Sentences convey ideas and how they are related. They may have multiple ideas and relationships, so different structures help to separate a sentence’s information. Descriptions Examples Word order is a language’s mostly fixed sequence for ideas and relationships, combining subjects and verbs respectively. English’s word order is subject-verb-object, where subjects and objects can be, but are not limited to, nouns. A team of several people developed the video game. Clause boundaries indicate where one [subject-verb combination] is ending and being connected to another...

Word choice and word form indicate a writer’s familiarity and their intended reader’s familiarity in a context by following systematic rules and idiosyncratic rules. Descriptions Examples Fixed phrases are word combinations that appear together in high frequency in a context, which can show the writer’s familiarity with their writing context. In some cases, another team member may run a program to check the code. Word accuracy is the level of specificity a writer uses to refer to an idea, which influences the reader’s engagement. This is called “debugging“, which is a process for...

Noun determiners appear with nouns to add specificity, ownership, or quantity. Descriptions Examples Articles specify to the reader if the noun refers to one specific idea, one example in a group, or all of them everywhere. It is common for ∅ team members to have ∅ diverse previous work experiences, so an important first step is to agree on the style for the code. Possessives tell the reader if the noun in the sentence belongs to another noun. If two members divide a task by objects, their code needs to compile and link together. Quantifiers tell the reader how much or how many of the...

Nouns are the ideas in a sentence and contain information like specificity or quantity. Descriptions Examples Count nouns can take an -s at their end to indicate quantity, whereas non-count nouns typically cannot be made plural because they usually represent concepts. One big component of video game development is the code. Singular/plural nouns tell the reader the number of count nouns, which is also reiterated by the verb’s form. The project is comprised of several pieces, with code being integral to many of them. Common/proper nouns specify if one idea that is representative of many is...

Rhetorical choices give writing an effect that can help readers better understand the writer’s context or purpose. Descriptions Examples Formality tells the reader if the writing is situated in a casual context, professional context, or anything in between. Some meetings are casual, and members are encouraged to “just hang out and chill.” Idiomatic language conveys information using common word combinations that is meant to use cultural or contextual familiarity to deliver meaning. One all-nighter had a self-serve, Taco Tuesday-themed meeting because it was during crunch time....

Verbs indicate the actions and relationships among ideas. They carry important information such as the time or the number of ideas in the sentence. Descriptions Examples Verb tense indicates a sentence’s time frame. Currently, the team works in a rented space downtown. Subject-verb agreement reiterates the number of ideas in a sentence’s subject. Some members work from off-site locations. Verb transitivity indicates whether two or more ideas in a sentence are related as subject and object (using a transitive verb), or if the sentence only contains a subject (using an intransitive verb)....