Topic outline

  • Study materials

    The test covers the following chapters and topics from the Writer's Guide for Engineers (the pdf book below). The page numbers are provided within the parenthesis in the table of contents below. Similar contents with additional interactive exercises are available at Academic Writing in English website (http://sana.aalto.fi/awe).

    CHAPTER 1 INFORMATION ORDERING (cohesion)
    1.1 The given-new principle (pp. 11-13)
    1.2 Organizing flow (pp. 14-18)
    1.3 The light-before-heavy principle (pp. 19-21)
    1.4 Repairing problems (pp. 22-28)

    CHAPTER 2 ORGANIZING THE PARAGRAPH
    2.1 Patterns of Organization (pp.29-39)
    2.2 Topic sentences (pp. 39-42)

    CHAPTER 3 STYLE
    3.1 Vocabulary choice (pp. 43-48)
    3.2 Sentence Structure (pp. 48-58)

    CHAPTER 4 PUNCTUATION
    4.1 The Comma (pp. 63-73)

    Note. Although the name of the book implies that the primary audience is engineers, the book focuses on common readability principles used in academic writing across all disciplines, including arts, design and architecture. Naturally, the core vocabulary is different in every field, but the writing principles are similar.