i
A Style Manual For UCF
Students
ENC 4392 Fall 2011
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A Style Manual For UCF Students
Executive Editor: Jane Moody
General Editors: Kristian Eberwein, John Bui, Samuel Toriel, Michael Dalton
Technical Editors: Jennifer Kempinkski, Micaela Gomez
Contributing Writers: Melissa Leuschel, Bradley Pennsy, Michael Torro, David Brown, Corrine
Johnson, David Lazarus, Stephen Wilson, Steven Faulkner, Roger Fernandez, Christoper
Marstaller, Timothy Kirchhoff, Mark Larsen, Rami Salameh
Copyright © 2011
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Table of Contents
1. Documentation Styles
Choosing the right documentation style for you
1
Modern Language Association – MLA
4
American Psychological Association – APA
7
American Sociological Association – ASA
9
American Medical Association – AMA
11
The Chicago Manual of Style
13
Turabian
16
2. Information Fluency
Benefits of Information Fluency
19
Determining Needed Information
22
Information Access
25
Evaluating Information
34
Using Information
36
Issues Surrounding Information Use
40
The Future of Information Fluency
41
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3. Grammar and Punctuation
Appropriate Voice
44
Abbreviations and Acronyms
48
Numerals
52
Capitalization
53
Words and Phrases
56
Misused Words
58
UCF Writing Center
67
4. Research and Library Skills
Avoiding plagiarism
69
Citing the material
70
MLA and APA
70
Gathering information
79
Evaluating Sources
80
Alternative information sources
81
Library Research
83
Using News Research
83
Scholarly and Popular Sources
84
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5. Word Usage
Clear and Concise
88
Nomalization
89
Verbs and Action
90
Adjectives and Adverbs
92
Voice
92
British Spellings and Colloquialisms
94
Common Hobgoblins
94
Parallel Construction
97
Clichés
99
Idioms
100
Visual Cues
101
Computer Grammar Check
101
6. Writing For The Internet
The Audience of the Internet
104
Internet Writing Styles
106
Text and Background Color
109
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Presentation of Documents on the Internet
114
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
116
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
117
Portable Document Files (PDFs)
117
7. Visual Rhetoric
Visual Rhetoric as Persuasion
121
Visual Rhetoric as User-Centered Design
124
Graphics
126
Visual Perception and Visual Culture
127
Lists
128
Tables
132
Typography
134
Typeface
136
Color
137
Page Design
138
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1
Documentation Styles
Choosing the right documentation style for you
There are numerous different documentation style guides that a writer can chose from.
Some, like the Chicago Manual of Style, are very comprehensive and widely used. They might
not always be the best choice depending on the subject matter of the text being written. It is
important to choose a documentation style that fits the field of study that the text will be
published for. Whether you’re writing for a college assignment, compiling text in a professional
environment, or working on publishing your own material, choosing the appropriate
documentation style is crucial.
Before diving into choosing the right documentation style, it is important to define what
documentation style is. Typically, it is a style guide that helps dictate the citation of outside
resources. This includes providing a standard method of citing within the text as well as
providing a compiled list of cited works following the end of your text. Choosing one style guide
over another can significantly affect the editing and formatting of your written work. That’s why
it is important to take time to consider which documentation style is best suited for your field and
the writing that you’re producing.
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Certain documentation styles are designed to suit a particular academic major or field of
professional work. For instance, the MLA Style Manual is typically used to cite sources in
literature, languages, arts, and humanities. The fields of Humanities and Languages typically
references The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, which is currently in its 7th
edition as well as the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd Edition. These
two style guides differ in that the MLA Handbook is designed expressly for use by high school
and undergraduate college students studying this field. The MLA Style Manual is primarily for
graduate students as well as writers with professions in the humanities field.
Another hugely popular style guide, The Publication Manual of American Psychological
Association, or APA, is often used for work produced in the social sciences field. Behavioral
Sciences also use this style guide very frequently. An alternate, yet still popular documentation
style guide is the Style Manual for Political Science. Indicated by its name, it is primarily used
for those studying political science.
Journalism is a field filled intensely with writing. The de facto documentation style guide
for this field is The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, also more popularly
known as the AP Stylebook. The AP Stylebook is considered to be one of the more popular
guides, right along side MLA and APA. Other popular style guides in media include The
Canadian Press Stylebook, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, and Guardian
Style.
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The AMA Style Guide is usually the most appropriate way of citing sources in business
writing and technical communications. Also known as The AMA Style Guide for Business
Writing, it was published in 1996 and has become the main documentation style for business
work. An alternate to this guide is the Franklin Convey Style Guide for Business and Technical
Communications, 3rd edition. This guide is a couple years newer than AMA, and as a result is
not quite as well established.
For those not bound by a professional field or academic focus, different tactics must be
taken when choosing a documentation style guide. Often times the instructor of a course will
specify the desired style guide they wish you to use for your assignments. However, if this is not
the case or if the writing being produced is not for a class, it then becomes important to choose a
style guide that is frequently revised and up to date. One also wants to make sure the style guide
chosen can meet the needs for the work at hand in an easy and accessible manner. The Chicago
Manual of Style is considered by many to be the de facto choice for American published works.
This style guide provides a good place to start. However, it is also a very advanced and detailed
style guide, so it may not be as accessible as other choices. Other popular general style guides
include The Oxford Style Manual and the aforementioned MLA Handbook. It is up to the writer
to decide whether they prefer a style guide that is very detailed and involved or if they would
prefer something that works more easily with their text.
Making the right choice about a documentation style can add polish to written works. It
helps keep the document standardized for the particular field it is being written for, making it
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more accessible for the reader. There are numerous style guides to choose from, even within a
specific field, so be sure to do research to find which will work best for you.
Modern Language Association - MLA
The Modern Language Association (MLA) style is based on the most current edition of
the MLA Style Manual (3rd edition, 2008). This style is used most commonly in research for
humanities (especially in language studies and related disciplines), and is known as the standard
guide for graduate students and professional writers. An academic style guide, MLA’s guidelines
have been used in over a thousand scholarly magazines and journals for over half a century The
MLA Style is used to establish correct formatting and layout for documentation, as well as to
provide a structure to cite sources.
The MLA Style is used for easier navigation and comprehension within a text.
Writers use the MLA Style standards to provide their readers with a common format that
provides cues for analyzing citation. Consistency of style discourages distraction and helps
readers locate information in a logical and efficient manner. The MLA Style is typically used
within the humanities disciplines as the standard format for manuscript preparation and source
citation. Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, Foreign Language, Literature and English
Studies are some disciplines that actively use MLA Style for manuscript formatting and citation.
The MLA notation style and formatting requirements are of a different standard than
other writing styles. General formatting standards for MLA Style dictate that text should be
double-spaced on an 8.5 x 11- inch paper, and no extra space should be included throughout the
paper (no additional space for the title or between paragraphs). A legible font should be utilized,
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one in which the regular and italic styles are different enough to provide a contrast between
them. The font size should always be 12 pt. Margins should be set to 1 inch on all sides of the
document and the text should be left aligned. Indentation for paragraphs should be set one-half
inch from the left margin for each paragraph (the Tab Key is recommended for this requirement).
Only one space should be used after punctuation marks. Capitalization should be used for all
words in titles of works, excepting articles (a, the, an), coordinating conjunctions (but, and, or,
yet), and prepositions (to, between, from) as a rule. Italics should be applied for the titles of
longer works, books, and sparingly for emphasis when needed. Quotation marks should be used
for short works such as short stories and articles. Long quotations (longer than three lines of
verse or four typed lines of text) should be on another line and indented from the margin by one
inch. The quotation should be double-spaced with no extra space above or below it. Quotation
marks are also not needed for longer quotes that are indented separately from the text. The page
number should be located at the top right corner of each page.
MLA Style employs parenthetical citation. Important source information is documented
in parentheses after a quote or paraphrase in the text. These citations point the reader to an
alphabetized list of works cited at the end of the document. General guidelines for providing
source information in parenthetical citation differ depending on the medium of the source
(whether the resource is from the web, a physical printed book, video source, etc.). The source
information that is included in the text needs to correspond to the information provided in the
Works Cited so that readers can correctly verify the resources that were used. The author-page
method of in-text citations is followed in MLA style. With this method, the page number and the
author’s last name from the resource where the quotation was taken must appear in parentheses
in the text, and the complete source information needs to be provided in the Works Cited page.
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For a work by multiple authors, the authors’ last names can be listed in the parenthetical citation
(for three or fewer authors). When citing sources from the Internet, sometimes entries do not
require citation within text at all. URLs should not be used in-text, however, partial URLs can be
used (such as domain names like mla.org). Paragraph numbers or page numbers from the print
preview function should be used.
A Works Cited page is required at the end of all documents according to the MLA style.
The main text sources should correspond with the entries in the Works Cited page. The Works
Cited page should be provided on a separate page at the end of the document, and should be
labeled Works Cited (not in italics or quotation marks). The title Works Cited should be centered
on the page. All citations should be double spaced with no extra spaces between entries. The first
line of all entries should not be indented, but every line after the first line should be indented five
spaces (using the Tab Key) to create a hanging indent. The medium of publication should be
determined for every entry (for example: Print, Web, Film, DVD). URLs are not required for
web entries, however, if they are included they should be put in angle brackets after entry and
end with a period. The URL should be broken only after a slash, and hyperlinks should not be
enabled. Entries should be listed alphabetically (by the author’s last name).
MLA Style enables readers to quickly identify source information by following cues in
standardized formatting. Parenthetical citation allows readers to easily locate resources for
further study and interpretation regarding scholarly publications.
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American Psychological Association - APA
The American Psychological Association (APA) Style was developed by behavioral and
social scientists to define a set of rules that authors can use when submitting papers for
publications. APA Style is used for clarity of communication and to “move the idea forward with
a minimum of distraction and a maximum of precision. The guidelines for APA style was first
developed in The Publication Manual, established in 1929 and created in conjunction with The
United States National Research Council with a variety of psychologists, anthropologists, and
publishing professionals. This early edition evolved over the years into the current source of
APA Style rules: The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th
edition). APA Style has standardized scientific writing, and is used for research reports, literature
reviews, empirical studies and case studies.
The APA manual is the source for formatting, citations, and references information for
APA style. APA research papers are divided into many sections in a specific order: Title Page,
Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References and Appendices. These sections
cater to the scientific nature and needs of the APA community. When formatting manuscripts in
APA Style, details such as typeface, line spacing, and headers are very important. A serif
typeface should be used (Times New Roman is preferred) for the text content, and a sans serif
typeface (such as Arial) should be used for figure labels. The entire report should be doublespaced, including between headings, reference list, and figure captions. The first line of every
paragraph should be indented one-half inch, and all text should be aligned to the left-hand
margin. Tables are included on a new page after the references, and figures are listed on a new
page after the tables (figure captions should be listed on the same page as the figure posted).
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Every appendix should also begin on a new page. Headers are important in APA Style, as they
help readers find key information in the report and aid comprehension. There are five levels of
headings, and heading levels should be used consecutively. The following table displays how
each level of heading is formatted.
The author-date citation system is utilized when citing references in text for APA Style.
In this system, the sources cited in the text are found in the reference list (listed alphabetically).
When inserting a citation in text, the author’s surname and year of publication are included. The
page number is included when including a direct quotation. The chart below displays how the
format in-text citations.
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The reference list is provided to help readers find the sources that were used in a report.
The reference list should be accurate and include all citations (excepting personal
communications and classical works). References should be listed alphabetically by the author’s
surname and the hanging indent paragraph should be utilized. References should have the
following: author’s name, publication date, title of the work, and publication data. The reference
list can include many different kinds of materials such as podcasts, book reviews, archived
materials and dissertations. Journal articles, books, and conference proceedings are most
commonly included for scholarly articles.
APA Style is helpful for members of the scientific community as it provides a standard
for scientific manuscript submissions. By providing clear and accurate formatting and citation
guidelines, APA Style satisfies the needs of scientific documentation and helps aid reader
comprehension.
American Sociological Association - ASA
The American Sociological Association is a not-for-profit organization driving
innovation in the field of sociology. It helps promote and create publications written by
sociological professors and scientists. The ASA provides an authoritative reference for writing
and submitting journals or publications to the association. It was established in 1905 as the
definitive source for the sociological studies, and is considered a trusted standard.
The ASA shares some of its style from the more popular APA format. Citations use
parenthetical formatting, as with most popular style guides. In both ASA and APA a “name is
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inverted when the surname comes first, followed by a given name” (Pedro Pak-Tao Ng). When
working with a multi-authored work, however, ASA differs from APA by having only the first
author’s name inverted and the rest retain their normal style.
The initial parameters for a paper submitted in ASA style should have a 12-point font
size that is double-spaced and have one-inch margins. The paper should have a title page
containing the name of the author, institution, and approximate word count. An abstract is to be
put after the title page, which is a brief description of what the paper will be discussing. Pages
should be numbered starting from the title page and ending on the references page.
Footnotes and endnotes should to be used sparingly and not intermixed. This means
that one should focus on using either footnotes or endnotes and stick with that style through
the entirety of the paper. When a footnote or endnote is used, a superscript Arabic numeral is
suggested for identifying the note.
When working with the references page be sure to double space the listed sources like the
rest of the document being worked on. Hanging indentation should be used, which means that all
lines but the first should be indented per reference. Multiple sources from the same author should
be ordered from earliest to latest.
Any figure or table created needs to be placed on a separate page at the end of the
document with an explanatory title. Ensure tables have a full heading for every column and row,
and no abbreviations.
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The ASA style is generally used in the publication of journals or papers for the ASA
itself. It is suggested that a more popular style be used if one is not submitting their research to
the aforementioned publication. A person may purchase the style guide from the ASA website,
or it can be found as a free reference from a library.
American Medical Association - AMA
The AMA Manual of Style is currently in its 10th edition and is published by the Oxford
University Press. The American Medical Association developed the manual, and its writing and
citation styles are most commonly used in scholarly publications that focus on medicine and
health related fields. The Archive Journals and the Journal of the American Medical Association
currently utilize the writing and citation styles outlined by AMA style. The AMA Manual covers
a breadth of information including manuscript preparation and medical terminology. The AMA
Manual is considered the most complete guide to creating research papers in medicine.
AMA style is comprised of standards for text formatting and citations. When referencing
authors in the text, superscripts must be used and numbered consecutively. Authors should
always be referenced each time they are mentioned in the text, and be referenced with the same
number that was used the first time the author was cited. The surname of the author should be
used in reference, and the page number should always be given when using a direct quote. The
page number should also be provided in parenthesis after the citation superscript. When creating
a superscript, the numerals should be placed outside periods and commas and inside semicolons
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and colons. Commas separate some parts of a multiple citation, and hyphens separate
consecutive references.
When composing the reference list, many factors need to be taken into account.
References need to be presented in the order that they were cited in the paper, and provided on a
separate list at the end of the manuscript. This list should be labeled “References”, and only the
references cited in the text should be listed. When listing the reference for works with six authors
or less, all authors’ surnames should be listed, as well as their first and middle name initials
(separated by commas). Periods should not be used for initials. When referencing works with
seven or more authors, only the first three names should be listed, followed by “et al”. When
referencing journals, the information that should be provided is as follows: the name(s) of the
author(s), article title, journal, year, volume, and referenced page numbers. Issue numbers should
not be included unless each issue begins with page one. Also, journal titles and book titles should
be capitalized and italicized (article titles are not). When full-text journal articles have been
obtained online, they should be referenced as a regular journal article (if they are also available
in hard copy). Journal titles should also be abbreviated using Index Medicus abbreviations.
When referencing books, the name(s) of the author(s), title, place of publication, publisher, and
year should be provided. Page numbers should only be included where parts of the book were
cited. Page numbers do not need to be used if the entire book was used and cited throughout the
paper (the page numbers should be included in the superscript citations in the text for readers to
follow). As much information should be included for web site references as is available (such as
the type of material and date [in brackets] and the URL). Personal communications should not be
included in the list of references (this includes conversations, letters and email.
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The basic formatting and citation principles have been provided as a glimpse into the
heart of the AMA Style. By taking industry standards and usability into account, the AMA Style
is the most commonly used style for medical reports.
Chicago Manual of Style
The Chicago Manual of Style (or CMOS) has become the norm for reference in American
published works. Many types of written content can follow the CMOS, and have done so for well
over one hundred years. Since its inception as a style guide at the turn of the 1900s, the CMOS
has become “one of the most widely used and respected style guides in the United States.” The
Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide used primarily for works that are written in American
English. It guides grammar and word usage, as well as standardizing ways to credit outside
sources of content for written works.
Despite the vast level of influence it has over American literature, the CMOS started
from humble beginnings. The source of this style guide can be traced back to the opening year of
the University of Chicago Press in 1891. A critical section of the Press was the composing room,
which housed the expert typesetters. These typesetters were charged with the task of receiving
handwritten works that involved mathematics, foreign languages, etc., and set them in type. They
would then pass on their work to the proofreaders, who ensured that there were know
grammatical or typographical mistakes made during the composition process. To ensure that a
level of consistency was maintained while these documents were being edited, the compositors
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and proofreaders drafted a style sheet. This style sheet soon made its way around campus and the
surrounding community.
Before long, this small guide turned into a book of style guidelines. In 1906, these pages
were compiled into the first edition of the Manual. It started out as a small 200-page booklet
costing a mere half dollar. Over the past hundred years the CMOS has grown to over a thousand
pages with much more online content that writers and publishers can refer to. Fifteen more
revisions were developed to form the huge 16th edition that is now the current reference tool.
This evolution of the Manual was driven by revisions from the Chicago Press staff as well as
reader suggestions. The Manual saw its biggest change during the 1960s, when Catharine
Seybold and Bruce Young (members of an editorial team for the Press) worked extensively to
bring the 11th Edition from 1949 up to date. The revised 12th edition alone outsold all previous
editions when it was published in 1969. The 13th edition was published in 1982 and incorporated
new copyright laws that passed in 1978. It also worked in some content regarding word
processing technology that had just started to find its way into the publishing world.
As writing and publishing shifted to the digital realm, so too did the focus of the Manual.
The 14th edition, published in 1993, contained an abundance of revisions that primarily
addressed digital publishing and emerging technologies. This revision produced a manual that
was now over 900 pages long. The trend of stylistic change in the wake of technological
advancement continued through the 1990s and into the 2000s, when the 15th edition was
published. This revision provided document style guidance on published works on the World
Wide Web, a technology that had become increasingly engrained in the writing community. The
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editors began work on a way to integrate the CMOS into the Web immediately after this came
out. Three years later, the Chicago Manual of Style Online premiered, giving users a whole new
way to access the manual, and a whole new way for editors to revise it. The 16th edition, was
released in 2010 simultaneously in print and online format – a first for the CMOS. The current
edition provides the most extensive look at documentation style in regards to web and word
processing technologies from the Manual to date. It is this deep history of publishing expertise as
well as a constant editorial work to keep the Chicago Manual of Style up to date that has made it
such a powerful and popular document style guide.
The new online CMOS is handled differently in regards to interactivity between readers
and editors. An annual subscription is now necessary in order to access this online content. Both
the 15th and 16th editions of the Manual are provided for reference and are entirely searchable.
There is a highly interactive Question and Answer section where editors help resolve writing
style related inquiries. Other styles are outlined, including some of the more popular
documentation styles: MLA and APA. The Manual can also be used to combine multiple styles
together if that suits the writer and the text. This kind of feedback has made the CMOS a very
different tool from its humble, paper-based beginnings.
Citation using this style guide is primarily used in the field of humanities. There are two
major citation techniques than can be used within the CMOS. The first, Notes and Bibliography,
provides, a detailed bibliography as its primary tool of reference. This technique is usually used
in the arts, literature, and history. The other style, Author-Date, uses small citations within the
text, which provide the reader with both the author of the source as well as the date it was
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published, and page numbers used. A bibliography is also provided with this style, which
matches up directly with the in-text citations. This style suits natural, physical, and social
sciences. Both are very effective citation methods but each is designed to work with different
writing formats and styles.
What makes the Chicago Manual of Style such a popular and powerful tool is its
extensive history and its ever-evolving content. Since its creation at the turn of the 1900s, the
Manual has never really stalled, continuing to adapt to the changing world of American writing.
It has stood the test of time with its effectiveness and will continue to do so, making it one of the
most reliable documentation styles one can access.
Turabian
Following closely with the Chicago Manual of Style is the Manual for Writers of
Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertation by Kate L. Turabian. The style commonly associated
with this alternate manual is known as Turabian. While their citation methods are very similar,
Turabian and CMOS differ in the main purpose and use of their documentation style guides.
While CMOS is widely used for American published works, Turabian is almost exclusively used
in academic papers. In fact, Kate Turabian wrote her style guide specifically for outlining the
correct method for writing academic papers.
Kate Larimore Turabian is the primary contributor to the Turabian documentation style.
Her style guide, the Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertation has seen 6
revisions since its inception in 1937. The guide itself is often referred to as simply Turabian.
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Turabian very closely mirrors certain elements in the CMOS, and with good reason, as the
University of Chicago maintains both style guides. Turabian style is an essential style guide for
those doing writing within a graduate program at the University of Chicago, and is very useful
for students writing academic works elsewhere. The story of its humble beginnings starts with
Kate Turabian.
Laura Kate Larimore was born in 1893 on Chicago’s south side. She was raised in the
area and attended Hyde Park High School. Unfortunately, an intense illness prevented Laura
from attending a college or university. It was then that she decided to take up a job at an
advertising agency as a typist. At the age of 26, Laura met her husband, Stephen Turabian, and
started her work at the University of Chicago. Her initial work was as a departmental secretary.
After nearly a decade, Laura (now Kate Turabian) moved to the position of dissertation
secretary. The University made it a requirement that she review and approve every doctoral
thesis written by students. During this time, Kate began compiling a list of appropriate writing
styles for the dissertations that she reviewed. This list became A Manual for Writers. Because of
the University of Chicago’s rigorous standards for written material produced by their student
body, this manual solidified the Turabian documentation style and has become very popular in
the academic writing field.
Turabian style can be broken down into two main formats. The first format, known as
bibliography style is used mainly for academic papers in history, literature, and the arts. It
provides footnotes and a works cited following the main text. The other format, reference list
style, is used in the academic fields of physical sciences and social sciences. This format also
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provides a works cited. Where it differs is in providing citation within the text (enclosed in
parentheses) of the last name of the author and the date the text was published. The way that
sources are cited in the bibliography is not very dissimilar from the CMOS.
Despite never attending college, Kate Turabian was incredibly involved in academic
institutions. She served as dissertation secretary for nearly 30 years, and in that time produced
one of the most popular documentation style guides for academic works. If the Chicago Manual
of Style is too complex for the paper being written, Turabian is an excellent alternative to
produce solid written work with appropriate citation.
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2
Information Fluency
Benefits of Information Fluency
Being able to gather, evaluate, and use information in ethical and legal ways, information
fluency holds many advantages for students. The Information Fluency Initiative states that,
“information fluency is vital to university students’ academic achievements and professional
successes and will contribute to their lifelong learning processes.” According to research
conducted by the UCF Information Fluency Initiative, they concluded that possessing such skills
will enable a student (and future employee) to:

Articulate a problem in a selected context

Recognize the need of information to address a specific problem

Identify the available sources of information

Collect, analyze and assess the gathered information

Integrate the newly gathered information with pre-existing knowledge and
context

Draw an informed conclusion; to effectively communicate the findings and
suggest plans of action; as well as follow up on such actions.
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These skills can then be carried on to your employment after having finished your academic
career.
To ensure the best interest of a company, hiring administrators seek candidates who have
acquired specific skills during their academic careers, as well as other influential factors that
support such skills. A study by Zhang Yuejiao shows that when employers hire technical
communicators, they require their candidates to possess skills in information processing,
information technology and critical thinking. In this study, Yuejiao also finds that companies
look for technical communicators who are well-rounded individuals and excel in daily routine
job duties, have the ability to think critically and who are capable of expanding their current skill
sets, and grow with the times when needed. What these skills are called, specifically, are
“information responsibility”, “adaptability to change,” and “globalization.”
According to political economist and author Peter F. Drucker, information responsibility
refers to the individual’s ability and willingness to ask important questions:

“What information do I need to do my job?

From whom?

In what form?

When?”
The ideal technical communicator must be able to answer such questions on their own, in
lieu of having to rely on someone else to provide the answers. Patricia A. Carlson, author of
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Information Technology and Organizational Change, describes that “workers are encouraged to
take on more responsibility in self-managing their tasks, creative problem solving, mindful
engagement in the task, and greater participation in decision-making.” (78)
Today’s business world is rapidly changing, specifically the approaches and tools with
which they produce services and products. In addition to information responsibility, a technical
communicator must offer the ability to adapt to changes. An information fluent employee will
help the organization quickly adapt to the rapid changes that happen in the business world.
Another important factor in becoming a vital employee is the ability to accommodate
globalization. For many industries globalization is a part of their agenda. A technical
communicator within an organization will not only be expected to develop products aimed at a
global audience, but will also require such employees to have “open and global collaboration
strategies” (Yuejiao). According to the research conducted by Yuejiao, “the increasing
complexity of working and communicating within and across corporate, cultural, and national
boundaries means technical communicators will work in global virtual teams, communicate in
centralized global networks, and use digital communication technologies frequently.” (113)
There are benefits to being an information fluent student and employee. Such a skill will
help you excel as a student that produces clear and concise work and will open the doors to
financial assistance during your college career (i.e. UCF Burnett Honors College is now offering
a scholarship award for students who can demonstrate their understanding and capabilities in
information fluency). You can also become an indispensable employee by demonstrating your
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knowledge of information fluency and applying your skills at the workplace, proving to be a
lifelong benefit.
Determining Needed Information
Information fluency is the ability to find, evaluate and use information effectively,
efficiently and ethically. One of the key skills required in order to do this is determining the
nature and the extent of the information that is required. The following are the four major topics
when trying to utilize this skill: Defining and articulating the need for information, identifying a
variety of types and formats of potential information, considering the cost and benefits of
acquiring the information, and reevaluating the nature and extent of the information needed.
The first part of determining the nature and the extent of the information required is to
define and articulate the need for information. The first step would be to meet up with whomever
you are working for or working with to come up with the topic of your research. This can be
done in a number of different ways depending on your situation. An example would be if you are
a student in a class and your instructor leaves you the option of choosing a topic for a research
paper you have to write for class. The teacher generally gives you a direction or topic that the
specific topic has to be about. Once you come up with a few ideas that fall under the range of
this topic, you could meet with the instructor and discuss the topics. Another example would be
if the class discusses the topic in class or an electronic discussion through a message board. You
could gather the information on different topics through the suggestions of your instructor and
peers and come up with a valid topic to research.
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After the initial topic is decided upon, the next step is to come up with a thesis statement
and come up with some questions based on the information needed on the subject. Being able to
come up with a thesis statement is one of the most valuable parts of determining the extent and
need of the information required. Depending on what type of paper you will be writing the thesis
statement will differ. If it is an analytical paper, the thesis statement should explain what the
paper will analyze. If it is an expository thesis statement, it should include what will be discussed
throughout the paper. If it is an argumentative thesis statement, it should give the topic of the
argument that is to be discussed throughout the paper. Once a thesis statement has been made,
you can start coming up with questions that you will need. Some examples of valid questions
could be the following: How long will the document need to be? How much information will I
need to fulfill the length requirements? How much detail should I go? How many sources will I
need to use? Are these valid sources of information?
After you create a thesis statement the next step is to become familiar with your topic. A
good way to do this would be to do an internet search to get an overview of the topic. Remember
that web searched are not guaranteed to display a valid source of information. The information
on the Internet isn’t always true, but it is the quickest and easiest way to access a wealth of
information for a broad overview of almost any topic. This is an important skill in information
fluency, deciding if a source is valid. When deciding if a source is valid there is a number of
factors you have to include. For example here are a few:

Is the author biased?

Is the author a valid authority or professional on this topic?

Is there any reason that this author would mislead you?
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
Is the information editable by the general public like Wikipedia?
Once the source are determined to be valid or not, the next step is to define or modify the
information needed to achieve a manageable focus. For example at first, information need may
have been just to gain enough information to write a paper about frogs. After research,this
information need should be more specific and have a focus on which the paper will be on. In the
frog paper example, the information need could be to gain enough valid information to write a
paper about the differences in skin colors of different frogs. After determining the focus, then
you must be able to identify the key concepts and terms that describe the information needed.
Using our frog example again, we could say that some key concepts could be frog skin color
differences, and different frog breeds. By using these key concepts we could utilize resources in
order to find more focused information on the topic.
The final part of defining and articulating the need for information is, knowing how to
use the existing information along with other methods to create new information. Some of the
methods could be analysis, original thought, or experimentation. For example you could research
a topic you previously knew nothing about and add in your own original thought. This would
now be new information. Or you could take a topic that has never been analyzed or experimented
with in a specific way to produce results that are your own. Knowing how to turn the information
that is out there and readily accessible and available into your own information is a key skill
when defining and articulating the need for information.
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The second skill required to determining the nature and extent of the information needed
is being able to identify a variety of types and formats of potential sources of information. This
closely ties in with the first because in order to define and articulate the need for information,
you need to be research the topic, and in order to research the topic you must be able to identify
the types and formats of potential sources of information. Knowing how to tell if a source is
valid is one of the main skills required. One factor when determining if the source is valid is the
target audience. For example a university’s research on a particular topic is going to display data
in a different way than scientists working for a pharmaceutical company with biased opinions.
Without delving into the ethical issues of this, the first issue is that this can lead to a misinformed
population. If you do not think the author would be a legitimate source of information, it would
be wise to avoid that source when searching for information.
Assigning importance of primary and secondary sources is another useful skill to
determine the nature and extent of the information needed. Primary sources are directly from the
author. Secondary sources are written about a primary source.
Information Access
This section will focus on guiding you through the key elements of finding a variety of
credible sources for information. The primary steps for effective and efficient investigation are:
Investigation Development, Information Retrieval and Recording/Managing Information
Sources. Further, this section will describe the different types and formats of resources available,
providing an insight on how to differentiate between primary and secondary sources and their
individual importance in effective writing.
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Before beginning your quest for usable information, you must first identify and develop
your topic. Use unique terms that will distinguish the documents you want from all other
documents available. Search engines are designed to match the pattern of words you use (also
known as “keywords”, “search terms” and “main concepts”) with the pattern of words in a
document or site (Heine, “Information Fluency”). Focus on using words that are unique to your
topic will reduce the likelihood of retrieving documents that have no relation to your topic and
increase your chances on narrowing your results to your topic. Use words such as terms specific
to a discipline’s professional vocabulary to minimize the potentially millions of results to your
query. Also consider spelling variations of words, since both American and British words are
widely accepted, and many sites use popular misspellings. (Heine, “Information Fluency”).
Once you have determined your keywords, state your topic as a question (Engle, “Seven
Steps of The Research Process”). Then, test the efficiency of the key terms you chose, as well as
that of your topic. Look up your keywords in an appropriate background source by using the
main concepts as search terms, in either a library catalog, periodical index or search engine
(Engle, “Seven Steps of The Research Process”). This will then help you determine if your topic
will prove to be successful, or if you will either need to narrow or broaden your search. Too
many results will lead you to the narrowing of your search criteria; too little results will lead you
to broadening your search criteria. Use search engine operators, synonyms or truncation to
expand or limit your searches (these tools are discussed more in detail later in this section). Once
you’ve successfully identified and tested your topic you are ready to move on to the following
step in your research, what media outlet is best suited for your topic?
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There are now various mediums for accessing information on almost any topic you chose
to research. Instinctively you will want to turn to solely information that can be accessed at your
convenience, but it is important to first consider every source available to you and determine
which of those means of research will best suit your topic and provide the most useful
information. By doing so, you will avoid wasting time looking for information that you are not
likely to find on the Internet.
Consider this: Publishers of printed materials, copyrighted materials (such as books)
seldom make the full content of the materials available online (Heine, “Information Fluency”).
Because the publisher will use the Internet for marketing and selling purposes, you may find the
title, description or excerpt but not the piece in its entirety (Heine, “Information Fluency”).
Another thing to consider is when the material you are looking for was published and how
popular the item is. The older and/or more popular the material, the higher the chances are of
you finding the complete text online.
With printed materials, you will want to use one or more sources of background
information to read (Engle, “Seven Steps of The Research Process”). These sources will help you
understand the broader context of your research and tell you in general terms what is known
about your topic. Look up your keywords in the indexes to subject encyclopedias. Read articles
in these encyclopedias to set the context for your research. Note any relevant items in the
bibliographies at the end of the encyclopedia articles. You can find encyclopedias and
dictionaries for specific topics by using your school’s library catalog or by consulting one of the
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subject guides provided by your school’s library. You can also consult with a reference librarian
to help you and suggest appropriate titles. You can also find additional background information
in your lecture notes and textbook.
Use guided keyword searching to find materials by topic or subject. Print or write down
the citation (author, title, etc.) and the location information (call number and library). Note the
circulation status. When you pull the book from the shelf, scan the bibliography for additional
sources. Watch for book-length bibliographies and annual reviews on your subject; they list
citations to hundreds of books and articles in one subject area. Check the standard subject
subheading “—Bibliographies”, or titles beginning with Annual Review of… in your school’s
library catalog. Use periodical indexes and abstracts to find citations to articles. The indexes and
abstracts may be in print or computer-based formats or both. Choose the indexes and format best
suited to your particular topic. Ask at your library’s reference desk if you need help determining
which index and format will be best suited for you. You can find periodical articles by the article
author, title, or keyword by using the periodical indexes provided by your school’s library.
You can also search online versions of printed materials. One can save time and
frustration by first asking two basic questions prior to beginning your research: 1) which kinds of
online sources should I look for? (e-Texts, online magazines, online newspapers, etc.), and 2)
Where would I be most likely to find that particular online source? (Heine, “Information
Fluency”). Because the Internet is a main source of information, many sites now specialize in
digitizing non-copyrighted books and provide them at no cost. The Gutenberg Project is one of
the many sites that have the banks of digitized texts, which range from classic novels to
28
reference materials (Heine, “Information Fluency”). These sites, including The Gutenberg
Project, also include links to other eText sites. Because of the ease of access to the Internet, both
American and International newspapers and magazines have websites that house current and
archived editions. Most times, the articles are accessible at no cost to the user – but there are
instances where a cost may be associated (Heine, “Information Fluency”). U.S. Governmental
agencies also publish a wide range of information at no cost on the Internet.
The Internet is frequently compared to the sea because it is enormous in size and its depth
is deeper than we can begin to imagine. You can find a wide variety of sources for your search;
however, searching specialized sites dedicated to your topic in depth may prove to be more
powerful than searching the entire Internet (Heine, “Information Fluency”). If you already know
a site that has the kind of information you are looking for, go directly to the source. For example,
if you are looking for the population of a US city, instead of using a traditional search engine,
search the database available at census.gov. Once you find a promising resource use the site’s
internal search capabilities or site map to look more deeply into the material. Use the websites
search tools to refine your search to the specific information you are looking for. This will often
be more effective and efficient and reduce the time spent on researching your topic (Heine,
“Information Fluency”).
It is also important to consider the use of operators during your search query. These
operators are useful because they will narrow down the multitude of documents brought up by
the search terms you use (Heine, “Information Fluency”). There are various operators you can
use to help minimize the results you will sort through to get the information you need.
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Quotation marks “” force the search engine you are using to find the exact phrase that is
within the marks (Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). The search engine takes the words
within the marks and treats it as a single term. This means that only documents that contain all of
the terms in exactly the same order as input within the quotation marks will be returned in
response to your query. Be sure that the phrase you are putting within the quotation marks is
likely to be used in the page or documents you are looking to retrieve. It is most important to use
quotation marks when the keywords you are searching for are likely to retrieve a mass of
documents not related to your topic.
A plus sign (+) means AND (Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). Most search
engines will interpret a space in between words as a + or the word AND, but some older engines
may still require you to use either the symbol or the word. The + sign is technically known as
Boolean AND. However, when using this operator you must also consider using unique
keywords because using too many keywords may eliminate many pages that contain information
relevant to your search but not all of the terms used.
The minus sign (-) is known as the Boolean NOT (Murray, “Internet Research
Techniques”). Use of this operator will ensure that the keyword will not be in the documents that
are returned by your search. Careful consideration must be used when utilizing this symbol. Be
certain that you will not eliminate useful results by excluding the specified terms.
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A Boolean OR maybe be used to include resources that contain either or both keywords
(Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). Use this technique to broaden your search when your
results are too narrow. For example, you will type “John Lennon” OR “George Harrison” into
your search engine to pull up results with both those exact phrases.
Parenthetical phrases can be used to create a more complex query of terms consisting of
multiple Boolean operators (Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). For example, you search
will be typed in as: music AND Beatles NOT (“John Lennon” OR “Ringo Starr”).
Proximity operators can be used to specify the relative location of keywords, however not
all search engines recognize these operators (Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). Below is
a listing of these operators and examples of how they function.

ADJ Operator – tells your search engine that the keywords must occur beside each other,
but may be in either order
o Example: Mickey ADJ Mouse

BEFORE operator – tells your search engine to find two keywords, one of which occurs
before the other
o Example: ski BEFORE lift

NEAR operator – tells your search engine to find two keywords that are within a specific
number of words (or less) from each other in either direction
o Example: winter NEAR/5 Olympics
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
FAR operators – tells your search engine to find two keywords that are at least 25 words
(or more) from each other in either direction
o Example: skating FAR competition
Truncation Search Operator locates resources that include alternate forms of a keyword.
Not all search engines recognize this operator either (Murray, “Internet Research
Techniques”). This process is also known as stemming. It is used by applying a wildcard
character. The universal wildcard character is an asterisk (*). Some search engines recognize
other characters as a wildcard. Truncation is used where there are multiple valid spellings of
a keyword, for example: Canad* (will locate Canada, Canadian, Canadienne, etc.)
Field search operators direct the search engine to look for keywords in different parts of
the web page (Murray, “Internet Research Techniques”). These operators and their functions
are listed below:

TITLE operator
o Locate resources where the keyword occurs in the title of the web page
o Example: title:foothills

URL operator
o Locate resources where the keyword occurs in the URL of the web page
o Example: url:alberta

LINK operator
o Locate resources where the keyword occurs in hypertext links on the web page
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o Example: link:Calgary
In addition to operators, you may also want to consider the use of synonyms (and other –
nyms). One of the best ways to find useful synonyms is by scanning your initial results for the
key terms the author used in the document. This will give you clues on how to perform more
searches by using different words. You may also want to use a thesaurus to provide you with a
variety of synonyms.
Below is a listing of other –nym words you can use to facilitate your search:

Synonyms - Words that have the same or nearly the same meaning;

Hyponyms - A word that describes things more specifically (i.e. proper nouns, etc.)

Hypernym - Words that refer to broad categories or general concepts (i.e. car, airplane)

Heteronyms - Words that are spelled the same, but change meaning based on
pronunciation

Homonyms - Words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings

Contronyms - Words with identical spellings but contradictory meanings based on usage

Capitonyms - Words that change meaning when capitalized

Acronyms - Words created from the beginning initials of a group of descriptive words
An important element in researching a topic is to speak with a live source to obtain
information. For example, if you are researching cancer consider speaking with an oncologist in
your area that is highly regarded in that field. Search directories in your area to determine your
best possible leads and make contact by either telephone or Email. Let him/her know you would
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appreciate a moment of their time and explain what you are researching. Also, be sure to make it
convenient for them. Although an in person interview is more beneficial, some people prefer
Email because of busy schedules.
Before conducting an interview, prepare a list of questions you want to ask. If you aren’t
prepared ahead of time then you will waste both your time and your subject’s time. Consider
applying the steps outlined above to this process as well. This way, you are informed and can
show your expert that you are serious and dedicated.
Evaluating Information
After the initial step of gathering information for your project it is time to start coming up
with the actual information or data that is going to be put into your project. The first step is to
summarize the main ideas to be taken out of the information obtained. To do so you can read the
articles, research papers, or whatever information you gathered. After that it is best to put those
ideas in your own words so that the work is your own. It is important to also identify passages of
information that would better off be quoted rather than changed into your own words.
The next step brings us to a point briefly covered earlier but more in depth, the process of
evaluating sources and information in detail. In order to determine if sources are reliable, valid,
accurate, timely, and without bias, we must compare information from multiple sources. One
way you could do this would be to gather the information and create a chart of the main points
gathered from each source. Then you can go ahead and compare which sources contain the same
information and mark it in the chart. You can do the same thing for the date of source and the
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biases. This is just one simple way to visually evaluate the sources. From there, for example, if
two or three sources out of 4 had identical information on one particular subject, you could
safely assume that this information is valid. As we discussed earlier, biases can be a big issue
when determining if a source is reliable and accurate. Determining the sources reason for
researching, employer and any possible motivation for skewing information would be an
important thing to list in your chart as well.
There are more things to consider when determining if a source is valid. Not only do you
have to evaluate the accurateness, but you must recognize the cultural impact that the author or
source might have had when coming up with this information. Different cultures sometimes see
things differently and this can lead to prejudice in how the information is portrayed. For instance
two different cultures can have two different meanings for a particular phrase or word. This can
lead to confusion and an unintentional misuse of the information.
In order to make a subject your own, you must be able to come up with your own ideas
from the main ideas researched. You cannot just go out and create random ideas by combining
the researched topics or just adding your own insight, but you must have supporting facts and
evidence to back them up. To do this effectively, you will need to utilize the resources that are
available. An example of this would be studying two databases and the information inside to
determine if the information is somehow correlated. Technology makes this easier because there
are numerous amounts of resources readily available. Some other examples could be
spreadsheets and videos.
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After coming up with these new concepts and ideas you must then compare the new
knowledge added with the knowledge you had before to determine the value added, or any other
characteristics of the information. This is where you ask yourself, “Was my information need
satisfied?” Now is the time where you finalize the ideas you came up with and begin testing.
After testing and gathering the results you must determine if the results are accurate or not. You
can do this by evaluating the tests or experiments by answering a few questions. Was the
experiment limited in any way? Are the conclusions you came to reasonable? After these tests
are completed and assumed valid, you can compile the new information with the previous
information on the topic and determine which information will be used for your thesis statement.
Using Information
When you find your source, you will want to analyze it and determine that it will prove
efficient and help you reach your writing goals. A good tool for this analysis is the P.A.S.S.
(Purpose, Audience, Subject, Situation) method. Analyze the content to determine the author’s
purpose by reading the preface of the book, abstract of an article or website (Cornell). You will
also want to consider the type of audience the author is addressing and whether it is too basic,
too technical, too advanced or if serves your purpose (Cornell). Next, determine the subject of
your source. Consider if the information is fact, opinion or propaganda. Does the information
provided from your source appear valid and supported by evidence, or does it raise doubts and
seem to be undeveloped. Finally, what is the situation of your source, why did they put together
this book, article or website? Many times, sources mask themselves as impartial but have a
hidden agenda. A good way to determine the purpose, evaluate the author or creator’s
credentials; specifically, education, other authored materials, and experience.
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An important part of effective writing is clear and logical organization. Consider the
following example, you are preparing to make a special dinner and will be using a recipe. You
pull out all of the tools and correct measurements of ingredients that you will need, and place
them in the order that you will use them. With this organization, your cooking experience will
run smoothly and you’ll welcome the experience again. However, if you fail to adequately
prepare before cooking from a recipe you are more likely to encounter a stressful situation and
will not want to cook. The same can be said for researching and writing about a topic – Lack of
organization ultimately leads to a lack of motivation (Cornell). Being unorganized will
ultimately affect your reader’s experience as well.
Some basic forms of organization are: comparison and contrast; process; cause and
effect; definition; and narration. There are more broad processes of organization that are used
more exclusively. These methods at times overlap with patterns of development or exposition
and utilizing different methods will lead to stronger writing. Below is a table providing a
simplified lists of the process, the associated patterns and sample transitions:
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Most often your piece of writing will be referred to as an “essay” or “research paper”,
which are essentially shorter pieces of writing that show your skills in reading, analysis,
comparison and contrast, persuasion, conciseness, clarity and exposition (Baker). Your writing
must be concise and will require clarity in purpose and direction while developing your ideas and
concepts. The most common essay/research papers are: expository, descriptive, narrative, and
argumentative (Baker). It is important to chose the type of paper that is right for your situation.
An expository essay is the type of research paper that requires you to investigate an idea,
evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and establish an argument, clearly and concisely
(Baker). This type of paper will consist of a defined thesis statement, which should be
appropriately narrowed to follow the assignment guidelines (Baker). The first paragraph is then
followed by body paragraphs that provide evidence supporting the thesis. It is important to have
clear and logical transitions between the introduction, body and conclusion to allow the reader to
38
follow a structure in the essay. Finally, the conclusion will not simply restate your thesis, but
readdress it in light of the evidence provided throughout the body of the paper (Baker).
A descriptive essay is a piece of writing used to describe an object, person, place,
experience, emotion, situation, etc (Baker). Take time to brainstorm ideas about a topic you are
asked to write about, and be sure to use clear and concise language (Baker). You will also want
to consider better word choice in a descriptive essay, the use of more vivid and sense descriptive
language will prove to be more effective in this type of paper.
A narrative essay is thought of a paper that tells a story. It gives you the liberty to express
yourself in a creative and moving way. These types of papers must include an introduction, plot,
characters, setting, climax and resolution (Baker). A narrative essay is also considered a book
report. It doesn’t necessarily follow the pattern of a story but reports on a story and will contain
the same elements (Baker).
Finally, an argumentative paper is one that requires you to establish a position on a topic
that you have investigated, collected, generated and evaluated data about (Baker). This is similar
to the expository essay but an argumentative essay requires more investigation and preparation
(Baker). It should be written in the same manner as an expository essay, providing a clear thesis
in the beginning, with attention to clear transitions, providing supportive evidence, and
summarizing your points at the end. However, your writing should be more persuasive than
informative in an argumentative research paper.
39
Issues Surrounding Information Use
As one moves up in the world, whether it is a business, organization, or just being an
expert in your field, having access to more information on a specific topic becomes easier. This
leads to a main point of information fluency stating that in order to be information literate, you
must understand the ethical and legal issues with having access to this information. In this
section we will discuss some of the legal and ethical issues that must be dealt with when there is
opportunity for abuse. Business is one of the best examples of showing that as someone moves
up the ranks, they are trusted with more information and there is more and more chance for abuse
to happen. For example a high up accounting executive who is in charge of the firms accounting
could be selling information about the company in regards their financial status as a way of
insider trading. This is a severe case, but there can be a multitude of levels that this can occur on.
Knowing the boundaries of what is ethical and what is not is a skill gained with
experience and practice. Whether it is as simple as going through another employee’s computer
without permission or sharing a document that was supposed to be for people within the
companies’ eyes only, they are all unethical. A good way to keep yourself out of these situations
would be to set a series of rules that you would never break. For this example, assume you are an
IT worker who works on other employee’s laptops frequently. Setting a rule to never look at
personal documents or restricted documents when working on their machine could help you get
stay clear of ethical issues.
An information literate person will follow the laws, regulations, institutional policies, and
etiquette related toe the access and use of information resources. This can vary from a broad
40
range of different topics. Another example with the IT department worker could be that he has
the Administrator password that grants access to all computers in the office and one of their
friends in the office asks him what it is so that they can install a special program on their
computer. Although you may think, “Hey, what the heck, he is my friend and I trust him.” This
is still ethically and legally wrong in some cases. You must always follow the institutional
policies on access to information if you wish to be information literate.
The last issue of ethical and legal issues with information access is that an information
literate person will correctly cite their sources or is granted permission before using other’s
information resources. This includes obtaining permission to use copyrighted material such as
songs, artwork, literature, etc. Although as technology improves it is getting easier to access this
information, the information literate person must always acknowledge their sources.
The Future of Information Fluency
Information fluency is a combination of knowledge, skills, and being able to competently
use the two together to find information. Technology has greatly changed the skills that one
would use for finding information. In the past, information was significantly more difficult to
come by. Research would require a person to do more ground footwork than today. The library
played a much larger part for where research would take place, as that was the main bastion to
store information. Sometimes searching several libraries or having to access a library whose
geographic distance would require a costly trip were the only ways to get the information
needed.
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In today’s world, computers can store the same research material that used to only be
found in libraries. These data stores can be accessed from anywhere using a computer with
access to the Internet. The ease of use to access information has increased, but so has the amount
of information. There are many new skills required to be able to sift through this information, as
described in the section about “how to access information efficiently” earlier in this text. It is
important to keep in mind that, although information is now more abundant, it must now be
scrutinized increasingly to prevent misinformation from spreading.
In Fulton’s view (page 11), there are three activities in which people search for
information and that is through querying, searching and browsing.
Querying is a way of finding information by asking a question “How do I bake an apple
pie?” would be a good example of a query. Searching for information is more in depth than just
querying for information. When searching, one might take the results from a query and try to
42
evaluate it further for new clues. Finally, browsing is a method in which one might not
specifically be looking for clues or answers, but finding relevant information on a broader scope.
By following the above three views of how information is sought after it can be seen that
these are capital ways that people look for and find information. Search engines on the Internet
are catering to the querying of information in very specific ways. Being able to narrow or
broaden a scope of search results with special syntax is likely to become more popular. As these
tools become easier to use so that they are more accessible to the majority of people, they will
become more widespread. Currently the syntax provided by search engines is not standardized
and each one may provide different functionality that can be accessed in a variety of ways.
Information can come at a very fast pace as a stream of consciousness through unofficial
mediums such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sharing capabilities. These
types of mediums are amazing at spreading information quickly, however they are not moderated
and used by anonymous persons. This means that the information obtained from these places
have to be scrutinized to the last detail to ensure that the content is valid. One must be careful not
to help the spread of misinformation when sharing their findings from sources online. Doing so
not only lowers one’s personal reputation, but lowers the overall social environment when bad
information is picked up and passed on.
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3
Grammar and Punctuation
For UCF documents, use basic guidelines for both grammar and punctuation throughout
your documents. Grammar and punctuation are vital to creating a successful document to be
clear and concise.
Appropriate Voice
Keep it simple and clear. Avoid using clichés, jargon, slang, sexiest language and
offensive language.
Cities and States
Use a comma after the country or state.
Examples:
Miami, FL., is where my parents live.
I will be in Paris, France for vacation this year.
Day and Date
Use commas to separate the year from the date. Also use a comma after the year.
Examples:
May 24, 2012, is our wedding.
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We are getting married May 24, 2012.
We are getting married May 2012 in Texas.
Jr., Sr., III
“Jr.”, “Sr.” and “III” should not be preceded or followed by a comma.
Examples:
Jake Wilson Sr. went downtown.
Jake Wilson III went downtown.
Parentheses
Place the period outside of the parentheses. Only place the period inside the parentheses
when the matter enclosed is an independent sentence forming no part of the preceding sentence.
Example:
The computer lab is in the Psychology Building, Building 99 (on the second floor).
Punctuation with Quotations
Periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. Question marks and
exclamation points go inside the quotation marks when they are part of the quoted material;
otherwise they go on the outside.
Examples:
Kyle said “I can’t believe it!” when he heard the news.
Do you know what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “Every one desires to live long, but
no one would be old”?
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Semicolons and Colons
Colons and semicolons should be placed outside quotation marks or parentheses. When
quoting material ending with one of these punctuation marks, the colon or semicolon is dropped.
Allen said that we “need to make some changes to the outline”; however, the
Example:
outline had already been approved.
Series
Do not use a comma before the last item in a series unless it is needed for some clarity.
Websites
If a Web site address is included in text and cannot fit on one line, manually break the
address after a punctuation mark or between actual words in the address and continue on the next
line of text. The hyphen should not be placed where the address breaks. A period is still needed
after a Web site address to close the sentence. If "www" is part of the address, the "http://" does
not need to be included. If "www" is not part of the address, include the http://.
Example:
My family uses quotes from the site www.great-
quotes.com/inspirational_quotes_main.htm.
General Guidelines
For most words, add an “s” to pluralize. This includes figures and years.
Examples:
Temperatures will be in the low 20s
Size 7s
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There are a few exceptions, including the plural forms of single letters. Form plurals of the following by
adding an “s."
Example:
M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s
In general, add an “es” to pluralize words ending in “ch,” “s,” “sh,” “ss,” “x” and “z."
Examples:
Parishes
Buzzes
Words ending in “y”: If a “y” is preceded by a consonant or “qu,” change the “y” to an “i” and add “es.”
Otherwise, just add an “s.”
Examples:
Monkeys
Armies
Words ending in “o”: If the “O” is preceded by a consonant, most plurals require “es.” One exception to
this rule includes “pianos.”
Examples:
Potatoes
Dominoes
Plural Possessives
For words ending in "s" that are not proper nouns, use only the apostrophe if the
following word begins in "s."
Examples:
Class' syllabus
Class's work
Pluralizing Compound Words
To pluralize compound words that are written solid, add an “s” at the end. For those that involve
separate words or words linked by a hyphen, make the most significant word plural.
Examples:
Attorneys general
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Daughters-in-law
Presidents-elect
Abbreviations and Acronyms
UCF Degrees
Aerospace Engineering
B.S.A.E.
Bachelor of Arts
B.A.
Bachelor of Science
B.S.
Bachelor of Applied Science
B.A.S.
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
B.S.N.
Bachelor of Social Work
B.S.W.
Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration
B.A.B.A.
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
B.S.B.A
Bachelor of Music Education
B.M.E.
Bachelor of Music
B.M.
Bachelor of Fine Arts
B.F.A.
Bachelor of Design
B.Des.
Civil Engineering
B.S.C.E.
Computer Engineering
B.S.P.E.
Construction Engineering
B.S.Con.E.
Electrical Engineering
B.S.E.E.
Environmental Engineering
B.S.Env.E.
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Industrial Engineering
B.S.I.E
Mechanical Engineering
B.S.M.E.
UCF Colleges
College of Business Administration
CBA
College of Sciences
COS
College of Engineering & Computer Science
CECS
College of Arts & Humanities
CAH
College of Education
CED
College of Medicine
COM
College of Health & Public Affairs
COHPA
College of Nursing
Nursing
Office of Undergraduate Studies
OUS
Rosen College of Hospitality Management
RCHM
UCF Programs
Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center
AMPAC
Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences
BSBS
The Burnett Honors College
BHC
Center for Autism and Related Disabilities
CARD
Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovations
CEI
Center for Lifestyle Medicine at UCF
CLM at UCF
Center for Research and Education in Arts,
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Technology and Entertainment
CREATE
Conference USA
C-USA
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
IS
Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Programs
EO
Florida High-Tech Corridor Council
FHTCC
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
FIEA
Florida Solar Energy Center
FSEC
Institute for Economic Competitiveness
IEC
Institute for Simulation and Training
IST
Learning Institute For Elders at UCF
LIFE at UCF
NanoScience Technology Center
NSTC
National Center for Forensic Science
NCFS
Nicholson School of Communication
NSOC
Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival
OSF
Partners in Art Education
PAVE
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports
TIDES
UCF Incubation Program
UCFIP
Women’s Research Center
WRC
WUCF-FM Radio
WUCF
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States
Spell out the names of states when they stand alone. Abbreviate according to the style
presented below when a state is listed with a city. Spell out Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine,
Ohio, Texas and Utah.
Ala.
Md.
N.D.
Ariz.
Mass.
Okla.
Ark.
Mich.
Ore.
Calif.
Minn.
Pa.
Colo.
Miss.
R.I.
Conn.
Mo.
S.C.
Del.
Mont.
S.D.
Fla.
Neb.
Tenn.
Ga.
Nev.
Vt.
Ill.
N.H.
Va.
Ind.
N.J.
Wash.
Can.
N.M.
W.Va.
Ky.
N.Y.
Wis.
La.
N.C
Wyo.
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Abbreviate Months
Abbreviated months are Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out March,
April, May, June and July.
Example:
Jan. 9 is Mike’s birthday.
Do not abbreviate months when used alone or with a year only. Do not use a comma between the month
and year.
Example:
I visited Europe in February 2003.
When using a complete date, put a comma after the year, unless it ends the sentence
Example:
I was born Sept. 19, 1985, in Orlando
Numerals
Times
“a.m.” and “p.m.” should be lowercase. Time should be written with just one figure.
Examples:
11 a.m.
7 p.m.
Years
Years can be written at the beginning of a sentence or ending a sentence. Do not use
apostrophes when expressing spans of years.
Examples:
Do: 1800s
Do Not: 1800’s
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Numbers
Spell out numbers in sentences, except for years. Do not use fractions, write as decimal or
percentage. Spell out the numbers zero through nine. Use figures for 10 and above.
Capitalization
1. Capitalize the first words of a sentence.
Example:
When he is late to class, he always forgets his calculator.
2. Capitalize the pronoun "I."
Example:
Where do I sign up for the class project?
3. Capitalize proper nouns: names of places, people, organizations, and sometimes things.
Example:
University of Central Florida
Pacific Ocean.
Orlando, Florida.
Statue of Liberty.
Disney World.
4. Capitalize family relationships (only when used as proper names)
Example:
I'm buying my Grandmother a present.
I sent a birthday card to my Aunt.
5. Capitalize the names of God, specific deities, religious figures, and religious books.
Example:
the Bible.
the Virgin Mary.
God the Father.
Zeus.
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Exception: Don't capitalize the nonspecific use of the word "god."
Example:
Polytheism is when you worship more than one god.
6. Capitalize titles preceding names, but not titles that follow names.
Example:
I met with Vice-President Bush
John was able to interview Daniel Miller, president of Coca Cola.
7. Capitalize directions that are names (North, South, East, West when used as sections of the
country, but not as compass directions).
Example:
It is already snowing in the Northeast.
We ran two miles south of the bridge.
8. Capitalize the days of the week, months, and holidays (but not the seasons unless used in a
title)
Example:
Veterans day
September
fall
spring
The Fall 2011 semester
9. Capitalize the names of countries, nationalities, and languages.
Example:
United States of America
England
Spanish
Portuguese
10. Capitalize the first word in a sentence that is a direct quote.
Example:
The professor said, "If you don't show up to class, you will fail."
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11. Capitalize the major words in the titles of books, articles, movies, and songs (with the
exception of short prepositions and the articles "the," "a," or "an," as long as they are not the first
word in the title)
Example:
She is missing her favorite book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
12. Capitalize members of national, political, racial, social, and athletic groups.
Example:
The Miami Dolphins
Republicans and Democrats
Japanese
African-Americans
13. Capitalize periods and events (but not century numbers).
Example:
World War 2
Prehistoric Era
Independence Day
twentieth century
14. Capitalize all trademarks.
Example:
Coca-Cola
Redbull
Ford
IBM
15. Capitalize words and abbreviations of specific names (but not the names of things that came
from specific things but are not general types)
Example:
CBS
french fries
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the UN
pasteurize
Words and Phrases
Subject-Verb Agreement
Basic Rule: A singular subject has to take a singular verb and a plural subject has to take
a plural verb. The easiest way of complying with this rule is to figure out whether the subject is
singular or plural. Verbs aren't plural by adding an "s" to them, to determine if they are plural or
not think of how you would use that verb with he or she or how you would use that same verb
with they.
Example: walk, walks
Which one of the above is in singular form? You would say, "She walks". Therefore, walks is a
singular verb. You would say, "They walk." Therefore, walk is a plural verb.
1. Two singular subjects that are connected by "or" or "not" use a singular verb.
Example:
My dad or mom is arriving by airplane today.
2. Two singular subjects that are connected by "either/or" or "neither/not" require a singular
verb.
Example:
Neither my dad nor mom is here today.
Either Dan or Michael is setting up the classroom
3. If "I" is one of the two subject that are connected by "either/or" or "neither/nor," put it second
and follow it with the singular verb "am."
Example:
Neither Carmen nor I am going to the concert.
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4. If a singular subject is connected by "or" or "nor" to a plural subject, place the plural subject
last and use a plural verb.
Example:
The subwoofer or the speakers go on the stage.
5. If a singular and plural subject are connected by "either/or" or "neither/nor," place the plural
subject last and use a plural verb.
Example:
Either David or the crew are preparing the ship.
6. If two or more subjects are connected by "and," use a plural verb.
Example:
Pizza and ice cream are my two favorite foods.
7. These following pronouns: anyone, anybody, each, every one, everyone, everybody,
somebody, and someone, are singular and use singular verbs.
Example:
Each of the new members plays very well.
8. For words indicating portions such as "percent, part, some, fraction, majority, none, all, and so
on..." look at the noun in the "of" phrase to determine whether a singular or plural verb needs to
be used.
Examples:
Ninety percent of the keg has disappeared.
Some of the students are employed.
9. For the expression: "The number" use a singular verb, white for the expression: "a number"
use a plural verb.
Examples:
The number of students that are at the football game is 23,000
A number of students have tailgated at memory mall.
10. When "neither" or "either" are the subjects, use singular verbs.
Example:
Neither of them is working on that project.
11. When using sums of money or periods of time use singular verbs.
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Example: Twelve dollars is a high price for a burger.
12. When using collective nouns such as staff or team, they can use either singular or plural
verbs depending on their use within the sentence.
Examples:
The team is in practice. (Team acts as a unit)
The team are in disagreement on what play they should do next. (Team acts as
separate individuals)
Misused Words
A versus An
The choice between these two articles is based entirely on the phonetic quality of the first
letter in the word that follows either of these articles. Remember that it is NOT based on the
written representation of that first letter, but it is based on how that first letter sounds.
Use "a" when the first letter of the word that follows it begins with consonants.
Examples:
a plane
a bagel
a hotel
a rebellion
Use "an" when the first letter of the word that follows it begins with vowels.
Examples:
an airplane
an egg
an example
an uprising
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There are exceptions to these rules however:
1. Use "an" before a silent "h." Because the "h" has no sound, use the sound following the letter
"h," which is usually a vowel.
Examples:
an honor
2. Use "a" when "u" makes the same sound as the "y" in "you", or when "o" makes the same
sound as "w" in "won."
Examples:
a unicorn
a U-turn
a one in a lifetime opportunity
3. When abbreviations are used, make sure you look at how the first letter in the abbreviation
sounds. (Some consonants sound like vowels when spoken as individual letters)
Examples:
an FBI agent (F sounds like ef)
an HMO plan
Commonly Confused Words
Many words in the English language sound and look alike but mean very different things
when put into writing. The following list will help clear up some of the confusion between the
most common words that sound or look alike.
Accept, Except
accept: verb meaning to receive or to agree
except: preposition meaning all but, other than
Examples:
Please accept our offer.
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Get all of the items on the grocery list except the salt.
Affect, Effect
affect: verb meaning to influence
effect: noun meaning result or consequence; verb meaning to bring about, to accomplish.
Examples:
UCF’s students affect the community positively.
The medicine she took had a severe side effect.
*Effect can also be a verb, “to bring about.”
Example:
The counsel can effect a great change.
Adverse, Averse
Adverse means “Unfavorable.” Averse means “reluctant.” Averse is usually followed by to.
Example:
The boss is averse to your idea because it has the potential to have an adverse impact on the
company.
Advise, Advice
Advise is a verb that means to recommend, suggest, or counsel. Advice is a noun that means an
opinion or recommendation about what could/should be done
Example:
We advise you to follow the professor’s instructions.
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Please take my advice to heart.
Among, Between
Use among should be used with three or more items. Among is used for referencing a collection
of items. Between should be used for two items. Also use between when referencing two
collective nouns (or groups)—between the faculty and the students. But you would, say, choose
among the faculty or among the students if referencing the group alone.
Examples:
My choice is between the College of Arts & Humanities or the College of Sciences.
The work was divided up among the group members.
Anyone, Any one
Anyone is an indefinite pronoun which means “any person at all.” Any one refers to a specific
person or thing in a group.
Example:
Anyone from the faculty may choose any one of the volunteer opportunities offered this summer.
Cite, Site
Cite means to “quote as an authority or example.” Site is a noun meaning “a particular place.”
Examples:
The professor explained how to properly cite the author in out essays.
The construction site was a mess.
*Specific locations on the Internet are also referred to as sites.
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Example:
The UCF website has made many updates.
Conscious, Conscience
Conscious is an adjective meaning awake, perceiving. Conscience is a noun meaning the sense of
obligation to be good
Example:
Let you conscience be your guide.
Were you conscious of her feelings for you?
Coarse, Course
Coarse means “rough in texture.” Course usually means “a path or a unit of study.”
Examples:
The wicker chair felt coarse when I sat down.
The course is offered online.
Council, Counsel
A council is a deliberative body, and a councilor is a member of such a body. Counsel means
“advice.” A counselor is a person who gives advice and guidance.
Examples:
The student council rejected the proposal.
The school provided professional help in order to counsel the students.
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Elicit, Illicit
Elicit is a verb that means “to evoke.” Illicit is an adjective that means “unlawful.”
Example:
The father was unable to elicit any information his son about where he obtained illicit drugs.
Ensure, Insure
Use ensure when you want to suggest a guarantee. Use insure when you’re talking about
insuring your car or home.
Examples:
UCF works to ensure students are well prepared.
My car is insured.
Idea, Ideal
Idea is a noun meaning a thought, belief, or conception held in the mind, or a general notion or
conception formed by generalization. Ideal is a noun meaning something or someone that
embodies perfection, or an ultimate object or endeavor. Ideal also can be an adjective meaning
embodying an ultimate standard of excellence or perfection, or the best.
Example:
It was the schools idea to use the mascot to promote the games.
It would be ideal to spell check your term paper.
Its, it’s
It’s is contraction for it is. Do not replace it’s with it is. Its is possessive. Its’ is never right.
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Examples:
The dog licked its wound.
It’s policy for UCF students.
Imply, Infer
Imply means “to suggest or state indirectly.” Infer means “to draw a conclusion.”
Example:
The student implied that the work was finished, however the teacher inferred that the work was
still incomplete.
Lead, Led
Lead is a noun referring to a dense metallic element. Led is a past-tense and past-participle form
of the verb to lead, meaning to guide or direct.
Example:
The students will take the lead on the project.
He led us down the wrong path more than once.
Maybe, May be
Maybe is an adverb that means “possibly.” May be is a verb phrase.
Examples:
Maybe class will get cancelled next week due to the storm.
Tomorrow there may be no class because of the storm.
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Principal, Principle
Principal is a noun which means “the head of a school or organization.” Principle is a noun that
means “a basic truth or law.”
Examples:
The principal asked both students to report to his office before school started.
UCF believes in the principle of academic integrity.
Respectfully, Respectively
Respectfully means “showing or marked by respect.” Respectively means “each in the order
given.”
Examples:
The man respectfully asked for her hand in marriage.
Mike and Tom were a teacher and student, respectively.
Than, Then
Than: used in comparison statements: "He is richer than I."
used in statements of preference: "I would rather dance than eat."
used to suggest quantities beyond a specified amount: "Read more than the first
paragraph.
Then: a time other than now: "He was younger then. She will start her new job then."
next in time, space, or order: "First we must study; then we can play."
suggesting a logical conclusion: "If you've studied hard, then the exam should be no
problem."
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Their, There, They're
Their: possessive pronoun
There: that place
They're: contraction for they are
Examples:
The class got their test today.
Our classroom is over there.
They’re studying for the test.
To, Too, Two
To: preposition, or first part of the infinitive form of a verb
Too: very, also
Two: the number 2
Examples:
We were required to sign the contract.
I had to sign the contract too.
I had to wait two hours to sign up.
We're, Where, Were
We're: contraction for we are
Where: location
Were: a past tense form of the verb be
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Examples:
We’re preparing for the trip.
Where are you going for your trip?
We were planning on going to the Bahamas but decided to go to Jamaica instead.
Your, You're
Your is a possessive pronoun. You're is a contraction for you are.
Examples:
Your class is cancelled.
You’re going to class and it was cancelled.
UCF Writing Center
The UCF writing center, UWC, is a great way to improve your writing skills and develop
new ones. The UWC uses one on one peer consultations in order to help students succeed.
What Does the UWC Offer?
The writing center is a great way to develop your thinking skills; analyzing rhetorical elements to
a writing assignment; planning, organizing, revising, and editing papers; overcoming writers
block; design oral presentations.
Make an Appointment
Make an appointment for the UWC by phone or through TutorTrac.
Contact Info:
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Orlando: 407-823-2197
Cocoa: 321-433-7873
Daytona: 386-506-3297
Grammar and Punctuation Handouts
Avoiding Sexist Language
Bare Minimum Grammar
Commas, Commas, Commas
Dashes and Parentheses
Five Uncommonly Serious Mistakes
Five Easy Comma Rules
How to Choose the Right Article
Article Chart
The Known-New Contract
Improving Coherence with Known-New Contract
Mastering Prepositions
The Paramedic Method
Passive Voice Q&A
Passive Voice: Zombies and Vampires
Punctuation Hierarchies and Sentence Patterns
Redundant Phrases and Similar Words
The Semi-Colon: Making Connections
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4
Research and Library Skills
Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism is, by definition, the act of taking another person's words or thoughts and
passing them as your own original ideas. It is effectively stealing a person’s intellectual property
and benefiting from their thoughts and words. Few people are fine with somebody stealing their
ideas without giving credit to themselves. Not only is it not fair to the original mastermind, but
also it is highly unethical to act as if ideas that are not your own are your own.
Most universities take plagiarism very seriously. Many professors will either give a
failing grade or report the student to academic conduct. Sever cases can include expulsion or
revocation of degrees. It is severe because there is no way of telling how much of the student's
work has been copied from other sources and passed as their own. Most universities want to
ensure that the work that has been done to earn a degree is truly earned and not stolen from
another source.
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The best way to prevent plagiarism is to cite sources. It's always better safe than sorry.
Nobody wants to put in all the work and money for a degree only to have it revoked.
Citing Material
Why use citations?
The primary purposes of citing text is so that the correct author is given credit and so that
the reader can relocate the text if they need to. Citing avoids plagiarism and adds validity to the
paper. Without citations the writer could make up statistics and mislead the reader. It is
important to note that all individual citations are single spaced regardless of whether or not it is
MLA or APA. They are, however, double spaced between each citation source.
MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) –
Which one to choose.
Students are rarely taught the difference between these forms of citation. The reason
being is that many teachers have their own preferences for which one to choose. Typically the
teacher will tell the students which one to use, however, it is typically the Humanities courses
that follow MLA guidelines and science and research fields that are asked to follow APA
guidelines (http://www.noodletools.com/helpdesk/kb/index.php?action=article&id=24&relid=2).
If your teacher does not specify it is good practice to ask ahead of time. The process for citing is
similar in either situation so once a student learns one it is easy for him or her to learn the other
without any difficulty.
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How to cite using MLA
MLA citations differ from each type of source (book, website, etc). Because of this we
will focus on the two most common sources, books and websites. Each of these has different
ways of citing depending on factors such as how many authors wrote the piece and how specific
the source information is.
Books – one author
The parenthetical citation for a book is to include the authors last name along with the
page number it is found.
The basic format for the bibliography is:
Author. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year.
An example of this is:
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation. New York: Knopf, 1993.
Author’s name - In the example above the author is Alan Brinkley. The name should be
in the format of Last name, first name. This is separated by the next item by a period.
Title - Note that this should be italicized to offset it from the rest of the text. In the
example above it is The Unfinished Nation. As with the authors names, this too ends with a
period to separate it from the next item.
City of Publication - In the case of the example above it’s New York. To separate this
from the next item a colon is placed at the end of it.
Publisher - In the example above the Publisher is Knopf. A comma is placed at the end of
this to separate it from the next item
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Publishing Year - In the format YYYY, a period is placed at the end to denote that it is
finished.
Books – two or more authors
Multiple authors gets a little bit trickier. The citation must follow a few more rules:
List the names in the order they appear on the title page.
Only the first author's name should be reversed: Last Name, First Name.
Use a comma between the authors' names. Place a period after the last author's name.
The basic format for the bibliography is:
First author's last name, First author's first name, Second author's last name, Second author's first
name. Title. City of Publication: Publisher, Year
An example of this is:
Rowe, Richard, and Larry Jeffus. The Essential Welder: Gas Metal Arc Welding Classroom
Manual. Albany: Delmar, 2000.
Authors names - this should be to the specifications mentioned above. In the example
above the authors are Richard Rowe and Larry Jeffus. This is separated by the next item by a
period.
Title - Note that this should be italicized to offset it from the rest of the text. This comes
second and should be of the same font type as the authors. In the example above it is The
72
Essential Welder: Gas Metal Arc Welding Classroom Manual. As with the authors names, this
too ends with a period to separate it from the next item.
City of Publication - In the case of the example above it’s Albany. To separate this from
the next item a colon is placed at the end of it.
Publisher - In the example above the Publisher is Delmar. A comma is placed at the end
of this to separate it from the next item
Publishing Year - In the format YYYY, a period is placed at the end to denote that it is
finished.
Websites - Entire Internet Site: Scholarly Project or Professional Site
The basic format for the bibliography is:
Title of the Site. Editor. Date and/or Version Number. Name of Sponsoring Institution. Date of
Access <URL>.
An example of this is:
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008.
Web. 23 Apr. 2008.
Title of the site - If Popular Mechanics is being cited it would be entered as Popular
Mechanics. This is separated by the next item by a period.
Editor - The name of whoever edited it. As with the authors names, this too ends with a
period to separate it from the next item.
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Date and/or Version Number - This can usually be found at the top of the page. It is more
common to find the date than a version numbers since most authors like to know when they
made it and not just a number associated to it. To separate this from the next item a colon is
placed at the end of it.
Name of Sponsoring Institution - This would be the name of the university. If it came
from UCF it would be The University of Central Florida. A comma is placed at the end of this to
separate it from the next item.
Date of Access - In the format DD MMM YYYY. MMM indicates the month in it’s
abbreviated form. For example a website found on September 12th, 2011 would be 12 Sept.
2011. A period is placed at the end to denote that it is finished.
URL - The actual website that the information is found on. This is placed inside the less
than and greater than symbols and is finished with a period.
Website - Document from a Web Site
The basic format for the bibliography is:
Author. "Title of Web Page." Title of the Site. Editor. Date and/or Version Number.
An example of this is:
Sherman, Chris. "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About URL." SearchEngineWatch. Ed.
Danny Sullivan. 24 Aug. 2004. 4 Sept. 2004
<http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3398511>.
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Name of Sponsoring Institution. Date of Access <URL>.
Author - In the format Last name, First name. In this example Chris Sherman is the
author. This is separated by the next item by a period.
Title of the web page - For this the title must be put in quotation marks with a period
inside the last quotation. In the example used Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About URL
is the title. This is separated by the next item by a period.
Title of the site - in this example, SearchEngineWatch is the title of the site. This is
separated by the next item by a period.
Editor - The name of whoever edited it with a Ed. prefix. In the example, Danny Sullivan
is the editor. As with the authors names, this too ends with a period to separate it from the next
item.
Date and/or Version Number - This can usually be found at the top of the page. It is more
common to find the date than a version numbers since most authors like to know when they
made it and not just a number associated to it. In this example the date is August 24th, 2004. To
separate this from the next item a colon is placed at the end of it.
Name of Sponsoring Institution - In the example there is no sponsoring institution so it is
left out. Unlike most items, a comma is placed at the end of this to separate it from the next item
in the citation.
Date of Access - In the format DD MMM YYYY. MMM indicates the month in it’s
abbreviated form. In this example the website was accessed on September 4th, 2004 so it is in
the format as it is is in the example. A period is placed at the end to denote that it is finished.
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URL - The actual website that the information is found on. This is placed inside the less
than and greater than symbols and is finished with a period.
How to cite using APA
In many regards, APA is very similar to MLA so it is very easy to master once you have
learned the citation methods above. APA tends to be a little bit more specific when it comes to
the nuances of citing. It has a heavier emphasis on parenthesis to separate items in the citation
from one another.
Books – one author
The parenthetical citation for APA is
(author's last name, year of publication)
The basic format for the bibliography is:
Last name, First Initial. (Year). Book title: Subtitle. (Edition) [if other than the 1st]. Place:
Publisher.
Author’s name - This should be in the format of Last name, first initial. This is separated
by the next item by a period.
Year - It is important to note that the year is surrounded by parenthesis while the year is
in the format YYYY making what is actually put in (YYYY), a period is placed at the end to
denote that it is finished.
Book Title - This is obviously the title of the book and has a colon at the end to separate it
from the next item.
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Subtitle - This is the subtitle to the title and there is a period placed at the end of it to
separate it from the next item.
Edition - The edition is placed inside parenthesis and is only used if it is not the first
edition. If it is not there it indicates that it is the first edition. This too ends with a period to
separate it from the next item.
Place - This is the place that the publisher is located. To separate this from the next item
a colon is placed at the end of it.
Publisher - This is the actual name of the publisher. A period is placed at the end of this
item.
Books – two authors
The parenthetical citation is :
(first author's last name, second author's last name, year of publication, p. page number)
The citation in the bibliography is:
First author's last name, first author's first initial, & second author's last name, second author's
first initial (year of publication). Title of book. Place of publication: name of publisher
First author's last name, first author's first initial, & second author's last name, second
author's first initial - For example, if Richard Rowe and Larry Jeffus wrote a book it would be
cited as Rowe, R, Jeffus L. This has no separation point because the next item is in parenthesis
so there is no need for it
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Year of Publication - This is in the format YYYY and is in parenthesis so it would be
(YYYY) in the citation. A period is placed at the end to separate it from the next item in the
citation.
Title of Book - This is the title of the book. There is a period placed at the end of this to
separate it from the next item.
Place of Publication - This is the place that the publisher is located. To separate this from
the next item a colon is placed at the end of it.
Name of Publisher - This is the actual name of the publisher. A period is placed at the
end of this item.
Websites - Entire Internet Site: Scholarly Project or Professional Site
The parenthetical citation for this is just the URL within parenthesis.
(URL)
When citing an entire Internet site, APA guidelines state that there is no need to cite it in
the bibliography.
Website - Document from a Web Site
The parenthetical citation is :
(Title of article, year published)
The citation in the bibliography is:
Article title, (year published). Title of resource. Retrieved from URL
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Article Title - The title of the article which is found at the very top of the article. There is
a comma placed at the end to separate it from the next item.
Year Published - This is in the format YYYY and is in parenthesis so it would be
(YYYY) in the citation. A period is placed at the end to separate it from the next item in the
citation.
Title of Resource - This is the same as the title of the page found in the MLA citations. A
period is placed at the end to separate it from the next item in the citation.
Retrieved from URL - The URL that directs the reader to the exact place the data was
found. This does not have an end punctuation.
Gathering Information
Decide what you need to know
In order to decide what you need to know, you must first identify your subject and type of
paper. If it is a research paper, you first want to look for other published articles or pieces of
literature that are also based upon what you are writing about. You need to find these pieces
because they will support your topic and give you further information. This information servers
to better educate you on the subject so that you can discuss it more efficiently. Make sure to find
literature that both supports and refutes your subject. If it is a paper to inform, simply find
information about the topic and organize it according to the way you would like to present it.
Developing a Search Strategy
Begin by searching in university journal databases. For search terms, try using various
terminologies used in your subject matter in order to find relevant articles. A second source that
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you can find information is printed books on the subject. The last place to look for information
should be websites. Websites are generally not very regulated by stringent academic standards
and therefore may have information that is inaccurate or not specific enough for the paper.
Checking if the material is current and relevant
The way to check whether a source is current and relevant is to check the date and
compare it to other sources of the same topic. If the information from one source to the other
differs greatly, then the information has most likely changed or a new theory has arisen. With a
change in theory, the older source may still be acceptable, but you need to make sure to explain
the divergence in academic thought. If the information has been updated altogether, then the
older article is obsolete and shouldn’t be used. If the article does not address your subject matter,
then it is not relevant.
Evaluating Sources
Checking if the material is peer-reviewed
Almost all academic journals are peer-reviewed. They are some of the most factually
reliable sources because the journals have been reviewed by academic boards and experts in the
field before being published. This almost guarantees that the research material will be reliable
and generally accepted facts in the academic community. If there are no journal articles that are
specifically about your subject, try to find at least one that generally covers your topic so that
you have a peer-reviewed base to work off of. Sometimes the information in books is peerreviewed, though you would have to check the sources that the book utilizes in order to verify
that it is, in fact, reviewed. Oftentimes, libraries offer access to academic books online, so check
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online first to see if you can simply view the information on the computer. If not, go to the
library and try to search for some books that may be relevant.
Checking if the source is reliable and accurate
As said before, almost all academic journals are reliable and accurate sources. Books are
also usually accurate and reliable sources, but the information needs to be verified. Verify
information by checking to see if there is a reference section. Some websites may have accurate
information. Verify website information by finding out whether the website is set up for
commercial purposes or academic purposes. Also make sure that the article on the website cites
sources or comes from a reputable source such as a specialist in the field. If the work comes from
a specialist in the field, make sure he/she references data that he/she collected in their research.
Most websites, however, are not very accurate sources of information. Websites such as
Wikipedia (any Wiki sites) are unreliable as academic sources. This is because any users can edit
the information, thereby removing academic integrity. Commercial websites may have articles
that are about your topic, but are not edited for content. These articles may make claims that are
inaccurate and not approved by academic standards
Alternative Information Sources
There are other sources that are also good additions for certain types of papers. In
addition to peer reviewed journals, books, magazines, and other printed material, information can
be acquired through interviews and certain types of film. Interviews that can be useful as sources
are interviews with a reliable and notable expert in the field you are writing about. For example,
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if you were writing a paper about social anxiety, recording an interview with a psychologist that
specializes in social anxiety would be useful.
Conducting an interview requires preparation. You need to prepare questions that will
both inform you and your readers on the subject. Good questions would primarily include topics
or debates that are presented in your research that are not explicitly answered and would raise
questions from your readers. Another good thing to focus on is opinions of your expert of his
field on various aspects of the subject matter. For instance, you should not interview a children’s
psychologist and ask their opinion on adult anxiety as that is not their area of specialization and
they do not possess the knowledge to answer the question properly.
When citing the interview, you will need to talk about the specialist that was interviewed
and cite his credentials. This is important in validating your own work and is good to save in
case of future inquiry into the subject. Films are also good sources of information Primarily
documentaries; films made to entertain are not good sources for information. For example, a
movie like Jurassic Park is not a good source of information. This film was based on little to
know scientific background and was created to entertain as a fiction film. A good example of a
good source of information is a movie like March of the Penguins. This type of film is good for
information because it is a groundbreaking documentation of research, little of which has been
published in other locations and mediums such as print.
Using film as a source of information requires a specific method of information
gathering. When watching the film, you must take careful notes of the information presented that
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can be used as part of your paper. In order for the watching of the film to be a productive use of
your time, you must be able to take an ample amount of notes throughout the film. It is also a
good idea to record what times during the film the information was written down at so you can
return to it in the future to remind yourself of an idea you had or an important scene. If the notes
taken are not significantly impactful on the research paper, then it is best not to use the film as a
source regardless of how enjoyable you had it. You could mention it at the end of your paper for
the reader if they are future interested on the subject matter. A film is best suited for a research
paper if it gives new information not available elsewhere. As with an interview, when you use
the film as a source, make sure to introduce the source and explain the premise of the film and
why it is useful as a source for your paper.
Library Research
UCFs InfoSource offers a way to research information in both in a quick and effective
manner.

Services included by the InfoSource are as follows..

Market Research

Competitive Intelligence

Journal Articles Search

Citation Search

Patent and trademark searches

Book Loans

Photocopying Journal Articles, Technical Reports, and White Papers
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Using News Research
In the field of journalism, a news source is commonly defined as a person, publication or
document that provides a report or account of an event. There are many news sources available;
these include newspapers (online and print), news transcripts, blogs, wikis, press releases,
newswires, newsletters, and more. News sources can be relevant to creating an academic
research. News sources are classified as popular sources but can be valuable sources for a
research.

Introduce you to new topics of interest and assist you in narrowing a topic.

Provide a preliminary foundation on the issues and debates surrounding your topic, thus
providing easy access to multiple points of view.

Include verifiable facts and statistics that may help support your position.

Identify the different individuals and groups that are impacted by the issue and might be
participating in the debate.
Scholarly And Popular Sources
In order to effectively conduct research and produce high quality academic writing, you
will need to make decisions about which articles support your thesis best. One factor that will
help you decide is the type of source an article is published in. Based on the characteristics of
each publication, you will be able to support different aspects of your argument. For example,
original research by an expert will often provide the most credible information, while an article
written by a journalist about popular events will offer good support.
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UCF Citation Search
UCF will use citation searches as a source which shows how many times a specific article
has been cited by others. Citation searches vary in cost but are usually limited by the amount of
authors, articles, and citations that are involved. The higher the number usually means a higher
charge. Citation searches require a week's notification for searches to be processed.
UCF Book Loans
Book loans are a vital resource when undergoing research. The UCF library offers books
on demand and can provide materials that suit your need within 48 hours from the order date.
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5
Word Usage
In a world of text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and the social network, does word really
usage matter? Your career often depends on how well you are able express yourself. The words
you choose and how you use them create an image of who you are. If you choose your words
incorrectly and poor grammar, potential clients may think you that you don’t care about how you
represent yourself, or how about you represent their company. Choosing the right word to match
the meaning you intend is an equally challenging task and a process that requires a fair amount
of trial and error.
Many of us have been taught from that there is correct and incorrect English. The truth is,
Standard English is in a constant state of evolution and revision. What is considered
grammatically correct today may not have been correct several hundred years ago. As times
change, the vernacular, or common language of the people, replaces what was once considered
the proper way to speak. For instance, people today often talk about how words are “spelt”
instead of “spelled.” Some linguists argue that “spelt” is actually a correct term, due to the fact
that so many people use it. There are also regional differences to consider. Ebonics, the term for
African-American vernacular of English, has its own way of writing and speaking. The scope of
vernacular can even be traced internationally. Many countries have their own versions of English
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that are used as a primary language in conversation. British English, for example, has its own
terms and style that is different from American English. We will discuss the uses of British
English in writing and their effect on writing for an audience later in the chapter.
Only in the last half century has English been considered elegant enough to replace Latin
as the primary language in the arenas of law and science. When choosing the words in our prose,
we must consider that our style and tone are just as important as our grammar. If you are a native
English speaker, you will follow most of the concrete grammatical rules by default. For example,
in a sentence, the verb must agree with the subject. This is something that is common in our
everyday speech and thought. Rules like this must be observed in order to write clearly and
understandably, but they are so engrained in our manner of speaking that we often don’t stop to
consider what we are saying before we say it. This can be a useful habit, but also problematic if
we have been taught poor grammar techniques.
The most common type of grammatical rules that writers tend to stress over are often not
rules at all, but rather they are choices in style. My favorite example of this is the oft-scolded use
of the word “ain’t.” According to Miriam Webster’s Dictionary, “ain’t” is “flourishing in
American English.” “Ain’t” is actually short for “are I not,” while the contraction “aren’t” comes
from the same words. One could argue that “ain’t” makes more logical sense than “aren’t.” So,
what’s the difference? The difference is one is accepted into the cannon of Standard English and
the other is not. One is no more grammatically correct as the other, but often times your audience
will expect you to utilize the correct style that they expect.
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Clear and Concise
The main goal in writing any sort of document is to accurately communicate your thoughts
or research to your readers. The two most important words you can live by as a writer are “clear”
and “concise.” This mantra is often easier said than done. If the answer were to simply use
shorter sentences, everyone would be a superb writer. Part of the solution is not to
overcomplicate your sentences, but complex subjects often demand complex statements.
Therefore, rather than confusing our readers, we must dig deeper to come to a consensus of how
to write so they can better understand what we are trying to say.
Clarity in writing begins with understanding your audience. You want your reader’s eyes
to smoothly move across the text without the need to stop and think too much about what they
have just read. Things like overly complex sentences and fancy terminology can be major
stumbling blocks in the pursuit of clarity. If you are dealing with a specialized audience, there is
usually a specialized vocabulary that you will be able to use and maintain clarity. For example, if
you are writing a document for attorneys, the phrase ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ can be used in a
sentence and will still flow with the rest of the writing because lawyers commonly come across
this phrase in their field. If you use the same phrase in a document that is targeted at nuclear
engineers, the reader will likely have to stop reading to evaluate the phrase. Additionally, an
engineer might be used to technical jargon that a professional writer is not. While professional
writers are experts in their field, they will still stumble once they come across a word that they
do not understand because it is in another area of expertise. Many professional writers have the
ability to be a walking thesaurus and use all different kinds of terms from different areas, but
don’t write to impress your readers, write to accurately communicate with them. Understanding
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one’s audience is critical to developing an effective piece of writing that will accomplish its
intended use.
Normalization
Nouns are usually the most important part of the sentence. A noun is the subject of the
action. For example, “The [ ] runs well.”
The word inside the bracket could be any number of things. When writing a good
sentence, it is important to note that the noun (or subject) is modified by strong action verbs. The
pitfall for nouns is when writers attempt to use them to express the action in a sentence. Ideally,
the verbs should move the action in a sentence. Writers often try to make the nouns move the
sentence by using a technique called nominalization. This is a technical term for a common
mistake. Nominalization can be easily identified in a sentence by looking for nouns ending in –
tion –ment, and –ence. Consider the following sentences:
Incorrect: The development of the program was slow.
Correct: The program developed slowly.
In both sentences, “program” is the subject. In sentence A, the nominalized noun,
“development,” precedes the verb. This not only makes the sentence longer, it causes the reader
to have no idea what the subject is until the end of the sentence. Example B more logically puts
the verb before the noun and removes the nominalization. Both sentences are grammatically
correct, but sentence B is stylistically preferred because it is shorter and clearer than sentence A.
The following words illustrate how a normal verb becomes a nominalization:
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
Evaluate… Evaluation

Discuss… Discussion

Careful… Carefully

Approach … Approachable

Intelligent… Intelligence
Remembering what a nominalization is and keeping its use to a minimum will improve
the quality of your writing and allow stronger sentences.
Verbs and Action
In grade school, we are taught that the verb should represent the action of the sentence. As
we grow older and are exposed to different styles of writing, we begin to develop our own style.
We sometimes forget that good writers prefer to put the action of a sentence in the verb. Just as
nouns should clearly define the subject of a sentence, the verb should move the noun. This is
appropriate not only in form but also in function. When you include strong action verbs in a
sentence, the text flows more quickly. Readers subliminally respond to strong sentences that
‘move’ smoothly and quickly with solid verb choice. The best way to illustrate this is to use a
sentence in which the verb is a literal movement.
Incorrect: The car rolled down the track.
Correct: The car sped down the track.
Both of these sentences are grammatically correct and include verbs to drive the action,
but only the second is stylistically strong. The vision of a car rolling down a track is about as
exciting as watching paint dry. When ‘rolled’ is replaced by a more exciting verb, the sentence
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takes on a different life. With this simple verb change, the reader now will be more curious about
the sentence and want to read on to the next to find out why the car is speeding and if anyone is
chasing it.
This practice seems like common knowledge, but as ideas become more complex, so do
the sentences we use to describe them. Many times writers think complicated subjects demand
complicated sentences. This is simply not true. For example, the following text is taken directly
from an employment application:
Governmental agencies such as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
require that certain employers keep information related to their hiring and employment
practices for individuals protected under anti-discrimination laws.
This sentence can be made clearer by moving the verb closer to the front of the sentence
and deleting unnecessary information.
Governmental agencies require some employers to keep information related to their
employment practices.
The second sentence moves the verb “require” closer to the beginning of the sentence. By
doing this, the action, or “movement” of the sentence begins earlier. In the second sentence, the
questions of “who” and “what” are expressed in the first three words, the “who” being
governmental agencies and “what” being information. By keeping the sentence short, you create
a fluid and interesting dialogue for the audience while still conveying relevant information.
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Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs are words that modify verbs or nouns. Adjectives are words that
modify nouns or pronouns. They typically answer how many, what kind, or which one. Adverbs
are words that modify verbs and usually answer when, how, or in what matter. In the following
sentences, the adjectives are italicized and the adverbs are boldface:
“The red car.”
“The car went fast.”
Adjectives and adverbs are essential to the English language. As writers we must use
them to some extent, but it is good stylistic form to keep them to a minimum. Strong nouns and
verbs should do most of the work in a sentence, the other words should just be there to support or
clarify if necessary. Think of your sentence as a rock band. If the verb is the lead guitar and the
noun is the lead singer, let the adjectives and adverbs be the backup singers and rhythm guitar.
These parts can add extra depth to the whole, but never should a backup singer take center stage.
By allowing your verbs and nouns to take the center stage of the sentence, you are able to move
towards more clear and concise writing by creating more powerful sentences.
Voice
Voice is usually distinguished by active voice and passive voice. Most good writers
choose to use active voice because it is consistent with giving action to the subject of the
sentence.
Active Voice: Dan pays the bills.
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Passive Voice: The bills are paid by Dan.
In first example, Dan is doing something, paying the bills. The first sentence makes Dan
the subject of the sentence. This example flows well because the subject is in action—he is doing
something. The second example puts more emphasis on “the bills.” The fact that the bills are
paid by Dan is less important than the bills themselves. Also, notice that the first example is in
present tense and the second example is in past tense. Passive voice often takes the form of past
tense. In order to keep your writing interesting to the reader, it is always a good idea to write in
the present tense.
Like many grammatical conventions, there are times when passive voice is preferable.
For example:
Passive Voice: The hole in the O-zone layer is growing larger according to leading
scientists.
Active Voice: Dr. Blake, a leading scientist, says the hole in the O-zone layer is growing
larger.
In this example, the reader is most likely more interested in the results of Dr. Blake’s
research than they are the man himself. This is often the case in writing that involves other
people’s research. It is always important to give credit for research done by other people, but it is
important to be mindful to the needs of your readers. For example, if you write a feature piece on
the life and work of Dr. Blake, active voice would be appropriate because the subject that the
reader is most interested in is the man himself. When writing a piece about the research done by
Dr. Blake, the reader is most likely more interested in the results of the research.
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When dealing with voice, both active and passive are grammatically correct, but active
voice is usually preferred. Like most literary conventions, the most important thing in making
your stylistic choice is knowing your readers and what they expect of you as an author.
British Spellings and Colloquialisms
We have all been seen the signs for a “Candy Shoppe” as opposed to a Candy Shop. For
some unknown reason, American retailers think it adds an air of sophistication to their stores if
they use British spellings on their signs. This may work for selling merchandise, but in writing, it
may not make the sale. If you are writing a document for American readers, British spellings do
not add sophistication to your document. In fact, it has the opposite effect by distracting your
reader’s eyes from the content itself.
Common British spelling differences include using –ise in place of –ize at the end of a
word, adding a double consonant followed by an “e” at the end of a word, and replacing an –our
at the end of a word instead of the American –or. Examples are featured respectively below:
“Specialize” vs. “Specialise”
“Shop” vs. “Shoppe”
“Color” vs. “Colour”
Differences in American and British word usage are often greater than the spelling of the
word itself, but lie in how the words are used. A colloquialism is defined by Miriam Webster as
“a local or regional expression.” For example:
American Term: “Asphalt” British Term: “Tarmac”
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American Term: “Semi-Truck” British Term: “Lorry”
American Term: “Pants” British Term: “Trousers”
In The King’s English, an early British English style guide, H.W. Fowler describes what
he calls “Americanisms.” Fowler says, “Americanisms are foreign words, and should be so
treated.” There are many different colloquialisms in different English speaking countries. The
United States, Canada, Australia, India, and Great Britain all have certain words and phrases that
are used differently. Different colloquialisms also exit in the same countries. For example,
someone from Texas may have specific colloquialisms that are different form someone in
Oregon. Much like someone in Scotland may use words differently than someone from Wales.
The main thing you should remember when dealing with colloquialisms is to remain
consistent. Fowler observes “English and the American language and literature are both good
things; but they are better apart than mixed.” If you are a native American English speaker, it is
not necessarily stylistically incorrect to write in a British style, but you must fist know the
subtleties of the British style and remain consistent throughout the document. As always, the
style you choose must depend on who will be reading the document and what is best suited to
their needs.
Common Hobgoblins
A hobgoblin is a specific use of a word or phrase deemed unacceptable in Standard
English. Not all hobgoblins are examples of incorrect grammar, but correct or not, they are still
considered unacceptable by most readers. As a writer, it is important to have a grasp on the
expectations of your readers. If you accidentally use the word which in place of that, you may
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compromise the trust your reader has in your writing efforts and the information you are
presenting.

Don’t use “finalize” to mean finished or completed. If the report is “complete,” then it is
finished. If it is “finalized,” it has ended or been terminated.

Don’t use double negatives such as “irregardless”

Avoid the phrase “needless to say.” If something is needless to say, then you shouldn’t
have to say it. Similar phrases include “To be honest,” and “In my opinion.”

Use “fewer” with nouns you count, and “less” with nouns you cannot.

Use “since” and “while” to refer only to time, not to mean “because” or “although.”
“Although the results were found to be negative…” is more correct than “While the
results were found to be negative…”

Don’t split infinitives. For example, don’t say, “He wanted to quickly finish the job.”
Instead say, “He wanted to finish the job quickly.”

Use “that” instead of “which” for restrictive clauses. Use “which” in nonrestrictive
clauses. A nonrestrictive clause modifies a noun that names a reference you can identify
without the information that is in the clause.

Use “whom” as the object of a verb or preposition. Use “who” if it is not the object. A
rule of thumb is, if you can delete the pronoun “whom” and it still makes sense, use
“who.” “They decided whom they should promote,” and “they decided who to promote,”
are both correct. Always use “whom” if it is the subject of a preposition. For example, “in
whom,” “on whom,” and “for whom.”
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Parallel Construction
Parallel constructions, or series of like sentence elements, are common in good writing.
Compound structures link many different parts of speech such as words, phrases, dependent
clauses, or even sentences, together. All of the separate elements of a parallel structure must
match the others and have the same grammatical function. When the items in the parallel
structure do not match, the syntax of the sentence is lost.
Incorrect: The group visited the Student Union, the Library, and had lunch at
Marketplace.
Correct: The group visited the Student Union and the Library, and had lunch at
Marketplace.
The example illustrates how the syntax of the sentence is lost when the series is not in
parallel structure.
In a parallel series of prepositional phrases, every element needs to repeat the same
preposition. A common error occurs when writers let two or more phrases share a single
preposition and then inserts a different preposition for one element somewhere within the
sequence.
Correlative conjunctions such as either-or, neither-nor, both-and, and not only-but also
and some adverb pairs such as where-there, as-so, and if-then must join grammatically parallel
sentence elements. A common error occurs when the first correlative term is in the wrong
position.
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Incorrect: I’d like to either go to Jimmy John’s or else to get something to eat in the
library.
Correct: I’d like either to go to Jimmy John’s or else to get something to eat in the
library.
If an auxiliary verb appears before a series of verb phrases, it must apply to all of them. A
common error is to include on phrase that takes a different auxiliary verb. In the first example,
“to” precedes “either,” when it should proceed “Jimmy John’s” because that is where you are
going.
Incorrect: The assignment would teach students about writing, help them understand
collaboration, and has proved to improve writing skills.
Correct: The assignment would teach students about writing, help them understand
collaboration, and improve writing skills.
It is important to maintain parallel structure in all sentences for them to be syntactically
correct, and for the reader to understand the message the writer is conveying with the sentence.
In the first example, “and has improved” is not introduced until the end of the sentence. This
causes the audience to lose focus and ask themselves if the rest of the sentence is expected to
improve writing skills as well. In the first example however, each element of the assignment is
elaborated on in its own way in a coordinated manner, allowing the reader to follow the activity
in the sentence.
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Clichés
Avoid using clichés at all. The reader is not likely to think it’s funny, nor will it make an
impression. Clichés often have the opposite effect. The reader is more likely to gloss over the
phrase because they have heard it many times before, and lose their place in the text. Clichés are
often difficult to avoid in some kinds of writing. For example, business writing has an entire
vocabulary of buzz words, but these sayings do nothing to demonstrate the writer’s thoughts and
may go as far as damaging the writer’s credibility with the reader if the reader imagines the
writer is taking the easy way out by using a buzz term instead of mechanically explain the issue.
Some clichés to avoid in business writing include:

At the end of the day…

Bring to the table

Face time

Outside the box

In terms of

Low hanging fruit

Going forward

Marketing blast
The larger list of clichés and buzzwords is continually growing. As a writer, it is
acceptable to copy other writer’s ideas, but never copy another’s writing.
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Idioms
Idioms are similar to clichés. They can be defined as cultural catch phrases that defy literal
logic. For example, if someone tells an actor to “go break a leg,” it is not meant in the literal
fashion, but because it is a part of our culture, many readers will gloss over the illogical nature of
idioms and understand the meaning. In formal writing, idioms should be avoided. Similar to the
case of clichés, a good writer should be able to state what they are thinking without resorting to a
cultural catch phrase.
Another danger of using idioms is that they may not translate into other languages or
cultures. For example, if you think your document may be translated into Japanese, the Japanese
reader may think you want to break the actor’s leg instead of wishing them good luck. Similar
things can happen with idioms of cultures that are closer to our own. For example, if your British
friend tells you that he is “pissed” there is a good chance that he is not angry, but he’s drunk.
The tricky thing about idioms is that some of them are so natural in our everyday speech,
they may be difficult to identify in text. Examples of common idioms are:

Ran like hell

Kicked the bucket

Piece of cake

Slap on the wrist

Beat around the bush

Got up on the wrong side of the bed
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Visual Cues
Many writers will use visual cues in order to highlight important content in their text. For
example, boldface and italics are used in the content of this text. There are times when visual
cues may be necessary to enhance your work, but try to avoid them completely. If you want a
certain part of your text to stick out from the rest, make it stick out with your writing instead of
with formatting. If the information is absolutely imperative, try to place it at the beginning of a
page. Most readers naturally draw their eyes to the top left hand corner of a page. The same
applies to paragraphs and sentences. Put your most valuable information in the beginning of the
paragraph or the beginning of the sentence. These are the locations that if used correctly can
dictate the power and importance of the piece.
Different kinds of overused visual miscues are boldface, underline, and the dreaded allcaps. Often times these techniques draw more attention to the rudeness and unprofessionalism of
the author than they do the words that they are attempting to highlight. Think of all the
memorable writers in English history. Over the last thousand years writers have been able to
construct memorable prose vis- à -vis memorable prose, and not by using 18-point typeface.
Computer Grammar Check
The golden rule for spelling and grammar check programs are, don’t let the computer do
your writing. These functions are incredibly helpful, as everyone is guilty of the occasional typo,
but many word processing programs will attempt to completely rewrite your sentences or
paragraphs. The computer is a machine, it does not know more than you do, nor does it have any
possible way of knowing what you are trying to communicate in your sentence. For example,
these programs are notorious for trying to insert semi-colons at every possible opportunity. As
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we have discussed in this chapter, writing is often times more of a stylistic choice than a concrete
set of rules. If you allow the word processing program to insert semi-colons all over your
document, your style has just been chosen for you—and poorly chosen at that.
Spell check functions and word processing programs have gotten better over the years, but
they are not infallible. For example, you may want to use the word “affect,” but your
spellchecker may decide that “effect” would be the proper word within the context. Again, this is
a helpful feature, but the computer program may miss something in context and mistakenly place
the wrong word in. Another major problem with spell-check programs is the auto-correct
function. This is a handy feature that corrects misspellings on the fly. You may type “he” and it
will insert a “t” to form the correct “the.” The vulnerability with this is you may have wanted to
say “he,” “HE,” or “H.E.”
Self-correcting word processing programs are necessary tools for most writers today. We
must keep in mind that our word processors are only tools, much like a pen or a pencil, they
cannot and should not write without the hand of the author.
Summary
English is a diverse language with many powerful tools and techniques to convey speech.
Parallel construction, voice, adjectives, and adverbs all contribute to the success of the writing
and contribute to the clarity with which your readers will understand you. By understanding all
of these techniques, as well as the techniques that should not be followed, the quality of your
writing can improve in academic as well as other types of professional life.
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6
Writing for the Internet
Writing for the Internet is a work in progress. The Internet is a world where rules can be
remade, bent, or outright broken. Despite the freedom of speech the Internet offers, fundamental
rules of grammar, style, and rhetoric still apply. There have been very few style guides that deal
entirely with writing for the internet. Writing style on the web, like the technology of the
Internet, are in a constant state of progression. This allows for an existing platform of textual
rhetoric to be combined with visual and audible rhetoric as well.
During the infancy of the Internet, the writing styles mostly mimicked what readers and
writers had become accustomed to in the “brick and mortar” world. Most web pages were written
in either AP or MLA style with light use of graphics, fonts, and backgrounds. As the needs of
web users have changed, writers have altered their style to meet these needs. For example, a web
user in the late 1980’s was most likely resorting to the Internet for information that had been
directly transposed from a hard copy book or magazine. Books and microfilm were primary
sources for information so web pages needed to do very little in order to match the quality
offered by other sources. As technology progressed, so did the needs and expectations of web
users. Today, most users will not read a page, they will scan it for several seconds and decide if
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that page will meet their needs or not. The need of web users to be supplied with information
quickly, clearly, and attractively has changed the way we write for the web.
The challenge writing for the web is to keep pages professional while maintaining the
interest of the audience. Because most pages are written informally, using slang terms and
abbreviations, it is often hard to keep up with information. Additionally, some pages can
bombard the user with ads and bright colors that seem out of place. Clever use of document
design is the key to keep web pages looking modern and fresh while still useable. Technology
has developed over time, we can now enhance the writing on our web pages with graphics and
the principles of design to emphasize the text we want to stand out and minimize the effect other
text might have. The high cost of paper and ink are not factors when writing for the web, this
allows authors much more freedom than with printed text. Freedom does come with a price.
There are specific rules that apply when writing for the Internet that may not make a difference
to printed documents.
The Audience of the Internet
Your audience is the first thing you should consider. As a writer it is your first and
foremost priority to be an advocate for your audience. Before your first word is written, it is
paramount to have a good understanding of whom you are writing to and what they expect from
you. It is important to choose a writing style that will have the most positive effect on your
reader. For example, you would not use the same writing style for a website designed to sell
skateboards as you would a website dedicated to academic research. Both audiences have
different needs and expectations. In Guide to Style and Grammar, Jack Lynch uses the analogy
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that writing style is like clothing style. As outdated as many clothing styles may be (a jacket and
tie for example), those styles are expected in certain situations. You would not wear your
pajamas to a job interview, nor should you use slang terms on a website targeted at an academic
audience. The Internet is a completely open forum, so you may find blogs or forums where slang
and profanity are accepted and encouraged. If this is the case, think of yourself as hanging out in
a nightclub with your friends. The trick is to know how to “dress” your writing for each
occasion. When thinking of your audience, it is important to remember that the Internet is a
highly mobile entity where anything you type can be seen or shared by others.
When writing for a hard-copy publication, you already know what format your text will
be displayed on. When writing for the web, your text may be displayed on a 40 inch monitor or a
4 inch cell phone. It is important to consider how and where your audience will use your
information. For example, if you are writing a manual about IRS tax code, there is a strong
chance that your audience will be viewing your document on a full size monitor in an office, but
if you are writing an instruction manual about how to assemble a camping tent, you must
understand that your text may be viewed on a cell phone or portable reader. In this case, it is
necessary to make each sentence as clear and concise as possible to allow your reader to easily
use your document. Good writing doesn’t have to be grammatically perfect, but it does have to
be perfectly clear. The only way to be perfectly clear is to know what your audience expects of
you.
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Internet Writing Styles
Sentence Length / Directness
People tend to read differently on the web than they do on hard copy. Many times a fuzzy
computer monitor is not as clear and crisp as hard copy print. People tend to scan the web to find
the information that they are looking for. If they cannot find any relevant information in the first
few seconds, they are likely to navigate to another page. Unlike a chapter in a book, a web reader
is likely to only scan headings, subheadings, and hyperlinks in order to decide if the web page
will meet their needs. There is more of a tendency for someone on the web to quickly scroll
through and jump around to different pages.
The best thing to remember about writing for the web is “shorter is better.” Many
experienced writers will tell you, it is more difficult to write what you want to say in 300 words
than it is to write the same thing in 1,000 words. There are many strategies that will help you
make your writing more concise and make your web document more successful.
Shorter is Better
Writers often have the tendency to begin a document with an introductory paragraph. As
writers, we are taught to do this from the time we learn how to write. When we first learn the
form of the “five paragraph essay,” we are taught to write an introduction and/or a thesis.
Internet readers are primarily concerned in the information that they are seeking. They are
usually not interested in the author’s impressions or theories about the subject. A good idea is to
cut out the introductory paragraph and replace that with an entertaining introduction sentence.
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Don’t be afraid to insert some personality and flair into the introduction sentence. This is a
technique that newspaper journalists have been using for years. The more attention your first
sentence attracts, the more likely the reader is to keep reading the document.
K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid)
If you are authoring a document on any subject, it is assumed by the reader that you know
something they don’t. The point is, they know you’re smart, so there’s no need to keep proving
it. Avoid overly complex words, metaphors, and concepts. There is no need to use four syllable
words that have one-syllable synonyms. The more often the reader has to stop, the more often
you give the reader a chance to navigate away from your page.
If You Can Cut a Word, Cut it
If you can take a word (or a sentence) out of the document, don’t be afraid to do it. In
first drafts, it is common for writers to use unnecessary modifiers or descriptive verbs. For
example, words like “very,” “more,” and “really,” can almost always be deleted. This practice
may seem like something small, but if you can delete all the unnecessary adjectives and adverbs
from a document, the length will be dramatically reduced. A nice trick is to go through the
document and delete all the modifiers. If the sentence still makes sense, go with it.
Be Direct
Readers on the web are usually hunting for specific information. They do not want to
have to wade through pages of text in order to find what they need. For example, if you are
writing an article on building an engine, start the article with “The best way to build an engine
is…” You may find that it would be helpful for the reader to know the history of the internal
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combustion engine with a short biography of Henry Ford. This may very well be the case, but
you have to remember that what you want the reader to know and what the reader actually wants
to know may be different things. There are numerous documents and videos on the Internet that
will give your reader the information they are looking for in a quick and concise manner if you
cannot provide the information they require. The best strategy to prevent this is to pretend that
your article is a bulleted list. Follow the bullets of your article without putting superfluous
information or “padding” in the document.
Inverted Pyramid Style
Image your story is an upside down pyramid. Put the most important information first,
then go down the layers of the pyramid by putting the less important information towards the
bottom of the document. Journalists have been using this technique for decades. An advantage
this writing style gives the writer is the reader can stop reading the document at any time and
come away with an understanding of what it’s about.
Fig. 1 Illustrates the pyramid technique
By using this style, you can include information you think is valuable at the end, and
front-load the document with the most valuable information. For example, if you are writing an
article on a baseball game, start with the “who, what, when, where, why, and how,” and if you
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feel it is worth noting that it was raining and the visiting team has never played on artificial turf,
you can include that information at the end without alienating the readers who may simply be
looking for the score of the game.
Text and Background Color
The readability of your writing is as important of the content of the writing itself. Your
goal as a writer should be to clearly communicate your thoughts or ideas to the reader. If the
content is visually irritating, the reader will often stop reading. If this case, you fail as a writer
not by your text, but by its readability.
The contrasting relationship between text and background is an area particularly
important to the Internet because there are far more options for production. When dealing with
hard copy print, it would be entirely too expensive to produce white text on a black field. The ink
cost of the black field would make the document impractical. However, because of the numerous
options of fonts and colors that the Internet provides, many authors have chosen to get creative
and use contrasts that make their text difficult to read.
There will be times you will make exceptions to these rules. For example, it may be
suitable to put red text on a black background if you are only using it for superfluous
information. If you are dealing with “body” text or text that should stand out, it is important to
follow a few standard conventions:
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
Dark text on a dark background. Think of black text on a white background of being your
standard. Any color modifications that you make should mimic this contrast scheme.

Avoid light, thin lettering on a dark background.

Avoid same-color contrasts. Dark green lettering on a light green text may fit into the
visual concept of your website, it will make the text seem invisible on the page.
The contrast scheme most fitting for the human eye is black print on a white background.
By using this contrast scheme you are able to fully showcase your typeface and make letter
recognition very easy for the reader. The opposite of this color scheme is white letters on a black
background. This scheme is also easy to read because of the extreme contrast, but the typeface of
white letters tend to slightly blur into the grey areas of the background. Many typefaces are
extremely intricate. For example, if you use a serif text on a black background, some of the
subtle “flags” or serifs of the individual letter may be blurred out.
Font and Size
Much like problems with color and contrast, problems with font and size are encountered
largely because of the thousands of options that an author has in the online universe. Just because
you have a font on your word processing program does not mean it will show up that way on
someone else’s web-browser. Microsoft, Macintosh, and Unix browsers all have font lists that
they support. Commonly recognized fonts for Microsoft and Macintosh browsers include:

Arial
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
Comic Sans

Georgia

Impact

Lucida Console

New Times Roman

Tahoma

Trebuchet

Verdana
Different fonts serve a wide variety of usages. Of the standard Microsoft and Macintosh
browser fonts, none are particularly unreadable by themselves, but in context some are difficult
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to read. For example, a large block of text written in “Impact” font is very dark and pushed
together. This is not advisable for longer blocks of text.
Fonts like Impact can be useful for headings, but for body text fonts like New Times
Roman or Georgia are more similar to what most of us are used to reading in books and
newspapers. This allows your readers eyes to effortlessly scan the text without having to stop.
The goal is to make reading the text as easy as possible for the reader. For this reason it is also
considered poor style to make your characters in all bold, italics, or caps.
An aspect of font that often goes overlooked is serif. There are two types of fonts, serif and
sans serif. A serif, or a “flag” is simply a small, stylized stroke that appears of the tops and
bottoms of the letters. Serif typeface is so popular that most readers don’t even notice it.

Serif

San Serif
The million-dollar question becomes, if it’s almost too small to notice, why should we
care? Even though readers may not consciously notice serifs on your typeface, there are
subconscious tendencies and associations to both kinds of typeface. Serif fonts are popular in
“body” text. Readers associate serif fonts with organized text such as newspaper articles. Sans
serif fonts have been found to draw the reader’s eyes downward, making them useful for use in
tables and lists.
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Changing up the fonts on a web page will greatly improve the usability. Varying font
size, density, color, and even type of font will make a huge difference. To make text stand out,
the first thing that comes to mind is changing the size, then making it bold, then perhaps making
it all capitals or some other way of distinguishing its importance. A webpage can still look
professional and convey valuable information while maintaining creativity, which is something
to keep in mind when writing for the web. But be careful, because there are lots of fun elements
of text that should not be utilized. For instance, the “shadow” features on Microsoft Word and
outline, designs that could be found in WordArt, are too distracting and detract from readability.
Graphics are a great tool that can greatly enhance web pages and technical documents, but
should not be overused or used in a way that could be considered tacky.
Alignment within text is important as well. On web pages, you can align text to wrap
around an image or exclusively border the left or right hand side of the page. Depending on the
look you are going for, alignment can be very crucial to the success of your document’s success.
The most important considerations for text on the web are legibility, readability, and usability.
Legibility refers not only to the structure of the text itself, but the spacing, sentence length, and
paragraph length. Legibility affects readability more than the actual font itself. The space
between letters and how far apart they are from each other can be a factor of font choice, but in
general, readability will come from good formatting. Usability refers to the final results a user
gets out of a document. Were they able to find what they needed? Were they able to use what
they found to help them accomplish their task?
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Finally, consider the following elements of a website: Site title, page title, headings,
individual paragraphs or content, and hyperlinks. Some documents may even have tables, lists,
or captions like the ones found within this document bordering the images. Websites and
technical documents are different, but a technical document may be posted on the web so these
considerations are important to remember.
Presentation of Documents on the Internet
Some may find it difficult to believe that in the past slide projectors and cardboard
graphics were the main tool available for presentations. Today, giving an effective online
presentation has never been easier. First, we have a lot of software such as Microsoft PowerPoint
that has made easier give presentations online. Also tools like Google Docs, Dim Dim, and
WebEx Meeting from Cisco make technology easy to use so that writers can focus on content
rather than technology.
Tables are a good way to organize information on the Internet. The familiar look of tables
make them appealing to many readers. Tables come in different sizes and have different colors to
make the information in them stand out. The difference in using tables on the internet versus in
printed text is navigation. The ability to “scroll” through a page is something printed books do
not offer. In hard copy print, a table must fit the size of the page, or otherwise run onto the next
page. This can cut out information, and be confusing to use for the reader. Internet tables are not
confined to the special restrictions that exist in hard copy, therefore they are able to present an
enormous amount of information in a relatively small space.
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Fig. 2: An example of a table that scrolls through what would be multiple pages of written text.
Figure 3: Continuation of the table from above and another, two row table
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Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
The most predominate document type used on the Internet is HyperText Markup
Language (HTML). This markup language uses elements to build the layout and design of the
web document. Each element is written in the form of a tag which is enclosed in angle brackets
(like <html>). The Internet Browser the reader is using to view the documents uses these tags.
It is important that a member of your writing team understands the technical requirements
of creating an HTML document and styling that document. HTML alone started without any
text-formatting features. Over the years, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) evolved to address this
issue. Like style sheets used in traditional book production, CSS allow definition of the
appearance and layout of text and other material display on an HTML document. CSS can be
internal (contained within an HTML document) or external (linked to from an HTML
document). The benefit of having site-wide CSS in an external file, is that changes can be made
to the style of the document in one change, instead of on each document, which can be both time
consuming and inaccurate.
HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive
documents, which contain objects such as forms. It also allows for structured documents
containing text formatting like headings, paragraphs, quotes, links, lists, and many other items.
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
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Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a set of rules for encoding a document so that an
Internet Browser can display data to a user. XML is common for the exchange of data over the
Internet. The files include tags that describe a title, author, date, or headings. The most important
aspect of XML is style sheets, which are digital projections that tell the computer who to display
different types of metatags. The easiest way to think of a metatag is to think of text appearing
one way as one font on screen but in another font when actually printed. The metatags tell the
computer to print as a different font. XML has different “languages,” one of which is RSS. An
example of an RSS feed would be the social networking site, Twitter. In order to produce XML,
one must be familiar with programming. But all can benefit from the uses of XML.
Fig 4: An example of simple XML coding
Portable Document Files (PDFs)
PDF stands for Portable Document File. PDFs were developed by Adobe, who created
Acrobat, a special suite just for PDF files. A PDF can be viewed either on screen through the
Adobe Acrobat Reader application or online if the Acrobat Reader plug-in is installed on the
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user’s web browser. A PDF can contain text and images, as well as other interactive features
such as check boxes, fill in forms, and page numbering. From a PDF file a user can search, print,
and highlight and copy and paste text if it is a version of Acrobat that allows hypertext.
Fig 5: An example of a PDF found on the UCF webpage. Note the key features: search, table of contents, print, and
zoom in and out keys
A user can save a Microsoft Word Document as a PDF file, then upload it to share with
team members or co-workers to share a more professional, finished looking product than just a
plain Word document. A PDF can’t be edited by anyone else once they download it and the
unsightly red lines for typos or under unusual last names, green lines for grammar mistakes, and
formatting symbols will disappear. Also, Adobe Photoshop documents can be saved as PDF
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files, either as just an image or an image with text.
PDFs have proven to be one of the most usable ways to communicate documents over the
web. PDFs bridge the gap between the screen and print. The convenient thing about PDFs is that
they can be printed in almost exactly the way they appear online or on the screen, which
correlates to how they appear online in virtually the same manner as they do in Microsoft Word.
PDFs can also be beneficial to those who have trouble reading things on the screen as there is a
zoom in and out feature that can enlarge the text to a comfortable size.
Summary
Writing for the web can be very different from writing in other formats, but it still
incorporates many of the same concepts that are common in print documents. From the early
stages of the Internet were documents resembled their printed counterparts, the documents were
simple, but as the technological background of the Internet evolved and the systems used to
access these electronic documents became more widespread, the style of electronic documents
changed allowing for the existing platform of textual rhetoric to be combined with visual and
audible rhetoric. With technology always changing, there are common standards for digital
distribution of documents, such as PDF files, and the standards for website pages using HTML,
but the constant changing of devices, browsers, and screen sizes make writing for the web an ongoing project. In the end, this allows the writers to instantly make changes to the way your
audience views the information you are presenting, which can help keep your audience engaged
with the information you are presenting.
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7
Visual Rhetoric
When working on document design, visual rhetoric must be considered. Visual rhetoric is
a theory that describes how visual images are used to communicate, by taking into account
the visual design and the words of a document. Visual rhetoric can be further broken down into
two main ideas: using visual rhetoric for persuasion and in terms of usability.
Visual Rhetoric as Persuasion
When considering using visual rhetoric for a persuasive purpose, most people can relate
to advertising. The whole idea behind advertising is to persuade a person or persons to either
use or purchase a product. This is done by showing or explaining the key selling points of the
product, while not mentioning any of the product’s negative aspects or selling points. Consider
the following advertisement, created by the “Got Milk?” brand. This advertisement uses visual
rhetoric to express the idea that by drinking milk, you can become strong like The Hulk. Even
though The Hulk is a comic book character, most people viewing this advertisement will be
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able to identify the character and be familiar with how strong he is. It doesn’t matter that he’s a
fictional character, or that he has no authority or expertise in regards to the benefits of drinking
milk. By analyzing this image, what you're really doing is analyzing visual rhetoric. This can be
interpreted as the way the image works by itself, or how it can be combined with other written
text to create an argument designed to move a targeted audience.
Figure V-1: By applying the signature “milk mustache” to The Hulk, viewers of this advertisement are meant to
interpret the connection between milk and strength (About the Brand).
Visual rhetoric is also used in more modern applications, such as web pages and
computer software. In the snapshot of Quicken’s website, it’s easy to see the importance of
visual rhetoric. Quicken is a company that sells computer software to manage personal
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finances. Millions of people use Quicken or similar products to help manage taxes or other
financial needs, as it provides a simple and easy interface for the user. The Quicken website
itself doesn’t have much functionality besides selling the company’s product, but it still plays
an important role in welcoming visitors to the site.
Figure
V-2: Quicken’s website serves as a portal for informing users of its services, as well as trying to
persuade them into purchasing the software (Quicken).
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The main purpose of the Quicken website is to sell their product, and this is done by
applying the three aspects of rhetoric. Ethos is used by encouraging people that their website
and company is hip and popular. Next, logos are demonstrated by providing visitors to the site
with a clear and simple design that highlights the main selling points. Finally, pathos is applied
to help persuade visitors that purchasing Quicken is a smart decision that will ease away the
tension involved with managing finances.
Visual Rhetoric as User-Centered Design
The premise behind using visual rhetoric as a user-centered design is that successful visual
rhetoric requires a design that helps users to fulfill their own needs and agendas. In order to be
successful in this aspect, it requires the designer or communicator to fully understand the
audience. Since the design is going to be tailored to the user, having a complete understanding of
the audience will produce the best result. The main goal is to create a document with good
usability, which means that a document has a successful user-centered design.
To get a better understanding of the desired audience, there are two possible approaches:
user research and usability testing. User research is used if you're trying to find out more from
the user, in order to get a more complete understanding of the audience. For example, a survey
may be given to individuals regarding relevant issues related to the document. Or users may be
put into a focus group and gather information that way.
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This differs from usability testing, where the main focus isn't asking the audience
directly, but rather by asking them to perform a task related to the document. For example, if
you're doing usability testing for a website, the user could be asked to navigate through different
pages in order to find a specific piece of information. The purpose of this is to better gauge the
document rather than the individual users. According to Jakob Nielsen, one of user-centered
design’s most prominent proponents, there are five main variables that define usability.
1. Learnability: The quality of the document that allows users to figure out how to use it.
Users are likely to find more success with documents that are easy to learn.
2. Efficiency: The ease and speed with which users can use the document. A document
users find efficient to use is one they’ll probably use more effectively.
3. Memorability: How well the document helps users become habituated to its means of
use. A memorable document is more likely to be used and used effectively.
4. Error avoidance: How well the document helps users avoid errors – particularly
navigational errors – and recover gracefully when they happen.
5. Subjective satisfaction: How well the document convinces users of its utility. If the
document fulfills a need, users will trust it and use it repeatedly.
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Graphics
Graphics will undoubtedly be a part of most documents, so it's import to use them
effectively. There are generally two main functions of graphics: to show information and to
influence the audience through visual rhetoric. It's important to only use graphics to show ideas
or information rather than to tell. However, graphics can still include some text to help the user
understand a certain graphic (Kimball, 199-201).
The University of Central Florida has certain graphic standards that need to be followed
whenever the UCF logo or emblem is being used. The Pegasus logo has strict guidelines about
how it can and should be displayed. The specific guidelines can be found in the UCF Graphic
Standards & Brand Book.
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Visual Perception and Visual Culture
The relationship between visual perception and visual culture can be easily identified.
According to Irving Biederman's Geon theory, basic shapes such as cylinders, cones, blocks, or
wedges make up all images. By further assembling these basic shapes together, more complex
shapes are formed. So according to this theory, everybody will see the same thing when looking
at an image. It's then up to an individual's own cultural and social factors to influence how that
person perceives an image. Consider the following image, and how a person's culture influences
how the image is perceived. To almost all people, it's clear that the plant and bird have dual
meanings. They first represent themselves, as a fern leaf and bird. These are chosen because the
audience as something that can be seen at the garden being advertised perceives them. The other
meaning is to act as part of the word as the letter C and an apostrophe. Without education or
experience, the audience may not perceive this second meaning.
Specific images must also be considered when a document is to be used in different
cultures. If a document contains an image of someone giving the thumbs up, it can be perceived
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differently depending on a person's culture. Because of this, it's very important to recognize
your intended audience and use the appropriate images.
Lists and Tables
Lists, tables and forms have rhetorical power and can visually show a relationship
between two sets of data. Lists should be used to show a similarity between two or more items
or to give instructions to complete a task.
Lists
Lists are easy to read an allow users to get the facts without having to study a paragraph.
Users often complain about the density of information that is expressed in sentences and
paragraphs, but they feel much more comfortable about the same information arranged in a list.
Paragraphs can cause user fatigue and inattention (Kimbal).
The following two images illustrate the differences between paragraph and list style. In Figure L1, a property manager describes his responsibilities in paragraph form. Figure L-2 describes the
same responsibilities in list form.
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Figure L-1: Responsibilities in Paragraph Form (Kimbal)
Figure L-2: Responsibilities in List form (Kimbal)
List Structure
Any data that can be represented in a list should be. Lists with an inherent order, such as
the alphabetical list of names, should be listed in that order. Users may expect lists such as a list
of names to be in alphabetical order or a list of dates to be in chronological order. Users may
find it confusing to navigate an unordered list that should inherently follow a specific order.
Most lists do not follow any particular order; in this case, a bulleted list should be used. A
bulleted list contains two rhetorical strategies: first, because of the location of the bulleted list
within a solid block of text, the pattern heightens the textual elements it contains; and second,
the parallelism among the items in the pattern assigns equal value to each item (Kosteinick).
Example List Heading

Lists must contain a heading that expresses the main principle of the list

Lists must contain a minimum of two entries

Lists must have a left alignment to work successfully
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
Lists should not be longer than 7-9 entries to avoid user fatigue

Entries can be short as in words or phrases or long as in sentences or paragraphs

Entries must relate in a logical manner

Entries’ punctuation and grammar must be parallel
Figure L-3: Lists must have a reference number and description
In-Text List Structure
In-text lists should use an asyndeton scheme. An asyndeton scheme consists of
deliberately omitting conjunctions between words and phrases. The omission of a conjunction
between short phrases gives the impression of synonymy to the phrases (Harris).
Asyndeton example in a list of school supplies:
Bring paper, pens, pencils, erasers and a calculator to class tomorrow.
Example of asyndeton from the US Declaration of Independence:
We must... hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.
Long Lists
If the data being presented is longer than 7-9 entries, lists should be subdivided into
smaller sub-lists. When subdividing lists, the sub-lists must be logically related. As in the
example below, the long list of menu items is broken down into a hierarchical, subdivided list
comprised of ‘Appetizers’, ‘Entries’, ‘Sides’ and ‘Drinks’ and the menu items are all placed
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under their respective categories. Dynamic lists, when applicable, allow users to click a small
arrow to drop down the list items that would otherwise be hidden. This allows the list to be
smaller and more concise while still containing all the information of the long, undivided list.
When subdividing lists, each level should have a different appearance to help users distinguish
between them. For example, the top level of the list hierarchy should be the largest font size,
possibly bolded; the next level should be indented, a smaller font size, and standard weight.
Hierarchical lists should not contain more than two or three levels (Kimbal).
The following figure illustrates the differences between long, undivided lists, subdivided lists,
and dynamic lists.
Long, Undivided List
Subdivided List
Dynamic List
Chips & salsa
Appetizers
►
Appetizers
▼
Entries
Fried cheese sticks
Hamburger
Chips & salsa
Fried cheese sticks
Hamburger
BLT
Chicken-fried steak
Grilled chicken breast
Green beans
BLT
Chicken-fried Steak
Entrees
Hamburger
Grilled chicken breast
BLT
►
Sides
Chicken-fried steak
►
Drinks
French fries
Side salad
Grilled chicken
Sodas
breast
Coffee
Tea
Sides
Green beans
French fries
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Side salad
Drinks
Sodas
Coffee
Tea
Figure L-3: Grouping items increases usability (Kimbal)
Tables
Tables are, in some ways, lists that contain a larger amount of information in two
dimensions instead of just one multiplying the possible relationships that can be implied between
entries. When using a table the principles of design must be used to show the user the
relationships within the table. A table is requited to have three parts, rows, columns, and cells.
Column heads to describe the data in each column are also helpful, but not required (Kimbal).
Table Structure
Each table must have a title to introduce the topic of the table. See table T-1 for an
example of how tables should be formatted.
Aircraft Operational Speeds (Knots)
Stall speed, flaps down (Vao)
Piper
Cessna
Cherokee
Skyhawk
180
172
50
40
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Stall speed, flaps up (Va1)
58
48
Rotation speed (Vr)
48
55
Best angle of climb (Vx)
64
62
Best rate of climb (Vy)
74
72
Flap extension speed (Vfa)
100
85*
Maneuvering speed (Va)
94
98**
Highest speed in smooth air (Vno)
122
129
Never exceed speed (Vne)
149
163
*(110 for 10 Degrees of flaps)
** At 2200 lbs. gross weight
Table T-1: Example table (Kimbal)
The table’s column heads should have a black fill with white text. Empty column head cells
should also be filled black. Unless absolutely necessary, tables should have only outside
borders. Data rows should alternate a light gold fill color to help users distinguish between the
rows when accessing data.
Typography
Typography is the practice of designing documents with type. It is often overlooked
during the process of creating documents, when in fact it is essential to making successful
documents. Good typographic design gives users important clues about the structure of the
document, the purpose of design objects, and the ethos of the organization that created the
document.
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Headings
Use headings to break a document down into sections and subsections. Headings allow
the users to skim the document efficiently and find what they are looking for. Common
practices for using headings:

Design headings of different size to show the logical hierarchy of the document

Design headings of equal level the same

Only one instance of Heading 1 for each document

No gaps in the hierarchy such as jumps from Heading 3 to Heading 5

Capitalize only proper nouns and the first word of the heading
Drop caps
Drop caps create a greater distinction at the beginning of a document or chapter. Drop
caps will guide the user to the proper location to start reading.

Drop caps must be placed in the opening paragraph of a new document or new
chapter

Only one drop cap can be used per document/chapter

The top of the drop cap must align with the top of the following text
Numbers
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Express numbers in figures or words. Never use a numeral at the beginning of a
sentence. Always spell out numbers less than 10 unless accompanied by a unit of measurement
or decimal place.
Numerals: “5 mm”
Words: “six people”
Any number greater than 9999 must be separated with commas.
Correct: “The rock weighed 25,500 pounds”
Correct: “I just ate 1000 oysters”
Abbreviations
Most abbreviations should be written without full stops. If an abbreviation is being used
for the first time in a document, give the full meaning of abbreviation, unless it is so familiar
that this is unnecessary. (e.g. USA). When an abbreviation can be pronounced, (FEMA) the
definite article is not necessary. When it cannot be pronounced, (the USA) include the definite
article.
Italic
Use italic when referencing a book, magazine, newspaper, or periodical. Italics should be
used for emphasis or for quotations set apart from the text. It should not be used for quotations
set in the text.
Capitalization
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Always capitalize any mention of a specific figure or table. Do not capitalize words for
emphasis. Instead, italicize the word.
Capitals should be used for:

names

nationalities

names of organizations

formal titles of officers

titles of publications, formal documents, and events
Typeface
To ensure a consistent identity standard, make sure all typefaces adhere to university
standards. The University of Central Florida uses the typeface Americana for all makings of
the UCF logo or marking. Any other text or content within the page or document must use a
contrasting typeface.
Color
Color is viewed the same worldwide, however, the way it is perceived varies from person
to person. Many times one color will hold different meanings depending on your cultural
background. Despite this ambiguity, color plays a vital role in designing successful documents.
Color can convey meaning, imply value, and attract attention thought the document.
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Official colors
Color is as important to a graphic as the actual image itself. The official colors of The
University of Central Florida are black and gold.
Precise color matching can be difficult depending on the medium. Translation of the color black
is universal, but the color gold is often translated inconsistently. To ensure consistency, the
following PMS colors are recommended for use:
PMS 874 – Metallic gold (image)
PMS 7406 – Non-metallic gold (image)
Similarity and contrast
One way to create color schemes within your document is to utilize the principles of
similarity and contrast. Similarly colored elements will give the user the impression that those
elements share the same function or purpose. Contrasted elements create emphasis and
dissociate themselves from other elements in the design.
Colors can be similar or contrast in four different ways:

Hue

Saturation

Brightness

Temperature
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Any of these four-color characteristics can be contrasted individually or combined to make
strong color contrast between elements. Likewise, these characteristics can be kept relatively
close to show similarity, coherence, and unity among the elements within your document.
Monochromatic and Analogous
Monochromatic and analogous schemes are well suited for designs restricted by cost or
production. These schemes are concentrated around one hue, thus eliminating possibilities for
contrasted elements.
Page Design
When taking into consideration a documents page design, the most effective and welldesigned documents are the ones that take the target audience as the profound impact on how
the design will look to appeal to the interest of the audience. Different needs and purposes of a
document alter essentially how the design as a whole will look. Below are the main key points
that make up a documents design and how each topic shifts the appeal of the audience based on
the documents purpose.
Color
The overall color scheme of a document design is very important depending on the target
audience. A document involving donating to helpless animals will not be based on dark and
gloomy colors, and a document speaking of vampires will not have bright vivid colors. Certain
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colors do have an emotional impact on the audience. This goes back to effectively appealing
the target audience in what they expect to see.
Images
The correct use of images or photographs used throughout a document should appeal to
the target audience. Visual representations of a document plays a huge role in effectively
getting a point across or presenting a point that in other words can’t be explained in words.
Content
One of the obvious factors in an audiences appeal is the actual content presented within
the document. The use of humor, tone of voice, language, and facts should be consistent with
the interest of the readers. The amount of content should be influenced by the audience as well.
An informative document should focus its content on facts and quotes to help the reader learn
as much as possible, whereas a website of a famous singer should have more images and music
as the main appeal to its audience.
Page Grid
Chances are that you have come across documents that, while full of excellent content,
are almost impossible to read because of the poorly constructed layout. Making the format of
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your document visually clear and consistent from page to page is just as important as getting
the content right. If you go through the pages of any book on your bookshelf, or any major
news website you will notice how the bodies of text all line up, and that the header, footer, and
margins are the same on each page. That’s the grid. It’s not there only for aesthetic reasons.
Having a clean, organized layout means your readers don’t need to do as much work to find
things on the page or to make sense of the content they see. A grid also lets you focus on what
you’re writing, instead of trying to figure out where to put things on the page.
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