From the 1853 “Grammar of Ornament” by Owen JonesT
The attachment below contains a list of transition words that many students have found helpful when working on making your essay more graceful. Make sure you practice these words before the exam! Some of the words have subtle differences, and, as always, you want to be sure the word you choose says what you want it to mean.
Photo: Jennifer Sears
Below are online resources to help you build your vocabulary as you prepare for the CATW. Note: A few of the sites my require you to provide your email address. If you are not comfortable with that, choose another! None of them require payment
Capitalization works along with punctuation to indicate the beginning of a new sentence. It also indicates that something is a proper noun.
In most schools in the United States, capitalization is taught in the second grade. Although you may not have attended second grade in the United States or, your second grade teacher might have skipped that lesson, most readers will assume that you’ve learned the rules of capitalization. When writers do not adhere to the rules of capitalization it detracts from the quality of their writing. Making sure that everything is properly capitalized will help readers take your writing seriously.
1. Always capitalize the first letter of a new sentence. Notice in the paragraph above that the first letter of each sentence is capitalized.
2. Always capitalize the pronoun I.
I am looking for a summer job so that I can save money to put towards tuition in the fall. Even though I‘ll be working I‘m still looking forward to spending some time outside, in the sun.
3. Always capitalize the first letter of a proper noun (a name of something or someone.) Jason Pedro
Alabama Bangladesh
Kmart Disneyland
4. Always capitalize the first letter of the main words in a title, like this:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Malcolm in the Middle
Skip the smaller words like: and, a, an, the, of, and with, unless they are the first word of the title.
Click the links below for more in depth tutorials on proper nouns and capitalization.
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/propernoun.htm
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/592/01/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/1/42/
From the 1853 “Grammar of Ornament” by Owen Jones
Many students worry about handwriting. Some believe handwriting is why they didn’t pass the test! Typically this is not the case; however, here are some small things you should know.
1. Capitalize: If your handwriting is such that all of your letters are the same size, pay extra attention to capitalizing the first letter of each sentence.
2. Use correct punctuation: Make sure that your comas look like comas and your periods look like periods so that you don’t end up accidentally creating sentence fragments. A coma must reach below the line that you’re writing on. A period is as dot that sits on the line that you’re writing on.
3. Inverted Letters: Avoid writing letters backwards, even if it’s just one letter, you don’t want the reader to be confused.
4. Writing big: It’s okay if you’re handwriting happens to be big, but make sure that your reader is able to distinguish between the capital letters and the lower case letters. Do not write your entire essay in capital letters.
5. Indent the first line of each paragraph so that it is clear to the reader when one paragraph ends and the next one begins.
“Related” by Gemma Stiles Flickr/Creative Commons
Students often feel like they “can’t understand” and essay or come up with a response because the topic doesn’t immediately relate to their own lives. It’s important to recognize this as a defense mechanism. For the sake of preserving ego, it’s easier to believe the cards are stacked against us or that we could have passed the test brilliantly if we’d actually tried.
Don’t fall into this habit! Recognize that students who respond this way are often frustrated, denying the fact they haven’t prepared, or are nervous they will fail.
As the CATW is actually testing you on how well you CAN relate to a topic, by deciding you “can’t relate” or respond to the provided essay, you are deciding to fail from the outset. It’s like sitting down to take a math test and refusing to do any problems involving math.
Instead, think: how CAN I relate to this topic? Among the many ways to address this “I can’t relate to this” tick, here are two:
The bottom line is that you are being tested on your ability to relate to the topic given to you. And if you let yourself, you can.
Verb tense consistency means that all of the verbs within the sentence, or passage, are in the same tense. This is important, so that it is clear to the reader, when the action has happened. If the verbs are in the past tense, we know that the action has already happened. If the verbs are in the present tense, we know that the action is happening right now. If the verbs are in the future tense, the action has not yet happened.
When the tense is not consistent the reader can become confused about when an event took place. It can be tricky to maintain tense consistency since, we often start telling a story that happened in the past, and then shift to the present tense, in the middle of the story, like this:
Yesterday I walked down the street and I saw a huge dog. The dog was walking all by itself and I wondered where it’s owner was. Suddenly the dog starts running towards me at full speed. It’s running so fast that I don’t have time to think, so I jump behind a mail box and watched it run right past me.
Notice that the verbs in the first two sentences are in past tense. The third sentence shifts into present tense. The fourth sentence starts out in present tense and then shifts to past tense. This kind of unnecessary tense shifting can be confusing to the reader.
We do this when we talk because we want our listener to feel as if they were right there with us having that experience. Nevertheless, it is important not to do this in writing, so that the reader doesn’t become confused. The trick is to pick a tense and stick with it. When writing about something that happened yesterday stick with the past tense. When writing about something that is happening right now stick with the present tense, and when writing about something that will happen in the future stick with the future tense.
Here is that same story in consistent past tense:
Yesterday I walked down the street and I saw a huge dog. The dog was walking all by itself and I wondered where its owner was. Suddenly the dog started running towards me at full speed. It was running so fast that I didn’t have time to think, so I jumped behind a mail box and watched it run right past me.
Notice how much clearer that passage is with all of the verbs in past tense.
Here it is again in present tense:
I walk down the street and I see a huge dog. The dog is walking all by itself and I wonder where its owner is. Suddenly the dog starts running towards me at full speed. It’s running so fast that I don’t have time to think, so I jump behind a mail box, and watch it run right past me.
Please note that it is difficult to maintain consistent present tense. It is also rare that consistent present tense is needed since it is unusual to write about something while it’s actually happening.
Here’s a link to a lesson on verb tense consistency. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/04/
Here is a link to several verb tense consistency exercises. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/2/22
Watch this video for an interactive verb tense consistency lesson.
Flickr: Creative Commons
Subjects and verbs are the two basic components of a sentence. Subjects = nouns: person, place, or thing Verbs = action or state of being. The subjects and verbs, within each sentence, have to agree with each other in terms of numbers. A singular noun must correspond to singular verb and, a plural noun must correspond to a plural verb. The following sentences are examples of subjects and verbs agreeing with each other.
The people are protesting. (plural)
She is protesting. (singular)
They are seeking justice. (plural)
She is seeking justice. (singular)
Andrea and her friends are passionate about their cause. (plural) Andrea is passionate about her cause. (singular)
They work hard to ensure that people are treated fairly. (plural)
She works hard to ensure that people are treated fairly. (singular)
Click the following links for subject verb agreement tutorials.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/599/01/
Watch this video for a visual tutorial on subject verb agreement.
Homophones are words that sound alike, or the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. It’s important to know how to spell these words because, when they are misspelled the meaning of the sentence changes.
There are quite a few homophones like: weather and whether, accept and except, or close and clothes. This post will focus on the homophones: There, Their, and They’re. These words sound almost identical even though they mean very different things.
There = in, at, or to that place or position. He is sitting on the bench over there. What are you doing under there? How are we going to get there?
Their = indicates possession or belonging. The shopping bags on the ground are theirs. Their heads were blocking our view. They forgot their luggage.
They’re= is a combination of the words they and are. To combine those words, remove the a and leave an apostrophe in its place like this: they’re. They’re going to a party later. They’re probably going to stay out late. I don’t know how they’re going to get home.
Here are a few of sentences that use all three homophones: I wonder why they’re sitting over there with their shopping bags. They’re going to use their GPS to get there. They’re not allowed to bring their pets over there.
Click the following link for a list of homophones that are commonly confused with one another. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/1/48/
Watch the following video for a tutorial on the homophones: There, Their, and They’re. For an extra challenge, watch this video several times and see if you can find a missing apostrophe that is not related to those homophones.
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