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Welcome to the Purdue OWL News!
This is a weekly newsletter written by the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) staff that offers writing help and advice, and updates on what's new at Purdue's OWL and in the Purdue Writing Lab. We've relocated from Listbot to Topica, and we'd like to welcome all of our new and returning members.
Here's our writing question of the week, brought to you by the Online Writing Lab tutors at the Writing Lab. You can email the tutors at this form.
Question: What is the difference between "e.g." and "i.e."? I never know how to use those.
Answer: "E.g." is an abbreviation for "exempli gratia" (Latin for "for example"). And like the phrase "for example," it should be followed by a comma.
For example, "His favorite type of writing is non-fiction (e.g., biographies, history books, self-help guides, etc.)."
And "i.e." is an abbreviation of "id est" (Latin for "that is to say" or "that is"). It can be used as a synonym for "namely." It may seem similar to "e.g.," but the two terms are not interchangeable. "I.e." is used when you want to elaborate or give a more specific definition of a term. It should also be followed by a comma.
For example, "His favorite type of writing is non-fiction (i.e., writing which is not literary and whose content is not produced by the imagination or necessarily concerned with reporting fact)."
Notice how "e.g." just gives an example, but "i.e." specifies and explains.
Another example:
"He received a scholarship to study Romance languages (e.g., Spanish, Italian,
Portuguese, French, and Romanian)." or "He received a scholarship to study
Romance languages (i.e., a group of related languages all derived from Latin)."
Many of our readers write to us with questions or requests for help with their writing. Readers also write to us with suggestions about how to help people learn more about writing. In this section of the newsletter, wešll try to bring together both the people looking for help and the people who can help them.
Each week wešll publish a request for advice or information. If you have information or advice about this topic, please write to us at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu. Please let us know if you want us to include your name and/or your email address when we publish your information or advice. The following week, wešll publish the best information and advice that we receive in the newsletter.
Our previous question was: I'm teaching my first web-based composition class this fall. Does any one have any favorite writing links or resources for teaching online composition that they could recommend?
We're going to extend this question another week so we can continue to gather your ideas on teaching writing with computers.
We're extremely pleased to announce that you can now read the first twenty volumes of the Writing Lab Newsletter online. The Writing Lab Newsletter has been one of two major fora for exchanging ideas and information about writing centers for over twenty years, and we're pleased to be able to offer you the ability to read and print the articles from the web, as well as offering a searchable index of articles that you can cross-reference with our list of online volumes.
You can find the Index of Writing Lab Newsletter Volumes here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/lab/newsletter/volumes/index.html
Work continues on creating printer-friendly versions of our handouts. We'll be making both HTML and Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) versions of our handouts available starting this fall.
The Writing Lab has been revising and re-formatting all of our handouts, and we now have in our cabinets the same versions that are on our website (OWL). Instead of tossing the old versions into the nearest recycling bin, we'd prefer to recycle them into student notebooks or your cabinets of classroom resources.
So come by Heavilon Hall #226 and help yourself to any of the older versions of the handouts you might find useful. If you're a teacher, invite your students to pick up copies too.
Thanks for reading our newsletter, and please email us any suggestions you might have! We really enjoy hearing from our readers. You can mail us at any time at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu. You can also email the OWL coordinator, Geoff Stacks, at coordinator@owl.english.purdue.edu and the webmaster, Erin Karper, at webmaster@owl.english.purdue.edu. (Erin and Geoff take turns writing the newsletter.)
Tell your friends about the Purdue OWL News! They can sign up to receive this newsletter by visiting http://purdueowlnews.listbot.com and entering their email address.
If you want to unsubscribe from the newsletter, just visit http://purdueowlnews.listbot.com and follow the instructions to unsubscribe.
This newsletter is copyright (c) 2001 the Purdue University Writing Lab and Purdue University.
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