Style Academy

Welcome

Welcome to the Style Academy, an online collection of resources to help you improve your writing. We designed these tutorials and exercises for writing students at any level from advanced grade school to college, but we hope anyone--anywhere--who wants to take control of their writing might find the resources here useful.

If you're new to the site and ready to start, we encourage you to view the tutorials in our "Start Here" module (located to the right) before taking on the rest of the site.

Start Here

Before you dive into our content, check out these tutorials that will give you some background to our approach and the specific exercise types we make use of. Reviewing these tutorials will give you the background you need to make sense of the rest of the content on the site. Click the title of each tutorial to see more info and use the "View Now" link to check out the tutorial and related exercises.

How to make the most of the site
This tutorial will give you some general background about our approach, the way we structure our exercises, and how to make the most of your experience here. View Now

Introduction to sentence combining
This video will introduce you to the sentence combining exercise technique that we use frequently in our tutorials on the site. View Now

introduction to sentence imitation
This video will give you some practice in our sentence imitation exercise, another kind of activity that we use frequently in our tutorials. View Now

Good writers understand the basics of sentence structure: how sentences work, the nuts and bolts of sentences (phrases and clauses). This module will introduce you to the basics of sentences and start you on the path of manipulating these basic parts to achieve more powerful results. Click the title of each tutorial to see more info and use the "View Now" link to check out the tutorial and related exercises.

In this tutorial we give you the big picture of what we mean by writing sentences. Learn about the power that comes from sentences that are purposefully crafted. View Now

Phrases and clauses are the building blocks of sentences, and a strong understanding of what they are will help you take control over your own writing. This tutorial will help you understand how these sentence parts work. View Now

Strong writers use a variety of clauses for specific purpose, and a stronger understanding of clauses will help you have the kind of control you want over your writing. Plus, clauses drive many of our decisions about punctuation. This tutorial will introduce you to a variety of clauses and help you see how they enhance writing. View Now

With a strong understanding of phrases and clauses and how they work in a sentence, you're ready to take more control over the way you craft sentences. In this tutorial, we'll study some master mentor texts and derive some principles for how we can purposefully arrange sentence parts to best convey our meaning. View Now

Great writers are purposeful crafters of the sentences they write, paying attention to subtle options they have available to them. In this module, we'll introduce you to some of the most common options that writers have when they work at the sentence level. Click the title of each tutorial to see more info and use the "View Now" link to check out the tutorial and related exercises.

In this tutorial we give you the first of the tools you'll use to enhance your sentences: the participle. You'll see how to use this versatile element to add a sense of movement or action to your writing. View Now

Appositive phrases allow the writer to add description to important nouns in an economical and sophisticated way. Check out how they work in this tutorial. View Now

Like almost-formed sentences, the absolute allows the writer to pack more information into the sentence while still staying concise. Your writing will benefit from using this powerful element. View Now

In academic settings, novice writers often misunderstand the passive voice. This tutorial will help you recognize the difference between active and passive and show you the power of active sentences. View Now

Have you ever been told to never use the passive voice? Most of us have. But that advice isn't really accurate--after all, why would the language have developed something like passive voice if people don't need to use it? Check out this tutorial for help on how to choose between passive and active voice. View Now

The semicolon is a puncutation mark that's intimidated many a writer, but it's a powerful (and not-so-hard-to-understand) mark. The tutorial will help you start combining independent clauses like a pro!View Now

You have learned much, grasshopper, and now you're ready for the master moves: going beyond the sentence level, these tutorials will broaden your awareness of the options available to you as a writer. Click the title of each tutorial to see more info and use the "View Now" link to check out the tutorial and related exercises.

This lesson introduces you to two advanced rhetorical moves: tropes, tricks you use to "turn" or change the meaning of words (think metaphor), and schemes, language patterns you can use to keep your readers engaged with your writing. View Now

A little repetition never hurt anyone; in fact, it might just help you stay connected to your audience. Here's how. View Now

Balance ain't just for tightrope walkers. Your sentences should be balanced as well. This lesson on "grammatical parallelism" is part 1 of a two-part lesson on how to add balance to your sentences. View Now

Part 2 of our lesson on balance. This one is about "rhetorical balance." View Now

You may have heard that fragments are bad or even had teachers mark you down on writing for having them. They can be powerful tools for the skilled writer, though. You'll learn to recognize the best fragments in this tutorial. View Now