WordView

Discourse Experimental
Experimental

This tool is being tested. Its explanations and feedback may change. Check important choices against your course guidance, and tell us when an example or analysis does not look right.

Analyse discourse in context

Paste or type a text, choose the layers to show, and inspect the marks in the editable text box. Everything runs in your browser.

Analysis layers

Linker functions have separate highlight colours; grey-blue marks need a context check. Reporting verbs are coral, reference is green, and substitution is olive. Source–claim roles use blue, peach and pale teal. Open “Choose linker types” for the function key. Click a highlight or a finding for an explanation.

Findings in Text A

Paste some text to see selected discourse features.

How to use Discourse

Analyse text — check any combination of Linkers, Reporting verbs, and Source–claim map, then paste your writing to see the selected layers in the editable text box. Turn on Compare two texts to add Text B without changing interface. The comparison tables use the same checked layers, and exact evidence can be attached to a qualified finding and exported. Nothing leaves your browser.

Linker reference — browse the devices that connect ideas:

  1. Choose a meaning on the left, such as Contrast or Concession.
  2. Select a device to read what it does and how to punctuate it.
  3. Use the checked examples for learning. Open the textbook corpus examples only when you want to examine authentic context.
  4. Combine the grammar and position filters to compare devices that behave in the same way.

Reporting-verb reference — browse the reviewed core by the kind of activity reported. Use the stance filter to compare stronger, tentative, neutral and other choices, then select a verb for its note, forms and grammar patterns.

Click a highlight or finding for a quick explanation. Reporting-verb matches are candidates rather than final judgements. The source map links only two narrow explicit same-sentence patterns; it does not carry a source into the next sentence.

Devices are grouped by what they mean and tagged by how they work grammatically. Many writing errors come from mixing the two: although and despite share a meaning but take different grammar.

Some words do more than one job. Where a device is marked check in context, the examples are shown as candidates: read the sentence and decide what the word is doing there. That noticing work is the point.

Discourse terms

Linker — a word or phrase that signals a relationship between ideas, such as addition, contrast, cause, or concession. Its grammar type tells you what structure can follow it and how to punctuate it.

Reporting verb — a verb used to attribute a finding, thought, or statement to a source: for example, Lee argues that... The activity says what kind of act is reported; stance describes the evaluation the verb can carry; and a grammar pattern shows the structure it normally enters.

Candidate / check in context — the spelling matches the resource, but the sentence still decides the function. In The chart shows the trend, shows may report evidence; in The museum shows local art, it does not attribute a research claim.

Source–claim link — a relationship the sentence states explicitly. WordView currently maps only Source argues that claim and According to source, claim. A blue source, peach marker and pale-teal claim belong to the same link. An unmarked sentence remains writer voice; WordView never silently continues attribution across sentences.

Reference and substitution signal — an expression such as they, this, the latter, one, or do so that may point back to or replace earlier language. WordView marks the expression but does not choose its antecedent: that remains the reader's task.

This reviewed reporting-verbs core is selective rather than exhaustive. It is a noticing aid, not a score or a claim that every reporting expression has been found.

About Discourse

A browsable reference for the devices that hold academic writing together. The usage notes and Clear examples are written for WordView. Each textbook example links to its exact OpenStax edition and page, with the edition's authors, licence and required attribution.

Fixed pattern rules select examples and candidates. All analysis runs in the browser, so the text stays on your device.

The textbook sentences are unmodified corpus extracts selected because they contain the expression. Their exact meaning has not yet been checked, so they are collapsed by default. The purpose-written Checked examples are the learner examples.