Sentence Sense: Writing Clearly for Publications, Work, and School
Duncan Koerber, University Professor
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Elements of the Course
3:54 -
Redundancy
4:07 -
Phoney Intensifiers
6:28 -
Stretchers
4:30 -
Thickeners
4:09 -
Exercises
3:33 -
Answers to Questions From Students
5:00
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About This Class
Do you want to impress employers, editors, or online readers with your writing? Do you want to get A grades on term papers and essays? Do you want to see your sentences objectively?
Take this short, practical course on how to write clearly from the author of Clear, Precise, Direct: Strategies for Writing (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Four types of wordiness — redundancy, phoney intensifiers, stretchers, and thickeners — lurk in everyone's writing. This course raises your awareness of these "weeds" or "speedbumps" and then shows you how to remove them.
As a result, people will find your writing easy to read.
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18 of 18 students recommendSee All
Great course, thank you
This is really great! (hahah, just kidding) Great class! :)
This class was helpful.
Dr. Duncan Koerber has taught writing and communications courses for the past 10 years at six Canadian universities to thousands of students.
Currently a full-time assistant professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, Duncan Koerber worked for nearly 10 years in reporting and editing roles for the London Free Press, the Mississauga News, and the University of Toronto Medium. He has freelanced for magazines and newspapers, including the Toronto Star.
Oxford University Press recently published his writing textbook, Clear, Precise, Direct: Strategies for Writing (2015). Available on Amazon, the book considers the seven most common errors (interfering factors) in writing and how to improve them (enhancing factors). His second book, Crisis Communication in Canada, is in the revision process for University of Toronto Press.
Duncan Koerber has been a successful freelance editor, reaching the top 0.01% of editors on Elance. Now, his freelance editing and proofreading agency on Upwork is in the "top rated" category.
Duncan Koerber has a bachelor of arts degree in English, Professional Writing, and Political Science from the University of Toronto (2001), a master of arts degree in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario (2003), and a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from York University and Ryerson University (2009).
His academic writing, which focuses on media and journalism history, writing pedagogy, and public relations crisis communication, has been published in the Canadian Journal of Communication, the Journal of Canadian Studies, Journalism History, Media History, Composition Studies, Canadian Journal of Media Studies, and Sport History Review.
