Download Common Writing Problems

Common Writing Problems
Revised in 2013 for the 9th Edition – Professor Rosen
Revised on December 31, 2013.
Students are to use the:
Hacker, Diana and Nancy Sommers. The Bedford Handbook. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.
Print.
The Modern Language Association (MLA) is the most popularly used style for citing sources and for listing the
works that are cited in a paper. It is regularly used in English and humanities courses. It is arguably the easiest
to use with endnotes instead of footnotes. High school students often learn it.
The Bedford Handbook is one of the best grammar books with its inclusiveness, organization, and examples so
that students can write the best possible paper at a college level. This could be a great resource for any and all
future courses that have writing that a student takes.
The MLA section can be found on pages 556 – 661. Other references to good writing skills are scattered
throughout the book.
Earlier editions are outdated and other grammar books are unacceptable.
Students will have ½ point deducted for each grammatical or content mistake. Submit this sheet along with the
draft and the final product in the hands of the professor to potentially receive full credit on or before the due
date.
1. Heading and title or title page (Hacker and Sommers 168, 196, 652, 656, 807).
2. Introduction – reasonable length (40).
3. Do not staple or bind pages. Use a paper clip.
4. Proper margins of one inch on all sides (653, 807).
5. Pagination – the proper method of identifying the page number and your name (168, 196, 652, 656,
807).
6. Double-space lines (653, 807).
7. Do not add extra lines before or after the title and between paragraphs (653).
8. Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch from the left margin (653).
9. Proper font size (10 to 12 points) and style, such as Times New Roman (652).
10. Needs in-text citations within and or at the end of each paragraph (563 – 564, 565 – 568, 582 – 695).
11. Periods come after the in-text citations (438 – 440).
12. Use paragraphs (87 – 106).
13. Spelling (459 – 468).
14. Introduce characters with their full names and relationships to others (187).
15. Use the active, not passive (PV), voice. Use proper syntax (200 – 204, 254).
16. Use good syntax or sentence structure. Five basic sentence patterns exist (490).
A. Subject – Verb (S-V). Example: She talks.
B. Subject – Verb – Object (S-V-O). Example: She talks to me.
C. Subject – Verb – Indirect Object – Direct Object (S-V-I-D). Example: She talks to me about her
paper.
D. Subject – Verb – Direct Object – Object Compliment (S-V-DO-OC). Example: She talks about her
paper’s length.
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Common Writing Problems
Revised in 2013 for the 9th Edition – Professor Rosen
E. Subject – Verb – Subject Compliment – Object (S-V-SC). Example: She talks about herself.
17. Subjects and verbs must agree (295 – 307).
18. Pronouns and antecedents must agree (307 – 313).
19. Do not begin sentences with conjunctions, such as “but, or,” and “and” (283, 488).
20. Do not end sentences with prepositions, such as “above, as, at, far, for, from, in, of, near, on, over, to,
under,” and “with” (487).
21. Use prepositions and idiomatic expressions appropriately (396 – 400).
22. Place cumulative adjectives in the appropriate order (394 – 395).
23. Abbreviations (450 – 454).
24. Numbers (454 – 456).
25. Italics (456 – 458, 653).
26. Capitalization (472 – 476, 653).
27. Long quotations (190, 197, 573, 653, 656 – 657).
28. Write in the third person, not first or second person. Use “he, she, it, they, him, her, them” et cetera.
This is a formal paper (226, 796).
29. This assignment is to write a formal term paper. Do not use contractions or colloquial words, such as
“couldn’t, didn’t, hadn’t, he’d, she’d, shouldn’t, wasn’t, weren’t, wouldn’t” and “they’re” (261 – 263).
30. Avoid sexist language (264 – 268, 308 – 309, 311).
31. Revise language that may offend groups of people, including racist and anti-Semitic words (268).
32. Keep the paper in the past tense. Your topic and subject are historical facts, not fiction (228 – 229).
33. Eliminate “very.” Utilize other adverbs or none at all. Do not be redundant (252 – 253).
34. Use the proper part of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, article,
and interjection (478 – 489).
35. Remove all sentence fragments (278 – 289).
36. Remove all run-on sentences (286 – 294).
37. A comma (,) precedes the 7 coordinating conjunctions joining independent clauses, such as “and, but, or,
nor, for, so” and “yet” (289 – 290).
38. Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase (403 – 405).
39. Use a comma between all items in a series (405).
40. Use commas to set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and word groups
expressing contrast. For example, “however, moreover, for example, as a matter of fact,” and “in other
words” are almost always followed by a comma (412 – 413, 423 – 424).
41. Sentences that start or end a sentence with “In, in” or “On, on” and a year, normally are followed or
preceded by a comma (398).
42. The Semicolon (;) (422 – 426).
43. The Colon (:) (427 – 429, 653).
44. The Apostrophe (’) (429 – 434).
45. The Hyphen (-) (468 – 471).
46. Quotation marks (653).
47. Use “who” when referring to persons, not “that” (304, 317, 835).
48. Use “that” when referring to animals and inanimate objects (304, 317, 835).
49. Use “who” for subjects (304, 317, 326 – 330, 835).
50. Use “whom” for objects (317, 326 – 330, 835).
51. Use “which” for animals and things versus “who” and “that” (317, 410, 835).
52. Clarify to whom are pronouns referring, such as “he, she, her, him” and “it” (313 – 317).
53. Double-space ellipses: . . . (571 – 572).
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Common Writing Problems
Revised in 2013 for the 9th Edition – Professor Rosen
54. Brackets are for insertions within quotations, changing the case of a letter, or indicating a spelling error
in a quote ([]) (572).
55. Quotations within quotations (436).
56. Use signal phrases to integrate sources (573 – 574).
57. Distinguish between personal and possessive singular and plural pronouns (207 – 213, 323 – 324, 480).
58. “Its” is possessive; “it’s” is a contraction (433, 465).
59. Longwinded, wordy sentences, unnecessary verbiage (252 – 256).
60. Unclear meaning or point (53 – 54).
61. Conclusion/summary – reasonable length (46 – 48).
62. Needs a Work Cited page (173, 198, 596 – 651, 661, 808).
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