English Tutorial Contents

Click here for a tutorial on The sentence containing the following sections:

Normal complete sentences

Click here for a tutorial on Parts of speech containing the following sections:

Clauses, Independent clauses, Run on sentences, Subordination, Dependent clauses or subordinate clauses, Noun dependent clauses, Adjective dependent clauses, Adverb dependent clauses, Elliptical clauses, Predicates, Complete predicates, Compound predicates, Predicate adjectives, Essential and nonessential clauses

Click here for a tutorial on The noun containing the following sections:

Types of nouns, Proper nouns, Common nouns, Plural nouns, Concrete nouns, Abstract nouns, Collective nouns, Possessive nouns, Singular possessive nouns, Plural possessive nouns, The difference between the possessive and the descriptive, Compounded nouns that are possessive, Double possessives, Mixing up it's and its

Click here for a tutorial on The subject containing the following sections:

Simple subjects, Complex subjects, Compound subjects, Subject and verb order in a sentence

Click here for a tutorial on The object containing the following sections:

Direct objects, Indirect objects

Click here for a tutorial on Pronouns containing the following sections:

Pronoun types, Personal pronouns, Possessive personal pronouns, Questioning pronouns, Indefinite pronouns, Demonstrative pronouns, Reflexive pronouns, Intensive pronouns, Pronouns and antecedents, Avoiding confusing antecedent and pronoun situations, Don't use adjectives and possessive nouns as antecedents, Consistent use of the pronoun ‘it', Pronouns - singular or plural?, Confusing singular pronouns, The difference between ‘who' and ‘whom', Pronoun consistency, First person:, Second person:, Third person:, All third person:, All first person:, All third person:, All second person:

Click here for a tutorial on Verbs containing the following sections:

Auxiliary verbs, Compound verbs, Transitive verbs, Intransitive verbs, Linking verbs and subject complements, Object complements, Verbals, Infinitives, Present participles, Past participles, Gerunds, Verb contractions, Forming the ‘not' form of a verb

Click here for a tutorial on Verb tenses containing the following sections:

Present tenses, Simple present tense, Present progressive tense, Present perfect tense, Present perfect progressive tense, Past tenses, Simple past tense, Past progressive tense, Past perfect tense, Past perfect progressive tense, Future tenses, Simple future tense, Future progressive tense, Future perfect tense, Future perfect progressive tense

Click here for a tutorial on Verb forms moods and voices containing the following sections:

The four basic verb forms, The three verb moods, Indicative mood, Imperative mood, Subjunctive mood, Subtle differences, The voice of a verb, Active voice, Passive voice, How to write in the passive voice, ‘lie' versus ‘lay', The fibbing ‘lie', Sit and set

Click here for a tutorial on Adjectives containing the following sections:

Adding adverbs on top of an adjective, Adjective types, Demonstrative adjectives, Possessive adjectives, Questioning or interrogative adjectives, Indefinite adjectives, The degree of an adjective, Comparative and superlative degree for multi-syllable adjectives, Talking about quantities and amounts, The opposite of an adjective, Other ways to form the opposites of adjectives, ‘flammable' and ‘inflammable', Difference between ‘ed' and ‘ing' at the end of an adjective, Good versus evil well, Collective adjectives, Ordering multiple adjectives correctly, Articles determiners and quantifiers, Articles, Quantifiers, Predeterminers

Click here for a tutorial on Adverbs containing the following sections:

Adjunct, Disjunct, Conjunct, Conjunctive adverbs, Ordering multiple adverbs, Using infinitive verbs to form adverbs, Degrees of an adverb, Where adverbs appear in a sentence

Click here for a tutorial on Conjunctions and lists containing the following sections:

Coordinating conjunctions, Lists in a sentence, Lists connected by coordinating conjunctions, Contrasting two things, Starting a sentence with the conjunctions ‘and' or ‘but', Starting with ‘because', Using neither…nor, Correlative conjunctions, Subordinating conjunctions

Click here for a tutorial on Prepositions containing the following sections:

Prepositions of place or location, Prepositions of time, Prepositions of movement or direction, Multi-purpose prepositions, Ending sentences with prepositions, Sentences ending in phrasal verbs, Verbs nouns or adjectives plus prepositions, Particles, Interjections!

Click here for a tutorial on Types of sentences containing the following sections:

Classifying sentences by purpose, Declarative sentences, Exclamatory sentences, Imperative sentences, Interrogative sentences, Interrogative sentences by tone, Interrogative sentences by changing word order, Classifying sentences by structure, Simple sentences, Compound sentences, Complex sentences, Compound-complex sentences

Click here for a tutorial on Sentence basics containing the following sections:

Using the correct verb with a subject, singular or plural?, Pronouns - singular or plural?, Compounded and non-compounded subjects, Pairs of things, Quantity describing expressions, Expletive constructions, Abbreviations, I.e. versus e.g., Mr and mrs smith, Date and time abbreviations, Name initials, Acronyms and why they're different to abbreviations, Abbreviations of units, Avoiding sentence fragments, When it's ok to use sentence fragments, Capitalisation, Proper nouns, The first word of any sentence, Capitalisation of titles, ‘i' gets capitalised, Using italics, To make something stand out, Onomatopoeia, Titles, When you are talking about the word itself not using it for what it represents, Names of vehicles, Short sentences, Joining parallel sentence subjects or objects, Compounding parallel objects, Compounding parallel subjects, Linking two sentences together more closely, The simple linking relationship, The contrast relationship, Intentionally subordinating a clause to another, Connecting using an absolute phrase, Connecting using appositive phrases, Connecting using a participial phrase, Using the correct sequence of tenses, Writing numbers correctly, Numbers of units, Decimal and fractional numbers, The number zero, Approximate numbers, Common phrases, Starts of sentences, Multiple numbers one after the other, Writing lists, Lists, Bullet point lists, Numbered lists, Rhetorical questions

Click here for a tutorial on Political correctness containing the following sections:

Avoid feminised nouns, Avoid ‘something-man' nouns, Avoid gender assumptive language, Gender neutral pronouns, Using gendered pronouns, Using gender neutral pronouns, Gender neutral names of people, Using ‘he she', Racism homophobia religion sexism…, Political correctness gone too far

Click here for a tutorial on Punctuation containing the following sections:

The period or full stop, The comma, Connecting clauses, Lists in a sentence, Separating lists of adjectives, Parenthetical phrases, Introductory phrases, Quotation marks, Quotes within quotes, Using single quotation marks, The exclamation mark or exclamation point, The question mark, The colon, When to capitalise after a colon, The semicolon, The apostrophe, Making words plural using apostrophes, The hyphen, Dividing words at the end of a line, Using hyphens to create compound numbers, Using hyphens to avoid confusion, Using hyphens to join words together to form adjectival phrases, Using hyphens with prefixes, Using hyphens for position descriptions, The em and en dash, Parentheses, Brackets, using [sic], The forward slash, To indicate choice between multiple options, For dates, Fractions, The ellipsis or dot dot dot

Click here for a tutorial on Building your vocabulary containing the following sections:

Remembering words, The difference between recognising and recalling, Keeping a record and practicing, Don't use words you're not sure about, Commonly confused words, Consistency in vocabulary, Working out the meaning of words, Meaning from context, What type of word?, Meaning from word parts, Meaning from roots, Meaning from sounding out a word

Click here for a tutorial on Writing well at the sentence level containing the following sections:

Combining short and long sentences, Modifiers, Adjectival modifiers, Adjectival clause, Adverbial modifiers, Adverbial clause, Types of phrases, Participle phrase, Prepositional phrase, Absolute phrase, Infinitive phrase, Flowing from one sentence to the next, Contrast, Comparison, Summarise, Emphasise, Addition, Cause and effect - leading to a conclusion, Examples, Sense of time, Sense of position or direction, Sentence fragments, Use of the dash

Click here for a tutorial on How to write good paragraphs containing the following sections:

Stay on one topic, Parts of a paragraph, The paragraph introduction, The topic sentence, Transition sentence, Background clarification sentences, The paragraph body, Fact omission, Examples, Analysis

Click here for a tutorial on Argumentative essays containing the following sections:

What to argue about?, Politics, Society, Science and technology, Education, Military, Reading up on the topic, Read all sides of the argument, The annoyingly well informed person, Sources of information, The thesis sentence, General structure of the argumentative essay, Using suggestive language

Click here for a tutorial on Analytical essays containing the following sections:

Depth of an analytical essay, The structure of an analytical essay, Hidden assumptions and arguments, Contradictory arguments

Click here for a tutorial on Expository essays containing the following sections:

Research your topic, Ways to make your readers understand, Examples, Analogies, Paraphrase, The structure of an expository essay

Click here for a tutorial on Objective versus subjective writing containing the following sections:

Completely objective, Don't use the first person, Write from a general person's perspective, Superficially objective, Presentation order, Subjective writing, Think about your audience, Two types of audience, Audience knowledge, Laypeople, Getting the message across to laypeople, Analogies, Managers, Experts, Hostile or friendly?, Unknown audiences, What does the audience want?

Click here for a tutorial on Writing tone containing the following sections:

Levels of formality, Varied audiences, Casual language, Formal language, First or second person in formal language, General tips for formal writing, Replacing the first person in formal writing, Concrete versus abstract things, Concrete things, Abstract things, Quantitative versus qualitative

Click here for a tutorial on the topic Describing things in detail

Click here for a tutorial on Structuring an essay containing the following sections:

Use the outline to check if you're missing anything, More detailed outlines, Organising an outline chronologically, Organising an outline for contrast and comparison, General essay considerations, The thesis statement, Evolution of the thesis statement, Using the thesis statement to work out if you're in over your head, Placement of the thesis statement, How not to ask for something, How to ask for something, How to present the thesis statement, Flora and fauna

Click here for a tutorial on The narrative essay containing the following sections:

Writing from your personal experiences, To write the narrative from your perspective or someone else's?, Normal story conventions

Click here for a tutorial on Writer's block containing the following sections:

Make a bring topic interesting or personal, Writer's block from being overcritical, Distance yourself from the writing and the audience, Speak the paper instead of writing it, Order doesn't matter, Where to start, Take a break!, Physical exercise, Carry paper and pen around

Click here for a tutorial on Book (and movie) reviews containing the following sections:

Background checks, Reading the book, Preparing for a movie book or play review, Setting of the story itself, Setting in which the story was written, Setting of the audience, Difference between mood and tone, Theme

Click here for a tutorial on Newspaper articles containing the following sections:

Preparing to write the article, Choosing a topic, Researching the article, Writing the article, Inverted pyramid

Click here for a tutorial on Personal writing containing the following sections:

Autobiographical accounts, Diary and journal entries, Diaries from someone else's perspective

Click here for a tutorial on Storyboarding containing the following sections:

What the storyboard is useful for, Types of storyboards, Conceptual storyboard, Animatic storyboard, Tv storyboard

Click here for a tutorial on Assessed discussion containing the following sections:

Are you shy?, Do you never shut up?, Level of prompting

Click here for a tutorial on Dramatic performance containing the following sections:

Research the whole play, Memory, Do the research, Learn other characters' lines, Practicing screwing up and recovering, Practice with props, Voice, Projection, Control, Positioning, Levels, Accents, Movement, Timing, Talking about the play character or scene, Writing a play script, Experience a play, Kiss - keep it simple stupid!, Plot, Get right into it straightaway, Characters, Action, Comedy, Typical format, Rewriting scripts

Click here for a tutorial on Analysis of advertising containing the following sections:

Target audience, Blue- and white-collar workers, What is being advertised?, What is being emphasised?, Why is this emphasised?, Methods and appeals, Fear, Desire, General desires and fears, Language, Pictures and images, More complicated messages, The difference between ‘denotation' and ‘connotation'

Click here for a tutorial on Oral assessment containing the following sections:

Informative presentations, Persuasive speaking presentations, Topic or issue for your oral, Audience for your oral, Environment for your oral, Narrowing down your topic, Researching the topic, Setting up the oral's structure, Persuasive oral structure, Statement and supporting evidence, Pros and cons, Problem and solution, The monroe motivated sequence, Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualisation, Action, Informative oral structure, Chronological, Topical breakdown, Examples, Choosing a delivery mode, Rehearsing, Number your palm cards, Visual aids, Presentation props, Anticipate questions, Practice runs, Voice, Volume, Clarity, Speed, Pauses, Inflection, Umms ahhs errs hmmms y'know y'get me, Variety, Swearing, Nonverbal communication, Eye contact, Facial expressions, Posture, Hair, Clothes, Hands and arms, Position, Movement, Dealing with nerves

Click here for a tutorial on Poetry containing the following sections:

Poetry terms, Rhyme, Meter, Assonance, Blank verse, Couplet, Stanza, Verse, Triplet, Stress accent, Rhythm, Refrain, Periphrasis, Onomatopoeia, Foot, Lyric, Epithet, Ellipsis, Consonance, Iambic pentameter, What type of poem is it?, Limerick, Sonnet, Ballad, Haiku, Free verse, Acrostic, Elegy, Epigram, Didactic, Narrative or epic, Fable, Palindrome, Ode, Analysing the poem, Poem speaker, Poem topic, Poem tone, Poem setting, References to other literature, Imagery, Sound, Language, Poem purpose

Click here for a tutorial on the topic Plagiarism