cures for common mistakes in essay writing

8/3/2019 Cures for Common Mistakes in Essay Writing

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Cures forCommon Mistakesin Essay Writing


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One last chance to correct

OR

How to earn at least one letter

grade higher on your essay.


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TitleofStudent Essay

1. Never do the following: make it bold,increase or decrease the font size,

underline it, or italicize it.2. Do not use the name of a document

that you analyzed as the title of youressay. You may refer to it, but do not

(inadvertently) claim it as your own.

Example: I Have a Dream (incorrect)

Kings Vision: I Have a Dream (Okay)


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Title of Student Essay (cont.)

3. Onlyitalicize words in your essay titleif your essay title contains the title

of the novel, play, or movie that youare addressing.

Examples:

Fighting the Good Fight in The OldMan and the Sea

Hamming it Up: Deliberate

Affectations of Madness in Hamlet


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Title of Student Essay, (cont.)

4. If you use the title of a short story, speech,sermon, poem, or song in your essay title (oranywhere else in your essay), the title is in

quotation marks.

Example: Perfect Revenge in The Cask ofAmontillado

5. Capitalize all words except for prepositions,conjunctions and articles (a, an, the) unlessthey are the first or last words or the first wordafter a colon.

Example: Living the Last Word: The Birds


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AlsoTitles of Things

Titles ofwhole unitslike books, films, plays, CDs, ortelevision showsyou type in italics, or you will underlineif the essay is hand-written.

Examples: The Iliad, The Old Man and the Sea, The Godfather, orThe Beatles Anthology.

(Historically, to underline a word is to tell the publisher to print that wordin italics, so lets not waste a step in our writing if you are typing theessay on a computer.)

Titles ofparts of collectionslike book chapters, televisionepisodes, individual songs, news articles, or a single poemfrom a collectionyou put in quotation marks.

Examples: The Beatles Its a Hard Days Night, or the short storyThe Most Dangerous Game.


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Referring to Works of

LiteratureWhen you refer to novels, short stories, speeches,

sermons, poems, plays, television shows, film, orany works of story-telling or reporting, refer to the

selections in the PRESENT TENSE.This is called, literary tense.

Why? Because every time you read the passage,listen to the speech or sermon, hear the song, or

view the film, the text is in the present tense, orthe universal tense of literature.

Example: In the novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde, the good doctor Jekyll does notrealize how much his hidden and alter-ego, Mr.Hyde, is out of control.


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Punctuation Trouble

SpotsIf you directly quote an authority, you must give them

credit with a parenthetical citation. In doing so, youmove the period to the right of the citation to show thecitation belongs with the quote.

Example: In the play, The Glass Menagerie, TennesseeWilliams warns young men that all pretty girls are atrap, but he admits that men expect them to be(Scene VI).

Anytime you include someone elses text (that is unalteredby you) in your essay, you MUST put quotation marksaround it, followed by the citation.


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Punctuation Trouble

SpotsIf your direct quote is 3 or morecomplete lines, form a BLOCK QUOTE.

1. Text is indented 1 inch

2. Double spaced

3. No quotation marks

4. Ends with punctuation, THEN theparenthetical citation.

5. If paragraph continues, do NOT indent

the next line.


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Block quote (example)

as seen in Twains acerbic wit.

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet

and steady and loyal and enduring a nature

that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not

asked to lend money.(Taylor 64)

Even the sanctity of cherished relationships cannot

escape his censure. Twains quotable quips cover


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Correct and Consistent Citations:New MLA &Good Ole Shakespeare

1. Works cited pages should not contain URLs.2. Each source should indicate how it was accessed.

Example: print or web.

3. Internal citations are usually only one word. The wordis usually the first (unique) noun per citation.

4. Internal citations only include a page number ifit is froma print source.

5. (Other than blockquotes!) End punctuation follows theclosing parenthesis of the internal citation, e.g., (Taylor).

6. Standard Shakespeare citations are formed this way: Standard Abbreviation for the play = e.g., Ham.

Act # = capital Roman numeral, e.g., I

Scene # = lower case Roman numeral, e.g., iv

Line # = Arabic numbers, e.g., 43-44

Combined: (Ham. I.iv.43-44) **See StandardAbbrevShakespeareTitles on my website!


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Those Pesky Commas

1. Use a comma in a series before theconjunction.Example: I love pizza, tacos, hotdogs, and

hamburgers.

2. Use a comma before a conjunction whenan independent clause follows the

conjunction (as in a compound sentence).Example: The Browns lost the football game Friday

night, but they played with heart and unity.


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Those Pesky Commas

TheEXCEPTION TO RULE #2:

If the independent clauses are joinedby a conjunctive adverb (however,therefore, etc.), use a semicolon tobefore the c.a., and a comma after.

Example: The Browns lost the footballgame Friday night; however, they

played with heart and unity.


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Those Pesky Commas,

Again3. Use a set of commas to off-set anonrestrictive phrase or clause.

(Nonessentialmeans not necessary to understand the

meaning of the sentence.)

Example of a nonrestrictive phrase:Mary and Cathy, singing and dancing, bouncedinto the theater for the tryouts.

Example of a nonrestrictive clause:Brentwood, Tennessee, which is located justsouth of Nashville, is my home.

Hint: use thatfor essential clauses; use whichfor

nonessential clauses.


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Those Pesky Commas,

Continued4. Use a comma for introductory elements.

Example: No, I do not want to go.Example: Running in panic, the deer crossed the river andran up the bank.

5. Use commas for sentence interrupters, likeappositives, direct address, or parentheticalexpressions.

Appositive Example:Kevin Keidel, Principal of BHS, oversees all faculty and staff.Direct Address Example:My dear, may I please have this dance?Parenthetical Expression Example:I told Aunt Faye, by the way, that you would be late.


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More of Those Pesky

Commas6. Use commas to separate

individual elements of dates and

addresses.Date Example: The allied forces landed on thebeaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, marking thebeginning of the end of the war in Europe.

This may not be necessary for your paper, but the same rulesapply for addresses.Example: The famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, lives at221B Baker Street, London, England; unfortunately, for fansof the mysteries, the address does not exist on the real Baker

Street of London, England.


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Using those

whatchamacallitsEllipsisare dots used to show omission of an impliedword or a section of text.

When omitting words in the middle of a sentence, use threeellipsis dots and have spaces before-and-after and in-betweeneach dot.

If you omit words at the end of a sentence, use four ellipsisdots at the end of a sentence (one for the period), but youput the first dot flush with the last word of the sentence.

Example:Mark Twain believes, Man is the only Slave. And he is the only

animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave . . . andhas always held other slaves in bondage under him.. . .

Example with a parenthetical citation:In his essay, The Lowest Animal, Mark Twain states, Man is

the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. Hehas always been a slave . . . and has always held other slavesin bondage under him.. . (Twain 13).


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Common modifier

problemsCompound Adjectives:Use a hyphen with a compound adjective

when it precedes a noun.

Examples: It is a well-organized presentation. The presentation is well organized. You must compose a well-organized two-page essay. Your essay must be well organized and two pages long.

They have a five-year-old son. Their son is five years old.


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Common modifier

problemsMisplaced modifiers:Place a phrase or clause close to the

word it modifies; do not separate the

modifier and the word it modifies withanother part of the sentence.

Example of misplaced modifier:

Sarah sent a present to her boyfriendwrapped in silver paper.Example of modifier placed correctly:

Sarah sent her boyfriend a present wrapped

in silver paper.


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Dashes or Parentheses?

Generally speaking, they fulfill the same function. It is a matterof styledashes being old school.

Dashes are used to alert readers that additional or

explanatory information is about to appear. Dashes set off material that is inserted into a sentence. Dashes also indicate that something unusual or unexpected might follow.

Examples:

The contents of his backpackbooks, pens, and a rotten avocadotumbled out onto the floor. Robert Benchley once commented, In America there are two classes

of travelfirst class and with children (Drennan 28).

Form dashes by typing two hyphens in a row, with no spaces before, in-between, or after. Press enter and a dash is formed.


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Taking care of the little

things . . . Cannotis one word.

The expression a lotis two words. Use itsparingly.

Italicize a single word if the sentence refers tothat word.

Example:

Zarfis a useful word for the game Scrabble.

Italicize foreign expressions not commonly usedin English.

Example:

On September 1, 1939, the Nazi blitzkriegsweptthrough Poland.


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Two more little things . . .

Avoid contractions. Rewrite anycontractions into the two separate

words unless, of course, they are partof a direct quote. (ORcant =>cannot)

Correctly use apostrophesasindications of possession, e.g., Chriss,the Andersons, the Joe Harriss

cures for common mistakes in essay writing

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