Hello everyone:

Oh, my, some of the wording I have seen in my time as a college professor! Where is spell check when you need it? Or, should I say, were is spiel chex when you kneed it?

Yes, I have seen many things in my time. The old book “Strictly Speaking: Will America be the Death of English?” was one of my favorites as a child, so I suppose there’s not accounting for taste, but, really?

Do we really have college graduates-to-be who will be leaving their college campuses thinking that they right well when they don’t no the difference between were and where, are and our, and their and there? (I left out thee quotation markers on prepose so that you wouldn’t be detracted buy there presents.)

In addition to these wonderful words, my all-thyme favorite was the student who, as a senior in college, thorough ewe should sign a letter “respectively” instead of “respectfully.”

Of course, often times students use a perfectly good word but they don’t put a word together that belongs together, such as “oftentimes.” Another favorite is the word “non-verbal” (aka “non verbal”),” which appears correctly with no hyphen and as one word. You’d think they’d read the headings in the textbook and see that it is spelled “nonverbal.” Even Siri knows how to spell it, and with a British accent, to boot.

So, here I am, at the beginning of a weekend of grading. I wonder what my students will come up with next to make my day and entertain yours. I guess ewe never no.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

One of the biggest and most often-committed crimes against the English language these days is folks who do not know the difference between a possessive noun and a plural noun.

Heavens to Betsy! Some of the folks who commit this noun faux pas are juniors and seniors in college or graduate students. They should have learned this in 6th grade but apparently they were too busy texting to pay attention in class that day. (Oops, now I’m meddling!)

Let’s take it from the top. Here is the possessive form of the word “customer:”

customer’s boat (one customer has a boat)

customers’ boat (two or more customers have one boat)

customers’ boats (two or more customers each have a boat)

The thing they all have in common is that they (the customers) all possess something, hence the possessive apostrophe.

In my parentheses in the last sentence, I showed you the plural form of the word “customer.” Using the word “customers” means that you have more than one customer (the single form of the same word).

While we’re here, let’s talk about how to address our customers (plural) using pronouns. (Yes, this is a slight digression but these mistakes also happen with about the same frequency or even more often that the dilemma of possessive versus plural in the world of recalcitrant nouns).

If you have one customer, you should refer to the person as he or she, depending on your observation (this is becoming increasingly difficult. I understand and feel your pain.) If you don’t know, either by appearance or name if the person is male or female, refer to the person as he or she (or him or her, depending on the context). The sentence would look like this:

If the customer comes in to complain, tell him or her that we will take care of it for him or her. Do NOT say “we will take care of it for them.” You have just split the person in half, making him or her into two people. Ouch!

The way around the he/she or him.her dilemma is to refer to “customers” and then use the word “they.” Here is the example:

If our customers come into complain, tell them that we will take care of it for them. (You better, too, because you won’t have customers very long if they are complaining about you.)

I hope this helps. Do you have a specific problem with English? Make a comment and let me know how I can help you.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

Lately, I have been seeing some very interesting uses of quotation marks in my students’ writing. So, just where do these lovely inventions belong?

Surrounding direct quotes, hopefully. That is their rightful place. Let’s take a look at them for a few moments.

Let’s say this is your sentence: Parmelee (2019) argues that “here is the direct quote” (p. 123). [Note that I am using APA formatting.]

Please notice something here. I did not put the entire sentence in quotation marks because the entire sentence is not the quote. Do not, therefore, write something like this: “Parmelee (2019) argues that the rain in Spain is polluted (p. 123).” Nope. I did not say the words “Parmelee,” “(2019),” or (p. 123).” I only said that “the rain in Spain is polluted.” (I’m not sure that the rain is dirty there but, if you quote a popular song, you have to pay royalties and that can get pretty pricey.)

When you open a quote, you need to close it at some point in time. Recently, a few students started quotes and they did not end….ever….Other students open quotes and keep them going until they get to another quote. That can get pretty confusing pretty fast, folks.

Don’t overuse quotes, either. I had a paper a few days ago that was one huge quote after another. I tallied up the situation. In a huge paragraph, the student had written only two short sentences. The rest of the paragraph, which covered half a page was, you guessed it, quotations. That is academic laziness. Don’t do it. I promise you, the instructor will notice.

Do you have any questions about quotation mark usage? I woudl be happy to share my thoughts. Oh, the very first quote in this blog posting was correct.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

I was looking over some rough drafts recently; they were documents written by folks who are juniors and seniors in college. I was shocked. Let me share some of the issues I found.

First, there is a difference between parts of speech. Some students don’t know a verb from a noun. When I ask them to make sure all of the bullet points within a given the section of a paper begin with the same part of speech, they don’t know an article (a, an, the) from a verb (catch, jump, fly) from a noun (paper, book, couch). If you want to have the same part of speech for all of the bullet points, try looking at endings (having, practicing, doing). What action is happening? That’s the verb. What’s the action being done upon? There’s a good chance that’s the noun.

Second, make sure you have the right form of the word (not the write form of the word, for example). Some students say they proofread before they submit. They have told me that they prove read, poof read, prove reed, or poofread. Nope, they didn’t. Also, when you write that you have an overabundance of something, you do not have “to much.” You have “too much.” Think of it this way: you have an extra “o,” so you have too much.

Third, don’t be wordy, thinking that you will impress me. I have a Ph.D. You can’t impress me by using words that I need a dictionary to understand. This is written flatulence, as one of my colleagues is fond of saying. Students love to use the word “within” when the word “in” is correct. They feel it’s more impressive, I guess. Most of the time, however, it is simply the wrong word. Ninety percent of the time, with the documents my students are composing, “within” is used in error. Heaven forbid!

Finally, where are periods and other punctuation? I know that many people don’t use them when texting, but the assignment is to write a formal essay or business document. Where is your punctuation, my friend? Periods have escaped the essay, commas are either used abundantly (and incorrectly) or there is a dearth of them, and semi-colons do double-duty to replace commas and colons.

Teachers, I would love to hear about your all-time favorite mistake.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hi everyone:

Okay, so I have seen some pretty weird questions in my time as a college professor but the one you see above takes the cake. [If you don’t know what that saying means, please ask your grandmother.]

Students were required to write a business report that contained a cover page, letter of transmittal, Table of Contents, Introduction, Body, Conclusion, Recommendations, References page, and appendix (if needed). Do you see more than one body there? I don’t.

The student in question wrote an outline that had two bodies: one was in the proper place and the other was under the conclusion. When I told her that her format was messed up, she asked “How many bodies do we need?” The only difference between her question and mine herein is that there was no capitalization and no punctuation in hers. She is a senior in college. Oh, my.

This leads me to question the dearth of common sense by some college students. The instructions, which were written by the chair of my department (a very smart man who has a gift for writing clear instructions), were excellent. I could read them upside down and still understand them.

So, my question for you is: How many bodies do you need in a typical assignment? I would love to get your count on this.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

Today, my students suggested more words for our “The Word’s the Thing” blog posting from yesterday.

They are fond of the misuse of the word “there.” Or is it “their?” Or “they’re?” The first incarnation means “over there, next to the really cute guy (or gal).” The second is possessive, like “their books.” The third is the contraction of “they are,” as in “they are going with us.”

One of my favorites is “our” and “are,” though “whether” and “weather” should not be neglected. And one must not forget “its” or “to.”

Here are examples for the recently-mentioned words:

First up,”our” and “are.” “It is our hometown.” In this case, you are saying that you and I have something, like a hometown. “Are you going to the movies with us?” You would not say “It is are hometown,” unless you were having a very bad day at word-smithing school.

“We are going whether or not you do” instead of “The weather is going to be bad tonight.” The first case indicates that they are going somewhere without you, while the second case is talking about the humidity, the chance of rain or snow, and the temperature.

Oh, my stars, “its” is next. “Its” is the possessive form of “it.” No possessive apostrophe is needed for this one word. “The lion put its paw into the cake batter.” If a lion is anywhere nearby, I am not checking its sex. It is an “it” no matter what circumstances may otherwise indicate. I am out of there!

If you write “it’s,” you mean “it is.” You wouldn’t say “The lion put “it is” paw in the cake batter,” so don’t write it.

Finally, the beloved “two,” “too,” or “to.” The word “two” means one more than one and one less than three. For example, “I have two oatmeal raisin cookies.” Yum! the word “too” means “too little” or “too much.” “I have had too much cake.” (It’s hard to have too much cake, in my opinion.) Finally, we have the word “to.” It is a preposition and can be used to indicate where you are going or direction: “I am going to the store” or “he gave it to her.”

I hope this helps. (I don’t mean to insult anyone, but I have seen these words misused by seniors in college.)

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hi everyone:

So, just how important is it that you use the right word? For someone like me, very important. For students, they are also very important.

Here’s a sampling from this week:

A student finished off her letter, writing the following:

Respectively,

Sally Student

Huh? She meant “Respectfully” but didn’t quite make it. The word she meant is defined as “with deference and respect.”

“Respectively” means “separately or individually” and “refers back to something that has gone before,” such as “We will go to the store and then to the movies, in that order, respectively.” Oops. (And the girl is a senior in college.)

Something else that is gaining in popularity is the use of “verses” for “versus.” Again, there is a big difference. The word “verses” can refer to sentences in the Bible, such as “There are a lot of verses in the Scripture that I want to memorize.”

The word “versus” means “against.” For example, the Tennessee Titans will play a game versus the Liberty Flames. So, if a student writes about a team playing verses another one, it must mean that they are having a Bible quiz time because it certainly doesn’t mean that they are opposing the other team.

Another troublesome set of words is “effect” and “affect.” The word “effect” means “result,”while “affect” means “to influence.” So something can have an affect on you (it influences your decision, for example) but the final effect (result) may be to change your mind. Make sense?

What words do you struggle with?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

There are a few things that are difficult for students who are writing essays: what to do about numbers and how to cite multiple authors. This blog will shed some light on the topic, using the 6th edition of the APA Style Manual.

If you have a number (no matter how large) that begins a sentence, you MUST spell it out. For example, here is a sentence that begins with the number six:

1600 children are coming. (This is incorrect.)

Sixteen hundred children are coming. (This is right.)

If you have a number in the body of your paper (but that does not start a sentence) and it is less than ten, spell it out. For example:

We hope that six children will be in attendance.

If it is more than ten, use the number. For example:

We hope that 121 children will attend our party. (With that number, I’m glad the party isn’t at my house!)

Let’s move on to citing authors in your essay. If you have one or two authors, use both names every time you mention the authors in your paper. For example:

Beebe and Masterson (2019) state that…..

The authors of our textbook state that “here is your direct quote” (Beebe & Masterson, 2019, p. 123). [Note that the “and” changes into an “&” when you move the names into the parenthetical citation.]

Please note that you do NOT use the first initials of the authors in your in-text citation unless you have more than one author with the same last name.

If you have three to five authors, use all of the names the first time you mention the authors. After that, use the first name of the first author and the words et al. following the first in-text citation. For example:

Smith, Jones, Brown, and Dean (2005) argue that……

Smith et al. (2005) argue that…..

If you have six or more authors, you may just write Smith et al. (2005)….

When you are writing your References page, you need to spell out all of the authors, if there are less than seven. To stay in line with APA formatting, you will also include their initials. For example:

Smith, E.T., Jones, D.B., Brown, W.T., Dean, S.D., Hannity, S., & Limbaugh, D.

(2019). and finish the citation

Hope this helps! Please post a comment if you have any questions or comments.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

It happens all the time: Students wait until the night before an assignment is due and then they panic over the instructions. There may have been hundreds of other students who have successfully understood the assignment but now, suddenly, the teacher is an idiot who wrote bad instructions. This happened simply because the student waited until five hours before the deadline to start working.

Next thing you know, I get an email asking for additional instructions and an extension of the deadline. It kinda reminds me of the time I got hit by a drunk driver. She failed every single part of the sobriety test and then told the police officer, “No one could have passed that test. It’s way too hard.”

Sure it was, lady, but only if you’re drunk.

Sure the instructions are written in a foreign language, but only if you now have four hours and fifty minutes to finish the ten-page paper that you haven’t started yet. Research? Who has time for that? Just start writing and hope for the best, right? Wrong.

It may be too late to help you with this paper, but here’s what you do: Admit to the instructor that you really messed up and email to tell him or her that your paper will be late but that you will, indeed, turn something in. Apologize for messing up. Don’t expect any favors, but do let us know what’s happening. You probably won’t get an extension but your instructor will be much happier to see your tardy submission than to have you blow off the entire assignment.

Best,

Dr. Sheri