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Seshet, Egyptian goddess of writing, click picture to buy[/caption]
If you can master this brief list of the essential knowledge elements of English composition. It is trickier than it may look. This list was developed by Dr. Oliver D. Hensley and I some years past. I was interested in its application as an education aid for college-level composition courses, while Hensley was interested in using it as a piece of his taxonomy of the essential knowledge elements of each field of study. Dr, Hensley posits that all fields of knowledge could be categorized, organized and stored in cyberspace most efficiently if those fields are distilled into their essential elements. Long before Google, Dr. Hensley believed that all knowledge stored in cyberspace should be accessible with no more than 12 keystrokes.
Now, what are these knowledge elements good for? All writing, from the word level to the most lofty academic treatise, can be efficaciously produced if the writer knows the meaning of each of these terms. Writers with an interest in writing contests, scientific writing, writing blogs, or even just journal writing or creative writing, just about any writer writing anything, can get the job done well and efficiently if s/he first masters this list!
Essential Knowledge Elements (EKE’s) for Efficacy in English Composition
- Abstract and abstract
- Acronym
- Alliteration
- Anagram
- Antonym
- Audience/purpose
- Bibliography
- Cadence/Rhythm
- Cause and Effect Analysis
- Citation
- Clarity
- Classification/Division
- Cliché
- Coherence
- Colon
- Comma
- Comma Splice
- Comparison/Contrast
- Complex Sentence
- Composition
- Composition Theory
- Compound Complex Sentence
- Compound Sentence
- Confused Words
- Connotation
- Content
- Continuity
- Contrast
- Controversial
- Coordination
- Dangling Modifier
- Definition
- Development
- Declarative
- Definition
- Denotation
- Dependent Clause
- Description
- Documentation
- Editing
- Emotional Appeal
- Emphasis
- Essay
- Ethos
- Exclamation Mark
- Exclamatory
- Exemplification
- Five Paragraph Essay Structure
- Fluency
- Format
- Humor
- Hyperbole
- IKWID
- Imperative
- Independent Clause
- Interrogative
- Introduction
- Italics
- Journal
- Language manipulation
- Logic
- Logos
- Misplaced Modifier
- Mood
- Narration
- Noun
- Organization
- Parallelism
- Parenthesis
- Paraphrase
- Pathos
- Period
- Persuasion
- Phrase
- Plagiarism
- Process Analysis Essay
- Pronoun
- Pronoun Agreement
- Pronoun Antecedent
- Pronoun Reference
- Proofreading
- Propaganda
- Quotation
- Redundancy/Deadwood
- Reliability
- Revision
- Re-Writing
- Rhetoric
- Rhetorical Modes
- Runtogether Sentence
- Sarcasm
- Semi-colon
- Sentence Categories
- Sentence Fragment
- Sentence Structure
- Sentence Types
- Sentence Variety
- Sexist Language
- Simple Sentence
- Structure
- Style
- Subject
- Subject/theme
- Subject-Verb Agreement
- Subordination
- Subtlety
- Synonym
- Theme/subject
- Thesis
- Text
- Textual support
- Timeliness
- Title
- Tone
- Topic Sentence
- Transition
- Transitional Words
- Trite
- Understatement
- Verb
- Voice/tone
- Word Choice
- Word Economy
We suggest that you keep a writing notebook with all of these terms written in with their definitions (handwriting a fact makes you many more times more likely to recall it later).