Basic skill for colledge 8 ppsx

Does each paragraph begin with a recognizable topic sentence that introduces a major point to be developed in the paragraph?. They begin with a sentence, but what follows is most defi-ni

7 Which part, sentence, or paragraph do you think needs more work because it is unclear or confusing or just doesn’t sound right? Explain

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8 Do you find errors in written English? _ Please look for the following and give examples from the writing to help the author in the revision process

■ sentence fragments

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■ comma splices

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■ semicolon errors

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■ subject-verb agreement errors

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■ pronoun case errors

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■ pronoun-antecedent agreement errors

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■ double negatives

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■ homonym errors which cause confusion i.e., are/our, there/their, to/too, its/it’s, etc

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SELF CHECK REVISION SHEET

As you reread your work, be tough on yourself Look at it from different perspectives to see if your reader may be confused by anything you have written Your goal is to make your writing very, very clear Before submitting your work, check the following:

1 Can I easily identify (underline) my thesis statement?

2 Does each paragraph begin with a recognizable topic sentence that introduces a major point to

be developed in the paragraph?

3 Can I identify (underline) transitional phrases in each paragraph?

4 Are my pronoun references clear?

5 Does my conclusion restate my thesis?

6 Is my writing concise and exact?

■ Do I use active voice where possible? That is, do I avoid the use of the verb to be, specifically

am, is, are, were, was, be, being, been?

■ Can any sentences be combined?

■ Am I repetitious?

7 Have I allowed time for peer review and further revisions?

C H A P T E R

SUMMARY

Since grammar is commonly tested on college placement

exams, this chapter takes you through several grammar

exer-cises When you complete the exercises, you can find the

answers at the end of the chapter.

n Chapter 1, there was a list of the most common grammar errors

typically found in student placement essay exams Taken

individu-ally, these are the kinds of mistakes you may find on your paper and

need to correct in your writing Let’s look at them again

1 sentence fragments

2 comma splices and fused sentences

3 semicolon errors

4 subject-verb agreement errors

5 pronoun-antecedent errors

6 pronoun case errors

7 double negatives

8 homonym errors that cause confusion

BASIC GRAMMAR

2 2

I

SENTENCE FRAGMENTS

If it starts with a capital and ends with a period and it

looks like a sentence, be careful! It may not be a

sen-tence It also needs a subject and a verb The three most

common errors that create a fragment are a missing

sub-ject, a missing verb, or a missing conjunction For

some samples, look at the sentences that follow They

begin with a sentence, but what follows is most

defi-nitely a sentence fragment.You’ll find the fragments

ital-icized They masquerade as complete sentences, but they

are really only parts of the sentences that come before

them

■ What makes me special is the guitar Not my

voice or my dancing!

■ I’m a good listener Especially to my friends and

family.

There are only two ways to correct a fragment If

we were to correct them, they would look like this:

■ Make it a separate and complete sentence For

example:

What makes me special is the guitar It is not

my voice or my dancing!

■ Connect it to the preceding or following

sen-tence with a conjunction or with proper

punc-tuation For example:

I’m a good listener, especially to my friends and

family

Fragments can be hard to recognize because they

are often phrases or subordinate clauses and they sound

and look right Examine the paragraph below and

underline the fragments

(1) What makes me special is that I have the

ability to care too much about everything (2) I

am very compassionate (3) Talking to people,

happy or sad (4) I love noticing people’s reactions to words and situations (5) Especially when they think I’m not looking (6)

I have a special ability to be a distant observer (7) Off to the side (8) Where no one is looking

If you chose (3), (5), (7), and (8) then you were right

on target All three are fragments Now write them cor-rectly You may have to do some rewriting to provide

a logical connection for the fragments

1 _

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2 _

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3 _

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4 _

_ _ Check the end of the chapter for suggested answers

COMMA SPLICES AND FUSED SENTENCES

Correcting, even avoiding, sentence fragments could lead to two other common and major errors in sentence

structure: the run-on sentence, sometimes called a fused

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to describe writing that ignores the independence of

sentences and runs two or more sentences together

without proper punctuation You’ve heard the

com-parison between traffic signs and punctuation at least

once in your English classes, but it is a comparison worth

making again

Imagine you are moving along in traffic and you

ride right past the stop sign You’d be lucky if there were

no other cars on the road So, too, if you run the red

light You might make it, but then again, what if you

don’t? It’s easy to imagine the horror of a traffic

acci-dent that damages your car or even injures you, but it’s

hard to compare such mayhem to a simple piece of

writ-ing But that piece of writing could mean a great deal

to your success, whether it’s a placement essay that will

save you money and time or a cover letter for a resume

that could land you a job So, if you run one idea into

the next, and you confuse your reader so much that he

or she gives up, then you have created mayhem Try

reading the following passage from a student essay on

legalizing marijuana

Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used

worldwide for centuries It has been used for

medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and

relaxation, most common today would be

medicinal and relaxation, it is proven that

marijuana aids in headaches, various aches and

pains, anti-nausea, glaucoma, and sleep

deprivation Although this drug is a cure-all it

does have an intense effect on your body,

unlike alcohol marijuana gives you a calm,

soothing feeling, marijuana does have defects

Such as lung cancer and various cancer causing

chemicals these chemicals are also used to

make its effects intensified I believe if the

United States legalized marijuana the outcome

would be more positive than negative

How many times did you have to stop and reread

to try to decide what the author really meant or was try-ing to say? That’s your first clue that somethtry-ing is seri-ously wrong with this piece of writing But look at what simply stopping for the red lights and stop signs does

to improve the sense of this paragraph

(1) Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used worldwide for centuries (2) It has been used for medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and relaxation (3) Most common today would be using marijuana for medicinal and relaxation purposes because it is proven that marijuana aids in relieving headaches, various aches and pains, nausea, glaucoma, and sleeplessness (4) Although this drug is a cure-all, it does have defects; marijuana has been linked to lung cancer and it does contain various cancer causing chemicals to intensify its effects (5) However, I believe if the United States legalized marijuana the outcome would be more positive than negative

There are three basic ways to correct sentences that run together

■ Come to a complete stop Use a period and cre-ate two separcre-ate sentences This is what was done between sentences (2) and (3)

■ Slow down and look both ways By using the

conjunction because, sentences (3) and (4) were

connected logically, and the reader was able to move with understanding on to the next sen-tence

■ Slow down A semicolon lets you know that the next sentence is directly related to the one that precedes it Look for the connection By ending sentence (4) with a semicolon the writer is telling us that sentence (5) is going to

specifi-cally develop what sentence (4) started already.

In essence, you should see a connection about

the defects In most cases, the period and the

semicolon are interchangeable and the writer

determines where the emphasis should go Just

be careful A semicolon separates two complete

sentences that are closely related to each other

Closely related is the key phrase here However,

you cannot use a semicolon to connect a

frag-ment to a sentence See the section on

semi-colon errors that follows!

You should also notice that in correcting the

obvious sentence errors, transitions were used to

cre-ate bridges to connect the sentences and establish

stronger logic For example, although and however in

sentences (4) and (6) helped to correct the sentence

errors by creating separate sentences and making the

author’s point more clear In the next paragraph,

under-line and correct the following student sentence errors,

all found in a piece of writing by an entering

commu-nity college freshman

(1) Cigarette smoking should be banned from

all public areas, it is a foul and disgusting habit

(2) It should be banned altogether, cigarettes

are dangerous to both the smokers and the

people near them (3) Another reason to ban

smoking is because it is disrespectful to others

why would anyone deliberately want to show

such disrespect cause anger and hostility when

trying to enjoy a meal or performance? (4) As

to why smokers smoke, it is still a mystery even

to them (5) Public areas are where people

come to enjoy themselves; not to be bothered

with cigarette smoke

On the lines that follow, correct any sentence fragment errors that you find using proper punctua-tion or conjuncpunctua-tions

1 _

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2 _

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3 _

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4 _

_ _ Check the end of the chapter for suggested answers

SEMICOLONS

Because the semicolon is one of the corrections for the comma splice or the fused sentence, you have to be care-ful that you are not substituting one mistake for another You cannot just insert a semicolon in place of a period

or a comma The semicolon has only two uses:

1 The semicolon separates closely related sentences.

Notice the words closely related You cannot

sep-arate any two sentences with the semicolon A good rule to follow is to consider using the semi-colon only if there is a coordinating conjunction that could be used instead For example:

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