Author's Purpose: The author's intent either to inform or teach someone about something, to entertain people, or to persuade or convince their audience to do or not do something.

Cause and Effect: Cause statements stem from actions and events, and effects are what happen as a result of the action or event.

Context clues: Information from the reading that identifies a word or group of words.

Dialogue: conversation between people in a literary work

Differentiate: Distinguish, tell apart and recognize differences between two or more items.

Figurative Language: Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling.

Generalization: A conclusion, drawn from specific information, that is used to make a broad statement about a topic or person.

Inference: understandings gained by "reading between the lines"

Main Idea: The main idea is the author's central thought; the topic sentence of a paragraph.

Mood: The emotion created in the reader; the atmosphere in a situation

Plot: The sequence in which the author arranges events in a story. The structure often includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the resolution.

Point of view: the position or outlook of the author

Problem/Solution: An organizational structure in nonfiction texts, where the author typically presents a problem and possible solutions to it.

Sequence: An organizational structure in nonfiction texts, where the author typically shows an order of events in time order OR by using time order words (first, second, next, then).

Theme: a major idea broad enough to cover the entire scope of a literary work.

Tone: The attitude of the author toward the audience and characters (e.g., serious or humorous).

Connotation: The range of associations that a word or phrase suggests in addition to its dictionary meaning (e.g., slender/thin/scrawny).

Denotation: The direct or dictionary meaning of a word.

Analyze: To break something down and assess all parts

Trace: List in sequence

Evaluate: Judge; To determine the value, worth, or importance of something after careful consideration

Formulate: to develop and explain all the details of an idea, thought, or conclusion

Describe: Tell all about it

Support: Back up with details; to uphold or defend as valid or right

Evidence: Support used in written prompts which is taken either from the text (for TDAs) or is formulated from the mind of the student (Regular essays)

Explain: Tell why or how

Summarize: Brief restatement of important points of a writing or oral statement

Compare: Coming up with ways things are alike

Contrast: Coming up with ways things are different

Predict: Tell what will happen next

Develop: Expand upon; to grow or change and become more advanced

Synthesize: Combine to make new; combine a number of things into a coherent whole

Characterize: Tell about the qualities of

Interpret: Explain your understanding of

Determine: to decide the truth or validity of something (facts, statistics, or claims)

Defend: Write in support of

Objective tone: a way of presenting information that is not emotional or prejudicial

Apply: To connect something you know or can do to another situation

Appropriate: right or correct in a particular situation or context

Argument: an idea supported by evidence or reasoning

Assess: to make a judgment about

Audience: those who receive information or a message

Cite: to mention or quote as an example to support an idea, claim, or opinion

Claim: to state a position that may go against the positions of others

Clarify: to make something easier to understand

Closure: the act of bringing something to an end or reaching a conclusion

Compose: to create and/or write

Conventions: generally accepted practices, such as in grammar or language mechanics

Counterclaim: a claim that goes against a previous claim

Credible: reasonable to trust or believe

Critique: to express your opinion about the good and bad parts of something

Define: to explain the meaning of something

Delineate: to clearly show or describe

Design: The way in which something is planned and made

Detail: a fact or piece of information about something

e.g.: a Latin abbreviation that means "for example"

Essay: a formal and focused piece of writing--usually multi-paragraph

Fact: True and provable piece of information

Formal Style: impersonal, objective, precise use of language

Infer: to guess that something is true because of the information you have

Integrate: to combine one thing with another to make a whole

Justify: to prove or show something to be just, right, or reasonable

Logical: using reason

Organization: The appropriate arrangement of parts in an orderly and efficient way

Paraphrase: to reword something written or spoken by someone else

Passage: a portion or section of a written work; a paragraph, verse, etc.

Phrase: a brief statement, comment, or remark either verbal or written

Plagiarize: unauthorized use of another's words

Precise: definite or exact

Rank: relative position or standing

Reason: basis of argument; supporting evidence

Relevant: connected to the subject

Source: where the information comes from, can be written, oral, audio, video, etc.

Specific: precise or particular

Sufficient: enough

Text features: elements that help the reader make sense of the text

Text structure: how text or a passage is organized

Transform: to change something from one state to another