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Today, we're covering tones. No, note the sounds your phone makes when somebody calls you. We're talking about the emotional feel of a piece of wri...

In this lesson we'll subject you to some verbs and predicates. Each one is a necessary part of a complete breakfas—er...sentence.

Choosing words carefully is important. You may end up vexing the assemblage of citizens you're conversing with...or you might even just plain bore...

Amazing, awesome, funny, genius, scrumdiddlyuptious...we could go on describing this video, but maybe you should learn what sorts of words those ar...

ELA Drills, Beginner: Point of View 2. Identify what sort of narration is being used and which character's thoughts or feelings are being revealed.

ELA Drills, Beginner: Textual Analysis 3. What can you infer from the sentence in the video?

Shmoop worked real hard to make a video for you about narrative poetry. But they couldn't think of any rhymes, and...got mad enough to throw a tree?

ELA Drills, Beginner: Meanings 1. Use context clues from the text to find the answer.

We're about to shower you with knowledge about similes and metaphors. Oh, and please be aware, that was a just a metaphor. This video will not act...

Quotes are a great way to provide evidence that backs up your ideas. You can quote us on that.

Primary sources consist of  the actual thoughts or feelings that a person has recorded. If available, primary sources should be your primary s...

Every body paragraph should start off with a good topic sentence. Not to be confused with a Hot Topic sentence...which should only be used in parag...

In this video, we'll learn about how not to jump to conclusions. They should be well thought out and carefully composed, just like the rest of your...

Personally, we like to be bowed to and have our rings kissed but...oh, we're talking about introductions in your writing. Hm. Better watch the video.

Today's lesson is all about knowing your audience. Like how you shouldn't tell a fart joke to your teacher in your latest essay...no matter how muc...

This is a video that will teach you about relative pronouns. How's that for short and sweet, video?

Rather than deciding which which to use while describing witches which live in Greenwich, you might try a few of these relative adverbs. It'll make...

Say "Hi!" to Hypatia. A mathematician and astronomer from way back in 350 who also happened to be a woman. Oh and don't literally say "Hi." to her,...

Involvement in the STEM fields stems from all areas of life, even ELA. Just because we have no idea what a quadratic acid is, doesn't mean we can't...

When your grades are in jeopardy, there's no better way to study up than Jeopardy. As a review game, not just watching it on TV. Yes, unfortunately a wise-cracking Sean Connery won't be included in your game. Keep a stiff upper lip.

You can certainly squeeze your friends, and you may hold friendship in high regard...but since you can't physically hold on to friendship, that makes it an abstract noun. We'll learn more about those today in this video.

Adjectives and metaphors are the cheese and sauce to any quality poetry pizza.

Like we always say, don't sweat the details...they're super easy to learn about when you've got a Shmoop video to teach you about them. And really, you should probably only sweat sweat. 

There are surprisingly few dogs in this video. Just a heads up. Instead we'll talk about poetry and what makes a narrative poem. You can always take to google images if you're having puppy withdrawals afterwards.

Today we'll learn about biographies and autobiographies. And no, the second one has nothing to do with the lives of cars. 

Myths like this one can teach us lessons about the natural world. So what does this one mean? Don't...eat...pomegranate? That can't be right. Better watch it again.

Among videos about comparing, there are none that compare to this one. Don't worry, we checked very thoroughly.

Learn to debate like a champ. It's way better than debating like a chimp. That just takes mudslinging to a whole new level.

Today we're learning about how to make a good first impression. Step one: definitely do not slap someones hand away and try to start a tickle fight instead when you first meet them. They might not even be ticklish. How embarrassing would that be?

The Greek language gave us tons of great words for phobias. Acrophobia, arachnophobia, autophobia...unfortunately we here at Shmoop have phobiaphobia, so we'll be averting our gaze for this next lesson.

Why say great when you could say outstanding? Or nice when you could say delightful? Preferably with new, posh accent. Kindly take a gander at our exquisite visual media here and we'll tell you all about synonyms.

Playwrights write plays. Big shocker, right? Well they also have to format the plays. That means proper dialogue, stage direction, and pretty much anything that prevents the actors from silently standing there staring at the audience...unless that's what they're going for. But we're pretty sure that'd get pretty creepy, pretty fast.

Aside from improv, most performances are carefully planned out. Even our Shmoop videos. We totally plan those. Every single one of them. Yes, even the weird ones.

And make sure not to throw popcorn at anyone. No matter how hungrily they stare at the show, it doesn't mean they're actually hungry.

Strong verbs are perfect for conveying heavier and more striking meanings to your sentences. They're a lot more exciting than weak verbs are. Just look at those muscles.

Back in the day, instead of television, we just had campfires that people told stories over. You could still change the volume, and pause, and stuff like that...but it got really uncomfortable when you tried to change the channel.

Hogwarts, Middle-Earth, Wichita, your mouth...what do all of these things have in common? They've got elves running around them. No wait, they're all possible settings for stories. Today we'll learn all about settings in the video above.

No, this isn't our video on how to dominate in fantasy football. We're talking about writing several drafts of a paper in order to get it just right. It may not be as thrilling as your fantasy league, but hey, it'll probably score you a better grade on that paper. And that's a lot better than scoring Cam Newton for your team...as far as school is concerned.

A metaphor is a simile, just minus the "like" or "as." We'll learn all about how not to be confused by either in today's video.