WRITING IT RIGHT:
AVOIDING COMMON GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES
These five mistakes are very common in college papers. It does not take much to learn how to do them right. So by the end of the semester, you will not be making them any more. Or if you do, you will pay. . . .
Semi-colon. It’s a simple rule: both what precedes and what follows a semi-colon need to be complete sentences that could stand by themselves. (What follows a colon is usually short and not a sentence.)
Example: “I have learned a lot from my experiences; the types of trees, the birds, and all the animals of the forest.” Sorry: what follows the semi-colon cannot stand as an independent sentence. Here, the semi-colon should be turned into a colon
Sentence fragments. When sentences aren’t really sentences. There are several common forms of sentence fragments
>> Those that lack a main verb . What you just read (“Those that lack a main verb") is actually a sentence fragment because it lacks a main verb.
>> Dependent clauses.
- “Although, he decided to return home.” Wrong, because “although” sets up a dependent clause.
- “However, he decided to return home.” That works: “however” does not set up a dependent clause.
- So you need to know what words create dependent clauses. Perhaps the most commonly seen problems are sentences that begin Although . . . , Whereas . . . , and Because. . . .
>> Participial verbs. Verbs in their “-ing” form usually don’t work as main verbs of a sentence.
- “Meaning that. . . .” No subject; no main verb; no sentence. It might be changed to “This fact means that. . . .” Subject, verb, and thus, sentence.
- “Some examples being. . . .” Nope. Change it to: “Some examples are. . . .”
Comma splice. A comma splice is when a comma separates two independent sentences. Not good. Usually in these cases the comma should be replaced by a period, although a semi-colon can also be used.
Example: “Native Americans were not nearly as materialistic as we are today, they owned some things but not nearly as many as we do.” We have two sentences here spliced together with a comma. The comma should be changed to a period.
Run-on sentence. In this case, the sentence rambles on to the extent that what should be two separate sentences are connected without even a semi-colon or comma. The readers gets lost on the journey. Give your readers individual sentences so they can follow what you are say.
Example: “Native Americans were not nearly as materialistic as we are today they owned some things but not nearly as many as we do.” We have two sentences here spliced together but nothing separating them. There should be a period after “today.”
It. "It" is such a simple word. But it is often misused. There are two common mistakes made when using "it."
- "its" and "it's" . Although we are used to using an apostrophe when making a possessive (e.g., Julie's, the world's), when you put "it" into possessive, you do NOT use the apostrophe. As in: "The book is old and its cover is torn." NOT "it's cover is torn." Why? Because "it's" is reserved for the abbreviation of "it is." So, we could say of a book: "it's common that its cover gets torn."
- the ambiguous it. "It" is a pronoun that stands for some noun. If this trick is going to work, it has to be VERY clear to the reader what "it" is substituting for. Just because you the writer know what "it" stands for doesn't mean the reader does. So whenever you use "it," double check to make sure it is obvious to the reader what it refers to.
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