
Commercial architects of the 1950s and 1960s designed huge, unadorned glass boxes; the Lever House in Manhattan is a landmark of this style.
--Between independent clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb (therefore, however, nevertheless, thus, moreover, also, besides, consequently, meanwhile, otherwise, then, furthermore, likewise, in fact, still)
Most computer printers use ink efficiently; however, some older ones consume it too quickly.