Praxis Core Writing cheat sheet

Purpose categories: narrative tells a story with a time-ordered sequence of events; informative/explanatory conveys facts and ideas; argumentative/opinion takes a position and defends it with reasons and evidence.

Thesis rule: an argumentative essay needs a debatable claim, not a fact or a preference. "Recycling reduces landfill waste" is a fact; "Cities should fund curbside recycling" is a claim.

Audience rule: adjust diction, sentence length, and assumed background knowledge to the stated reader; formal academic prose avoids contractions, slang, and second-person "you" unless the prompt requests it.

Paragraph unity test: every sentence must support the topic sentence. A sentence that introduces a new idea belongs in a new paragraph or gets deleted.

Cohesion devices: transitional adverbs (however, therefore, moreover, consequently), pronoun reference, repeated key nouns, and parallel structure across sentences.

Narrative technique: consistent point of view, consistent tense, concrete sensory detail, and a clear sequence signaled by time markers (before, afterward, meanwhile).

Informative structure: definition, classification, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, or process - choose one organizing pattern and apply it consistently throughout.

Revision priorities in order: address the prompt and thesis, then organization and paragraph order, then sentence clarity, then surface conventions such as punctuation and spelling.

Source integration: a quotation must be introduced, accurate, and followed by commentary linking it to the writer's own claim; a dropped-in quote with no explanation weakens the essay.

Subject-verb agreement: the verb matches the head noun, not an intervening phrase. "The box of old letters was" - not "were." Indefinite pronouns each, either, neither, everyone, nobody are singular.

Pronoun case: use subject forms (I, he, she, they, who) for subjects and predicate nominatives, object forms (me, him, her, them, whom) after prepositions and as direct objects.

Comma splice vs. correct join: two independent clauses need a comma plus coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), a semicolon, or a period - never a comma alone.

Apostrophe rules: singular possessive adds 's (the writer's draft); plural possessive adds ' after the s (the writers' drafts); its is possessive, it's means it is.

Modifier placement: a participial phrase at the start of a sentence must modify the grammatical subject. "Walking to class, she noticed the flyer" - not "Walking to class, the flyer was noticed."

Parallelism: items in a list or comparison must share grammatical form. "She likes hiking, swimming, and to bike" fails; "hiking, swimming, and biking" succeeds.

Primary vs. secondary sources: primary sources are original documents, data, interviews, or eyewitness accounts; secondary sources interpret or summarize primary material and are cited as commentary.

Plagiarism covers paraphrasing without citation and reusing another's structure or data, not only verbatim copying without quotation marks.

Citation logic: every borrowed fact, statistic, or quoted phrase needs an in-text citation matching a full entry in the reference list; common knowledge needs none.

Purpose categories: narrative tells a story with a time-ordered sequence of events; informative/explanatory conveys facts and ideas; argumentative/opinion takes a position and defends it with reasons and evidence.

Thesis rule: an argumentative essay needs a debatable claim, not a fact or a preference. "Recycling reduces landfill waste" is a fact; "Cities should fund curbside recycling" is a claim.

Audience rule: adjust diction, sentence length, and assumed background knowledge to the stated reader; formal academic prose avoids contractions, slang, and second-person "you" unless the prompt requests it.

Paragraph unity test: every sentence must support the topic sentence. A sentence that introduces a new idea belongs in a new paragraph or gets deleted.

Cohesion devices: transitional adverbs (however, therefore, moreover, consequently), pronoun reference, repeated key nouns, and parallel structure across sentences.

Narrative technique: consistent point of view, consistent tense, concrete sensory detail, and a clear sequence signaled by time markers (before, afterward, meanwhile).

Informative structure: definition, classification, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, or process - choose one organizing pattern and apply it consistently throughout.

Revision priorities in order: address the prompt and thesis, then organization and paragraph order, then sentence clarity, then surface conventions such as punctuation and spelling.

Source integration: a quotation must be introduced, accurate, and followed by commentary linking it to the writer's own claim; a dropped-in quote with no explanation weakens the essay.

Subject-verb agreement: the verb matches the head noun, not an intervening phrase. "The box of old letters was" - not "were." Indefinite pronouns each, either, neither, everyone, nobody are singular.

Pronoun case: use subject forms (I, he, she, they, who) for subjects and predicate nominatives, object forms (me, him, her, them, whom) after prepositions and as direct objects.

Comma splice vs. correct join: two independent clauses need a comma plus coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), a semicolon, or a period - never a comma alone.

Apostrophe rules: singular possessive adds 's (the writer's draft); plural possessive adds ' after the s (the writers' drafts); its is possessive, it's means it is.

Modifier placement: a participial phrase at the start of a sentence must modify the grammatical subject. "Walking to class, she noticed the flyer" - not "Walking to class, the flyer was noticed."

Parallelism: items in a list or comparison must share grammatical form. "She likes hiking, swimming, and to bike" fails; "hiking, swimming, and biking" succeeds.

Primary vs. secondary sources: primary sources are original documents, data, interviews, or eyewitness accounts; secondary sources interpret or summarize primary material and are cited as commentary.

Plagiarism covers paraphrasing without citation and reusing another's structure or data, not only verbatim copying without quotation marks.

Citation logic: every borrowed fact, statistic, or quoted phrase needs an in-text citation matching a full entry in the reference list; common knowledge needs none.