Hello everyone:

You have all written essays, if you have made it through high school. But what is it with folks who fail to proofread their documents before submitting them? Why do all that work and then drop the ball at the last minute? Case in point:

I recently got assignments in a junior/senior level college class that contained the following sentences:

“When I come to a formation and some soldiers are in one set of uniform but the others are in a different set.” Where are you going with that sentence? What happened? How about writing: “It is difficult when soldiers in a formation are not wearing the same set of uniforms .” Please tell me why that is a problem, unless you are all supposed to wear the same thing at the same time. Matching is nice, especially if it is required.

What about this one: “Then between the UVA and SARC receiving the report.”  Huh? Come again? I’m sorry. I can’t fix it because I have no clue what you were trying to say here, even when I read it in context.

Or: “I would ask the victim if him/she is safe?” Stick to something like “I would ask the victim if he or she was safe.”

Or: “The IT department and myself were speaking over the phone.”  How about: “I was speaking on the phone with the IT department.”

Or: “There are deliveries several times a week from being made different stores that has to be labeled and stored.” Let’s try: “The deliveries, which are received frequently from different stores, must be labeled and stored.”  By the way, you have subject/verb disagreement with “deliveries……was.”

Or: “The employee is not believing of the decisions that are being made.” Let’s go with: “Employees do not trust the decisions being made.”

I hope this helps. By the way, I had to proofread my own blog because I had some typos that the computer did not pick up. A word can be a perfectly good word but it can still be wrong, depending on the context.

Best,

Dr. Sheri