Contents Part One Choice of Words 1 1 Styles of Words 1 2 Lexical Ambiguity 5 3 Accurate Words 9 4 Collocations 14 5 Denotation and Connotation 19 6 Vocabulary Building 24 7 English Idioms 30 8 Figures of Speech 34 Part Two Sentence Writing 43 9 Sentence Fundamentals 43 10 Writing Correctly (I) 50 11 Writing Correctly (II) 58 12 Sentence Unity 65 13 Sentence Conciseness 69 14 Sentence Emphasis 74 15 Sentence Variety 79 16 Useful Patterns 89 Part Three Paragraph Writing 101 17 Introduction to the Paragraph 101 18 Types of Paragraphs 104 19 Topic Sentence 110 20 Supporting and Concluding Sentences 117 21 Paragraph Unity 123 22 Paragraph Coherence 129 23 Paragraph Completeness 137 24 Paragraph Development 140 Part Four Essay Writing 151 25 Process of Writing 151 26 Structure of Essay 160 27 Argumentation 166 28 Exposition 175 29 Narration 184 30 Description 188 Part Five Practical Writing 193 31 Letter 193 32 Cover Letter and Resume 200 33 Note 206 34 Notice and Poster 209 35 Invitation 211 36 Advertisement 215 Appendix 1 Punctuation 219 Appendix 2 Mechanics 226 References 231