Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Here is something that my students struggle with all the time: possessive apostrophes and where in the world should they close a quotation mark. Let’s take them one at a time. Possessive apostrophes are used to show someone or something owns something. They are not used when you want to show more than one of something. Here is a case in point (or...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: i just wanted to clarify something. It has to do with the use of vocative commas. Vocative commas are used when you are separating a person’s name from the rest of the sentence, such as the following: John, it’s good to see you. You would use the vocative comma instead of writing: John it’s good to see you. You also need to use...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Oxford commas are great at preventing misunderstanding. One of my students sent me a news report on a court case filed on behalf of some workers who thought they deserved overtime. The issue? The lack of an Oxford comma. So, what is one, you might ask? An Oxford comma is used between the last item in a list of things and the second-to-the-last...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Today, let’s visit the world of parenthetic expressions. This is, when you are writing, a brief pause in the middle of a sentence to add some additional information. It also applies to speaking, but I wanted to give you an example of what I was talking about right up front. Sometimes it is hard to decide if you need the commas, but, if...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Today’s blog covers the overuse of introductory phrases. These little jewels can add excitement to your writing but having too many of them is….dreadful. Here are some examples: Throughout this time, I have been abcezy. Along with my entire family, I have done thus and such. With this steady rhythm, it is possible to ….. With this unique workforce, I find that…. There...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Let me share with you a couple of very common mistakes I see when grading students’ essays: the use of a single noun with a plural pronoun and the use of possessive apostrophes when they only mean to use a plural noun. Folks, where were you when your teachers told you about this in writing class? Here’s the politically incorrect idea here: If...
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College Life
Hello everyone: This is the time of the semester when some students are pretty worn out, if they are taking an 8-week course. You’ve made it through the first four weeks, but the end really does not seem in sight yet. There is probably a boatload of assignments yet to be done, and they are probably the most heavily-weighted of the term. How will you...
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Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: Today’s blog is about sentence fragments. They can be the bane of your existence, if you let them. Here are some examples from papers I received on both the undergraduate and graduate levels just this past week: Input, process and output One being having little to no human interaction Also, somewhat unfair if others with the same pay don’t have to work such...
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College Life / Writing & Grammar
Hello everyone: I received a college essay from a student recently who, basically, said the same thing over and over, again and again, redundantly. Like I just did there. Folks, you need to have more than one line of text in your essays or they get…..boring. In this case, he wrote one line as his introduction paragraph. (Please note: introductions need to be more than...
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Writing & Grammar
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...
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