Word Choice (wc)/Sentence Fluency (sf)
Writing Ideas
Word Choice
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Strong verbs (bury dead verbs)
Quality adjectives
Simile (using words “like” or “as” to compare things: You are as strong as an ox.)
Metaphor (using words “is”, “are”, “was”, “were”, “am” to compare: You are an ox.)
Hyphenated-compound words
Alliteration (Tommy Tunes took ten telephones to Timmy.)
“ly” words (usually adverbs)
New words & different words
Avoid same words over and over
Description
Emphasize words (Bold, CAPS, italics, underline, COMBINE)
Quotation marks around sarcastic/humorous/opposites (Moffatt is so “serious”.)
Interjections (words of excitement and expression: “Snikes!”)
Alliteration (Chuck chomped on cheese crackers while checking the chicken.)
Imagery (Description relating to any of the five senses – vivid, paint-a-picture detail)
Hyphenated Compound Words (usually writer-created; “ed” or “ing” endings most common)
Symbolism
Hyperbole
Idiom (figure of speech)
Irony
Onomatopoeia
Oxymoron
Personification
Stutter Effect (“I have to wi-wi-wipe my tears.”)
Spelling out words letter-by-letter (“I yelled out, ‘S-T-O-P!’”)
Leaving out letters in a word with a hyphen – for one or more letters (“Eat more chic-en!”)
Leaving out letters in a word with an apostrophe – for one or more letters at beginning or end
(“We went fishin’ the other day.” - “The girls wanted the boys to send ‘em letters.”)
Leaving out letters in a word with an apostrophe – for two or more letters in middle of a word
(“It was Jared’s b’day yesterday.”)
Use of the “(s)” concept (A dog(s) got into the garbage cans.)
Sentence Fluency
 Who/which/that (asides)
 Asides (brackets, parenthesis, hyphens, commas)
 Doubles (adjectives, adverbs [ly], verbs, etc.)
 Long sentences (can include compounds, long sentence descriptions, etc.)
 Short sentences
 One-word sentences (opener)
 Compound sentences (comma, semicolon-comma, semicolon)
 Introductory dependent clauses (Idc: although, since, when, if, because); “complex sentence”
 “ing” sentence beginnings (opener)
 VSS (very short sentence – opener)
 Dialogue/conversation (quotes, interrupted quotes, QWAQ [quote within a quote])
 Questions
 Triples (adjectives, adverbs, nouns, sentences, ing words, etc.)
 Avoid same sentence/word beginnings
 Facts/definitions
 Using “themes”/ “wise sayings” (quote opener)
 Ellipsis (…) use
 Slash mark ( / ) use
 Colon to make a point (We had an important date: we went to see the circus.)
 Lists (comma lists or comma-overload semicolon lists)
 List of more than two sentences (maximum of three sentences combined into one) using commas or semicolons