What Every Student Should Know About the Top Ten Sentence Errors

by Gorrell, Donna

• ISBN13: 9780205865468
• ISBN10: 0205865461
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-01
• Publisher: Longman

Summary

Things can go wrong whenever you write. Commas get in the wrong places, pronouns refer to the wrong thing, sentences are fragmented, modifiers dangle. And that's on top of your typos and misspelled words. These things happen to all writers, and if they're not caught and corrected, our readers might miss our point.

Table of Contents

Message to the Writer	p. vii
Commas You Don't Need	p. 1
Before quotations that are not complete sentences	p. 1
Before and or but except between main clauses and in a series	p. 2
Before, and often after, a restrictive part of the sentence	p. 2
Before parentheses	p. 3
After short unambiguous introductory phrases	p. 4
Ordinarily after and, but, and other conjunctions	p. 4
Before the first or after the last item in a series	p. 4
After a phrase introducing a second clause	p. 5
Commas You Do Need	p. 7
Separating main clauses joined with a coordinating conjunction	p. 7
Separating introductory sentence elements	p. 8
Separating final nonrestrictive modifiers	p. 9
Enclosing nonrestrictive interruptions	p. 9
Separating items in a series	p. 9
Separating quotations	p. 10
Enclosing addresses and dates	p. 11
Commas, dashes, or parentheses?	p. 11
Apostrophes You Do and Don't Need	p. 13
To show possession on singular nouns, add 's	p. 13
To show possession on plural nouns ending in s, add'	p. 14
To show possession on plural nouns not ending in s, add 's	p. 14
Do not use apostrophes to make nouns plural	p. 14
Do not use apostrophes with possessive personal pronouns and relative pronouns	p. 14
To form a contraction, insert an apostrophe in place of the omitted words	p. 15
Use an apostrophe in a few other instances	p. 15
Periods, Semicolons, and Colons	p. 17
Periods	p. 17
Use a period to end a sentence	p. 17
Use a period to end indirect quotations	p. 18
With direct quotations, place the period inside the final quotation mark	p. 18
The period also ends fragments of sentences	p. 18
Use periods to mark some abbreviations	p. 19
Semicolons	p. 19
Use semicolons to balance and separate main clauses	p. 19
Use semicolons to separate series items that have internal punctuation	p. 20
Colons	p. 20
Use a colon to introduce an explanation or a list	p. 20
Use colons before a quotation introduced by a complete sentence	p. 21
Do not use a semicolon in place of a colon	p. 21
Use colons to link related numbers and to complete a business letter salutation	p. 21
Pronouns	p. 23
English pronouns	p. 23
Pronoun case	p. 24
Use the nominative case for subjects	p. 24
Use the objective case for objects of all kinds	p. 24
Use the possessive case to show ownership	p. 24
Use the reflexive case for emphasis and only as a companion to a noun or another pronoun	p. 25
Pronoun reference	p. 25
Make your pronoun refer clearly to only one word	p. 25
Make your pronoun refer clearly to a noun, not an adjective	p. 25
Make sure your antecedent is real, not implied	p. 26
Make sure your pronoun is not too distant from its antecedent	p. 26
Pronoun agreement	p. 26
Pronouns need to agree with their antecedents	p. 26
Collective nouns are usually singular	p. 27
Compound antecedents are plural when joined by and, singular when joined by or or nor	p. 27
Forms of Verbs	p. 29
Agreement	p. 29
Verbs agree with their subjects	p. 29
Tense	p. 31
Verbs change form to show time of action relative to the time of the writing, called tense	p. 31
Reference to a book or speech	p. 31
Consistency in tense	p. 32
The use of would	p. 32
Voice	p. 32
Verbs also have what is known as voice	p. 32
Modifiers, Dangling or Misplaced	p. 35
Dangling opening phrase	p. 35
Misplaced final phrase	p. 37
Other problems	p. 37
Parallel Structures	p. 40
Similar structure and meaning	p. 40
Problems with parallelism	p. 41
both/and; either/or; not only/but (also)	p. 42
Sentence Fragments	p. 45
Subordinate clause fragments	p. 45
Subordinating conjunctions to watch for	p. 45
Repairing fragments	p. 46
Subordinate clauses introduced with relative pronouns	p. 46
Phrase fragments	p. 47
The most common phrase fragments: verbal phrases and prepositional phrases	p. 47
Correcting phrase fragments	p. 48
Other fragments	p. 48
Fragments made with semicolons	p. 48
Fragments made from trying to shorten long sentences	p. 48
Appositives occurring as fragments	p. 49
A second verb phrase leading to a fragment	p. 49
Acceptable fragments	p. 49
Comma Splices and Run-ons	p. 51
Correcting with a semicolon or a period	p. 51
Correcting by adding a coordinating conjunction	p. 52
Correcting by making one clause subordinate	p. 52
Correcting by making one clause a phrase	p. 53
The occasional acceptable comma splice	p. 54
Additional Practice Exercises	p. 55
Answers to Chapter Practices	p. 60
Answers to Additional Practices	p. 65
Glossary of Terms	p. 69
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.