Homegrown Handouts address the most common questions tutees ask in the Writing Center. These handouts were created by our Writing Center staff. If you have a particular topic you would like addressed, please contact us.

For additional external writing resources, visit our Online Resources section.

Grammar

• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• Appositives
• Articles
• Capitalization
• Commonly Misused Words
• Commonly Misused Words, Part II
• Comparative and Superlative Adjectives
• Coordinating Conjunctions (FANBOYS)
• Count and Noncount Nouns
• Dangling Modifiers
• Fewer or Less
• Fragments
• Glossary of Usage
• Independent and Dependent Clauses
• Independent Clauses in Compound Sentences
• Infinitives
• Lay vs. Lie
• Nouns: The Basics
• Nouns: Advanced
• Nouns: Expert
• "Onto" versus "On To"
• Phrasal Verbs
• Prepositions: "Of," "At," and "For"
• Prepositions of Direction
• Prepositions of Time
• Prepositions of Time and Place
• Pronouns
• Raise vs. Rise
• Relative Clauses
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Subordinating Conjunctions and Subordinate Clauses
• Time Frames
• Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
• Verbs
• Verb Tenses: Telling Time
• Who, Whom, Whoever, and Whomever

Punctuation

• Colons
• Commas
• Comma Splices and Fused Sentences
• Contractions
• Dashes
• Ellipses
• End Punctuation
• Parentheses and Brackets
• Possessive Apostrophes
• Quotation Marks
• Semicolons

Style

• Academic Language
• Cleft Sentences
• Concise Writing
• Concrete Language
• Direct and Indirect Dialogue
• Easy-to-Read Coherent Paragraphs
• Easy-to-Read Sentences
• Eliminating Wordiness
• Embedding Quotations
• Embellishing vs. Supporting
• Expletives
• Nominalization
• Old Information before New Information
• Parallelism
• Paraphrasing
• Participle Phrases
• Passive Voice
• Precise Words
• Redundancy
• Reporting Verbs
• Revising for Clarity: Characters and their Actions
• Sentence Openers
• Sentence Types and Functions
• Synonyms for "Said"
• Transition Words

The Writing Process

• Argumentation: Premises and Conclusions
• Body Paragraphs
• Comparing/Contrasting: Essay Planning
• Comparing/Contrasting: Methods of Organization
• Conclusions
• Editing: Meaningful Word and Punctuation Choices
• Essay Planning: How to Develop a Working Thesis Statement
• Essay Planning: How to Read a Prompt
• Essay Planning: Outlining with a Purpose
• Essay Planning: Visual Mapping
• Introductions
• Outline Template
• Proofreading
• Reverse Outlining

Other Writing Assignments and Concerns

• Abstracts
• Annotated Bibliographies
• AP Style
• APA Formatting Guidelines (7th Edition)
• APA Formatting Essay Template (6th Edition)
• APA Style (6th Edition)
• Avoiding Plagiarism: Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Citing
• Business English
• Chicago Style Guidelines
• Cover Letters
• Email Etiquette
• Essay Exam Preparation
• Figuring out Fallacies and Fake News
• Literary Analysis
• Literature Reviews
• Memos
• MLA Formatting Guidelines
• MLA Formatting Essay Template
• Online Posts (Do's and Don'ts)
• Personal Narrative Essays
• Personal Statements
• Poetry: The Structural Elements
• Research Papers in the Sciences
• Resignation Letters
• Resumes from Start to Finish
• Rhetorical Analyses
• Short Stories
• Summary and Analysis of Scientific Research Articles

Diversity, Inclusion, and Antiracism

• Approaching Writing with an Antiracist Perspective
• Avoiding Biased Language
• LGBTQ+ Terminology: Gender and Gender Identity
• LGBTQ+ Terminology: Sexual Orientation

Citation Guides 

• APA Citation Guide (7th Edition)
• ASA Citation Guide
• Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) Citation Guide
• IEEE Citation Guide
• MLA Citation Guide
• APA Formatting Guide for Google Docs (video) 
• APA Formatting Guide for Word (video) 
• MLA Formatting Guide for Google Docs (video) 

 

These handouts are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may reproduce them for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout (printed out for classroom use, for example) and attribute the source: The San José State University Writing Center.