Moulton English

A sentence fragment is an  incomplete sentence . Some fragments are incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb, or both. The fragments that most students have trouble with, however, are  dependent clauses —they have a subject and a verb, so they look like complete sentences, but they don’t express a complete thought. They’re called “dependent” because they can’t stand on their own (just like some people you might know who are SO dependent!). Look at these dependent clauses. They’re just begging for more information to make the thoughts complete: Because his car was in the shop (…What did he do?) After the rain stops (…What then?) When you finally take the test (…What will happen?) Since you asked (…Will you get the answer?) If you want to go with me (…What should you do?) Does each of these examples have a subject? Yes. Does each have a verb? Yes. So what makes the thought incomplete? It’s the first word ( Because, After, When, Since, If ). These word...

In-text citations: Author-page style MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example: Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263). Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263). Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263). Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of...

New writers often struggle to properly format dialogue. The rules are strict and different than prose, but easily mastered. Whether you are writing a short story, full novel or anything in between, the way you format dialogue is the same. The examples below demonstrate how to properly format dialogue in various situations. However, writing dialogue in the proper format and composing effective dialogue are two different things. Be sure to check out my tips and examples on  how to write engaging dialogue . Rules to Format Dialogue 1. Enclose the spoken words with double quotation marks. “I love it when that happens.” Note: The British use single quotation marks. 2. Dialogue tags (the he asked/she said portions) stay outside the quotes and get separated by a comma. Sam said, “I’ll never do that again.” “Don’t be a sissy,” said Bill. “Let’s get back in line and ride this beast again.” Note: When dialogue ends in a question or exclamation mark, tags that f...

Jack Zapp Asuncion Block 1 September 13, 2016 The Environmental Effects of Deep Sea Fishing     All over the world, people depend on deep sea fishing for food and income, but it can be extremely harmful to the environments that it disturbs. Ocean wildlife is disappearing quickly, and deep sea fishing definitely a factor.     There are many forms of deep sea fishing. One of these includes what is known as “bottom trawling,” in which nets, cables, and large steel plates, are run across the sea floor in an attempt to find any fish or other animals that may live there. Unfortunately, during this process, many sea creatures including coral and sponges, are killed (DSCC “The Problem”).  Trawling today also gives access to underwater canyons called, “seamounts,” which have a rich biodiversity and according to Dr. Frederick Grassle of Rutgers University, “"We know that seamounts support large pools of undiscovered species, but we cannot yet predict what is on the ...

Ronan Stone Ms. Asuncion English 9 Honors, Block 1 12 October 2016 February 22, 2011 If you’d asked nine-year-old me what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d probably say a-l-o-t, of stuff. First, he would probably say that he wanted to be Batman. Later he’d probably change his mind, over and over and over. Then he’d wind back up as Batman. Yes, I wanted to be Batman when I was nine. Who didn’t? In 2007, my family decided to leave the US and move to New Zealand. For those of you who don’t know where that is for some reason, it’s about 100 miles south of that that thinks-its-so-cool-but-it-ain’t-really continent known to some as Koala Land, and to the rest as Australia. If you ask my parents why they decided to move to land-down-under-the-land-down-under, they would say that it was to raise their children. The public schools in New Zealand perfect if you have little kids. When we moved, I was more excited at that point than I had been in my entire life. It was a uniqu...

The layout or format of business letters is broadly divided into two type or two styles or ways. They are: the semi-block format the block format Below are the layouts of the above mentioned formats. Please make sure to have your MLA header in the top of the paper, and then the semi-block or block format. SEMI-BLOCK FORMAT BLOCK FORMAT Taken from http://literallycommunication.blogspot.com/2013/03/layout-for-business-letters.html

Resource: not sure what to write about? Try the topics here, organized by grade and genre https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/resources/writingtopics

Liam Vereb Ms. Asuncion English 9 Honors, Block 2 13 January 2016 Conquering The Double Diamond “Wakeup! We’re going to be late,” shouted my sister as she jumped up and down on my bed. I sprang up out of my bed, showered, threw on my ski clothes and ran downstairs to join my family for breakfast. No trouble getting out of bed today as this was the day I would ski my first Black Run. I helped my father load the last of our bags into the back of the car, double-checked with mom that we had everything, and then we were off on our three-hour journey to the ski resort. "Look there it is," my sister said, pointing at the massive mountains that rose up above the clouds. Finally, after an exhausting three-hour drive we had arrived at the ski resort. Since we had been through the ticketing system before, we decided to divide and conquer. My mom and I would go and get in the line for the ski rentals while my dad and my sister would get us lockers. We would rendezvous in...

Arabella Chiang Asuncion English 9H 16 February 2016 What is Divergent?             Divergent is the tendency to be different. In the book Divergent , Veronica Roth portrays the main character or protagonist Beatrice to be a Divergent. In this utopian-like society it was split into five factions: Dauntless, Abnegation, Candor, Amity, and Erudite. In each fraction they value a certain virtue. In Dauntless they would value bravery. In Abnegation they would value selflessness. In Candor they would value honesty. In Amity they would value peacefulness. In Erudite they would value knowledge (Roth 52). Beatrice grew up in the faction Abnegation, and she always thought she didn’t fit in. At the age 16 they were allowed to choose which faction they wanted to be in for the rest of their lives. They would take aptitude tests to see which faction was more suitable for them. Beatrice ended up with three results: Dauntless, Abnegation...

Arabella Chiang Ms. Asuncion English 9H 1 October 2015 My Days as a Swimmer Everyday would start the same, my mom coming into my room screaming at me to get up. I would roll out of bed and run downstairs to stuff my face with food, then hurry to go get dressed in my purple and black swimsuit. I’d stuff my legs into the holes and pulled it up to get my arms through to get dressed, and ready to go. My dad would always nag when I put on sunscreen in the house because I liked to use the spray bottle kind and it would get everywhere. This meant that I had to go outside to put on sunscreen, and it became annoying because it was always extremely cold in the mornings. After getting myself ready, I would ask my dad to drive me to practice because it was on his way to work. Practices were always boring. All you do is swim lap after lap after lap. I thought the best part about swim team was the meets on Saturday mornings, even though sometimes I would have to get up at five in the mo...

Arabella Chiang Asuncion English 9H 5 January 2016 Abolish Animal Abuse Why would you want to hurt animals? They would never hurt you. Abusing an animal is a cruel thing to do. Reporting an injured dog you see on the road may save its life. There are facilities that can help these animals. Most animals are abused in their own households, by their owners. These owners may not just stop at the animal; many animal abusers also abuse their children or even their spouses. Physical abuse is not the only thing that animals suffer from. Several animals are also used for drug testing. The cruelty does not end here.  Animal owners often place their pets in a blood sport for their own entertainment and monetary gain. Doing something like this is absolutely despicable. Abusing animals is not any better than using animals as test subjects, and making animals fight each other is even worse. Abusing animals is a horrible thing to do. In many households there are several types of abus...