Second Edition

bY
Hilary Russell
 CORRECTION SYMBOLS
THE WORD
PAGE #s
CAP capitalization error. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85-86
LEG illegible word or passage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
POS improperly formed possessive.
also considered SP or WC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
SP spelling error . . . . . . . . . . 82-84,86-93, 122-124
VAGUE vague word or phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13. 75
TAUT tautology means saying the same thing
twice. also called WORDY or redundant 74-75
WCh wrong choice of words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86-93
WORDY using more words than necessary . . . . . 73-78
w/o writeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

THE SENTENCE
AGR agreement of subject and verb
or of pronoun and antecedent . . . . . . . 98-102
AWK awkwardly constructed group
of words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
cs comma splice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31. 94
DANG dangling modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
DBL NEG double negative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
faulty comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
FC
FL QU .
“floating quotation. one that has not
been integrated into a sentence . . . . . . . . . 15
FRAG sentence fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
G error of grammar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-29
IS WH/
IS BEC incorrect use of an adverb clause . . . . . . . 111

(continued on inside back cover)

 THE
PORTABLE
WRITER
A Brief Manual of Style, Usage,
and Mechanics

Second Edition

Hilary Russell
Berkshire School
 Cover by Ronn Cabaniol

Thank you to Scott Barker, Cornelia Baskin, Linda Bellizzi, Jane

Bragdon, Ronn Cabaniol, Jo Chaffee, Elizabeth Clifford, Steve
Craig, Heather Forrest, John Hornor, Bayard Kellam, Judy
Magenis, John McKenna, Norman Merrill, Sue Montgomery,
Sally Morgan, Procter Smith, Janice Thomas, John Toffey, and
Charlotte Wilson. Thanks also to Richard Lederer for his aid and
advice and for allowing me to use sentences from his book
Anguished English (Wyrick & Co.).

I am also grateful to the following student writers for allowing me

to use excerpts from their work as examples of good writing: Jen
Airoldi, Lisa ArHeld, David Hart, George Mack, David Nute,
Mike Raleigh, Joe Roland, Josh Scala, and Lee Scharge.

Excerpt from “Digging” from Poems 1965-1975 by Seamus

Heaney, copyright 1966,1980 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by
permission of Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

Excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Collected

Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot, copyright 0 1936 by Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copyright 0 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot,
reprinted by permission of the publisher.

0Copyright 1998 by Wayside Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage
or retrieval system, without written permission
from the publisher.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ISBN 1-877653-47-0

ii
 CONTENTS
BEGINNING A PAPER .................... 1
TWO KINDS OF WRITING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Characteristics of Personal Writing . . . . . . . . . . 2
Characteristics of Academic Writing . . . . . . . . . 3
Writing in General ....................... 5
LISTENING (Developing a Voice) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
GOOD GROUND: SHOWING WHAT
YOU MEAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Vague Word or Phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Avoiding “Floating Quotations” by Integrating
Quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION . . . . . . . . . . 17
Grammar Review ........................ 17
The Parts of Speech .................... 17
Twenty-five Common Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Twenty-five Common Prepositions . . . . . . . . . 19
The Parts of a Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Verbals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Four Kinds of Sentence Structures . . . . . . . . 28
Four Kinds of Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Ending Sentences: Period, Question Mark,
Exclamation Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Introducing: Comma and Colon . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Separating: Comma, Semicolon. Slant (/) . . . . 31
Setting OffComma. Dashes. Parentheses.
Brackets. Quotation Marks. Underlining
(Italics). Ellipsis Marks ( ... ) . . . . . . . . . . . 33

iii
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The PortabZe Writer is a manual of style, a reference book
for usage and mechanics, and a review book for standardized
tests. As a manual of style, it helps students to do the fol-
lowing:
+ begin papers by listing ideas and free writing
+ understand the differences between personal writ-
ing (autobiographical and fictional topics) and aca-
demic writing
+ establish a voice
+ provide detail
+ write clear, concise, varied sentences
+ organize academic papers logically
+ understand the power of tense and point of view in
personal writing
+ edit and revise
Since this book can be snapped into a three-ring note-
book, English students can keep The Portable Writer on hand
to improve papers in progress and to correct papers as soon
as they are returned. Also, teachers who conduct writing
classes as workshops will appreciate the fact that students
can easily bring The Portable Writer to class daily, in case
there is a question about usage, style, or mechanics.
The Portable Writer not only provides a review of gram-
mar but also functions as a composition and usage text, offer-
ing explanations, writing exercises and practice sentences.
Its central purposes are to illustrate the principles of good
writing, to help students correct their errors intelligently
and efficiently, and to aid the review for standardized exam-
inations, such as the A.C.T. (The American College Testing
Program), the College Board Achievement Test in English
Composition, and the Test of Standard Written English sec-
tion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. I
Hilary Russell
 THE PORTABLE
WRITER

GINNING A
Get it down. Take chances. It may
be bad, but it’s the only way you
can do anything good.
William Faulkner

When William Faulkner says, “Get it down. Take

chances,” he suggests that you, a writer beginning a
paper, should not worry if you are unsure of exactly
where your ideas are headed. Start writing about a
point that interests you, push it as far as you can, and
then question where to go next. Usually this process,
called free writing, will uncover new points, clarify
old ones, and lead your thoughts in a new direction. So
as you begin, don’t worry about having a well-devel-
oped outline; that can come later after you have done
enough free writing t o discover what you want to say.
Instead, work from a list of a few rough ideas.
The more free writing you do, the better. It will
increase your chances of discovering new ideas and
will give you plenty of material to return to later.

1
 XNDS 0 WRITING
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney

Most English teachers assign two kinds of papers -

personal and academic. The first is usually easier for
students because the subject matter is theirs. In other
words, when a teacher assigns a journal entry, an
autobiographical sketch or a short story, you write
about yourself - your ideas, your memories, your
imaginings.
On the other hand, when your teacher asks you to
write about the central theme in Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The ScarZet Letter or to discuss Frederic
Henry’s love for Catherine in Ernest Hemingway’s A
Farewell to Arms, he or she forces you outside your-
self. You cannot write until you have read and
understood. In academic writing you have to master
the material before you write; in personal writing your
experience - real and imaginary - is the material.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONAL

WRITING
4 You write the way you actually think. Consequently,
your reader hears a comfortable tone of voice corn-
ing through your writing instead of your idea of how
a good student sounds. (“This point clearly illus-
trates that Frederic Henry has become disillusioned
. . . ”>
4 Because you write in a natural tone of voice or one

2
 that you understand (maybe you are good a t writing
the way a child talks because you have younger
brothers or sisters who never stop talking), you use
vocabulary, sentence structures, and patterns of
thought that feel comfortable. You begin to develop,
therefore, your own style.
+ Since you probably have a genuine interest in the
subject of your paper, you ask yourself if your read-
er will understand what you mean, and if you will
need to give him more physical detail to see, hear,
taste, touch, and smell.
+ When you discover that what is funny or sad or
frightening to you is not so to your reader, you will
try to understand why your passage doesn’t work,
and you will probably learn something about writ-
ing, and about yourself.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ACADEMIC
WRITING
+ Academic papers teach you to write according to a
set of conventions that help make your ideas clear
and your arguments persuasive. These conventions
- like manners, tuxedos, and formal dresses - may
inhibit you until you get used to them and become
at ease within their limits. Then you will use them
with style and confidence.

The Conventions of Academic Writing

+ Use a direct, informative title. (Don’t be cute or mis- TITLE
leading.) Do not underline or quote your own title in
any paper - academic or personal.

3
+ Avoid the first person singular - I, me, my, mine.
Instead, say “the reader,” “this reader,” “one,” or
id 9,
we.
+ Refer to living authors by their full names (Ann
Tyler, John Updike) or by title (Ms. Tyler or Mr.
Updike) and to deceased authors as above or by
their last names (Whitman, Dickinson). Never call
authors, living or deceased, by their first names.
+ Refer to characters by the same names that their
authors use. Say Catherine, not Kitty or Kate,
because no character in A Farewell to Arms calls
Catherine “Kitty” or “Kate.”
+ Write about literature in the present tense. After
all, Macbeth is and he always will be in the present
as long as people see or read Shakespeare’s play.
Say, therefore, “When we first see Macbeth . . . 9,

and “Later he orders the death of Banquo.”

+ Use formal English. Specifically, avoid sentence
fragments, contractions, slang, and informal
usages. For example, “Freddie got all mixed up
about all that shooting” is informal, while “The
immorality of war disillusions Frederic Henry” is
formal.
+ Academic papers prove something:that you know
the plot, that you understand the concepts, that you
can analyze, synthesize, and summarize. You have
to know the facts and be able to present them as
proof of your idea. Later in this book, you will
learn more about getting ideas and proving them.
+ In an academic paper, you provide the reader with
examples from the text for the same reason that you

4
 describe images (sights, sounds, smells, etc.) in per-
sonal writing - to show the reader what you mean.
For instance, which is more convincing, “Macbeth
feels guilty” or “In his extreme guilt, Macbeth asks,
‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood/Clean from my hands?’ ” The quotation con-
vinces us for two reasons:
1. It says that Macbeth feels so guilty that he
thinks all the oceans do not hold enough water to
wash the blood from his hands.
2. It gives us something to see - blood, hands,
water, oceans. Isn’t it easier to remember a thing
than a feeling such as guilt?
+ Just as personal writing teaches you about yourself,
academic writing teaches you about the text. Do you
know the feeling of getting to the end of an acade-
mic paper and discovering that you have contra-
dicted your original idea? We contradict ourselves
in early drafts of papers because as we write, our
thinking turns and ends up in unexpected places -
usually on washed out roads and dead ends, but
sometimes on beautiful short cuts to ideas we had
never thought of before. Since we want to bring
these ideas to the center of our papers, we have to
rethink and revise.

WRITING IN GENERAL
As Seamus Heaney tells us, writing is digging
with a pen (or a typewriter or a word processor) to
uncover and clarify feelings, ideas and relationships.
Since both personal and academic writing involve this
digging with words, why keep these two kinds of writ-

5
ing apart? Why should there be a gap between the
comfortable personal paper and the threatening acad-
emic paper? Why not, so to speak, dig in the middle
ground? Here are some ways you can work that
ground:

+ Write an informative essay about a non-academic

subject that you understand and enjoy.
+ Interview people and turn your interviews into
biographies. This exercise, though not an analysis
of a text you are reading, nevertheless forces you to
go outside yourself, to collect facts (proof), and to
focus on the idea you are proving.
+ Keep an informal literary journal about your per-
sonal response to the assigned reading.
+ Write papers relating your experiences to the text
you are studying.
+ Write an original dialogue between characters
and/or authors you have studied.

All these exercises will help you to gain the ana-

lytical skills necessary in academic writing while still
allowing you to write out of your own experience.

6
 When I hear the hypercritical quarreling
about grammar. . . I see that they [gram-
marians] forget the first requisite and rule
is that expression shall be vital and nat-
ural.
Henry David Thoreau

Since good writing (what Thoreau calls “vital and

natural . . . expression”)wants to be heard, listen to
your words as you write. At first listen in your head;
then, if you are lucky and the words keep coming,
mouth them. Later, read them aloud so you can
hear if they sound true and believable, or fake. The
quality that makes a piece of writing want to be heard
in a certain way is called voice or tone of voice. It
begins in the early stages when you are really digging.
If the voice in your paper sounds fake, you know you
are fooling yourself, trying to say something you do not
care about or do not believe. On the other hand, if the
voice sounds strong and true, you know you are prob-
ably on the right track.
Notice the expression “the voice” and not “your
voice.” The voice you write in is not your speaking
voice; it’s the literary voice you have developed.
Because the spoken voice sounds unnatural and is
usually unclear on the written page, writers have to
develop their natural literary voice. Listen to Joe
Roland’s voice as he argues that life is not just flesh
and guts. In the poem he is discussing, “The Lull,” by
Molly Peacock, two characters have come across a
dead possum.
No, Molly, we are not “Dreams, brains, fur / and guts.”
We are dreams, memories, and fountains of emotions
that never quite give forth a burst that credits our

7
 potential. What holds us together is not flesh but feel-
ing. Feeling, and the learning to put up with one anoth-
er’s stench.

Joe Roland’s voice sounds indignant, if not angry. It is

the arrangement of the words, not the words them-
selves, that communicates this strong emotion. For
instance, “No, Molly, we are not” directly contradicts
the poet. Furthermore, Mr. Roland addresses the
author by her first name, as if he knows Molly Peacock
well. This presumed familiarity combined with the
contradiction creates the vital and natural voice of an
angry, righteous idealist who will not accept the poet’s
claim that life is only “dreams, brains, fur / and guts.”
Written in the middle ground between the academic
and the personal, this paper compares the poet’s
response to a dead possum to a similar circumstance
in Mr. Roland’s life.
In the following example of personal writing, Lisa
Arkfeld tells about her idea of home:
I’ve never had a home in the conventional, capitalized
sense of the word. Roots? What are they? ‘Please list
your permanent address.’ What ‘permanent address’?

What is the tone of voice in this passage? How does

Ms. Arkfeld arrange her words to help create a vital
tone of voice? Joe Roland’s bare, bold “no”and his noun
of direct address, “Molly,” powerfully affect the pas-
sage’s voice. Had Joe simply begun his sentence with
“We are not. . . ,,, the voice would have lost its indig-
nation. Look at Ms. Arkfeld’s three, short interrogative
sentences. How do those arrangements of words
affect voice? What do they sound like? Merry? Lazy?
Relaxed?
Now let us consider creating a voice in a purely
academic paper, where you may not use informal lan-
guage and sentence fragments, such as Lisa Arkfeld’s

8
sentence “Roots?”Listen to George Mack’s voice as he
discusses Charlotte, the protagonist in Anne Tyler’s
Earthly Possessions :
There is a chance she never would have gone through
with leaving, but she leaves because she is forced to.
She does not offer any resistance. In a sense her kid-
napper, Jake, represents the side of Charlotte that
always wanted to leave. He lives freely, with no respon-
sibilities. When he is finally faced with some responsi-
bility - his girlfriend’s having a baby and the thought of
‘gold and avocado’curtains - he cringes. His realization
that he cannot handle responsibility after his free float-
ing life of crime and demolition derbies is similar to
Charlotte’s realization . . .

Unlike the two previous examples, no strong emo-

tion intensifies the voice of this passage. How would
you describe the author’s voice? It is even, assured,
and thus assuring - the voice of someone who knows
what he thinks and has the facts to back up his ideas.
George Mack understands Jake’s irresponsibility and
can express it concretely by mentioning the baby, the
gold and avocado curtains, and the demolition derbies.
This specific evidence and the apparent ease with
which Mr. Mack employs it help create the passage’s
confident, natural, assured tone of voice.
Confidence also shows in the structure of this
author’s twenty-three word sentence beginning “When
he is finally....” Note how Mr. Mack withholds
“cringes,”the main verb, until the very end. His sen-
tence knows where it’s going and thus it sounds con-
fident and vital. The “vital and natural” expression in
George Mack’s writing is an intellectual vitality, the
sound of someone who understands an idea and
enjoys explaining it.
When Thoreau speaks of “hypercritical”grammar-
ians quarreling, he means that writers must find

9
their own way of expressing thoughts first and then
make sure they are writing clear, correct English. If
you try to be correct in your first draft, your writing
may not achieve the natural tone of voice that brings
words alive. So let the words of your first drafts come
quickly, listen to them, and read them aloud.

WRITING EXERCISES
1)Write 300-600 words in a strong voice of someone
other than you. Choose a voice that you can hear in
your head as you write, and try to write in such a
way that your reader will say, “That is exactly what
that person (or kind of person) sounds like!”

2) Write 300-600 words in your voice about a subject

you know well. You could focus, for instance, on an
issue you feel strongly about or a process that you
enjoy and want others to know about. Again, think
of engaging your readers with a realistic, convinc-
ing voice.

10
 OWING WHAT Y
My task . . . is, by the power of the
written word, to make you hear, to
make you feel - it is, before all, to
make you see.
Joseph Conrad

Though Joseph Conrad might have begun a book

about writing with a chapter on description, most of
the textbooks place description somewhere in the
back, as if it is only decorative, something the writer
adds on after the real work is finished, like the gin-
gerbread on a Victorian house. Begin describing at the
beginning, when you are digging out the words as fast
as you can. It is easier for readers to remember a
thing they have been shown than to remember an
abstract idea, a concept. Though we never forget
Macbeth’s bloody hands, we find the abstract idea of
guilt very forgettable. Shakespeare knew that abstrac-
tions wilt and die if tangible images (those red, drip-
ping hands) do not take root in the reader’s imagina-
tion.
In the passage below, Mike Raleigh uses imagery
to bring a lacrosse player to life:
He played lacrosse with such a grace that he seemed to
float just above the thick, green turf while all the others
seemed to grind and cut through the field until it turned
to dust.
No string of adjectives could have brought as
much vitality into this passage as do its nouns and
verbs. Nouns like turf, field, and dust carry the
scene’s sights, sounds and smells. Verbs like float,
grind,and cut move the players in specific ways. We

I1
 understand, therefore, what the author means by
grace (an abstract word) because Mr. Raleigh has
shown us graceful action and rooted it in the good
ground of tangible (concrete) nouns and verbs.
Because nouns and verbs are the heart of lan-
guage, use tangible ones as much as possible. If your
idea for an academic paper isn’t getting anywhere, if it
is stuck in vague abstractions, look through the text
you are writing about for a quotation full of concrete
language. Then discuss why key words work well.
Usually you will stumble on to a new idea in this
process. In other words, instead of beginning with a
rough, general idea - say, Macbeth’s guilt - and going
on to find specific examples for proof, pick out a spe-
cific passage about guilt and try to find ideas in it
around which to build a paper. For instance, the pas-
sage about Macbeth‘s hands could lead to a discussion
of how and why Shakespeare uses the image of blood
throughout the play. This method of looking for gener-
al ideas in specific passages works well because in
good writing each important passage contains nouns
and verbs that support a general theme, such as the
frightening power of evil suggested by bloody hands
that cannot be washed clean. If you keep this fact in
mind, you will write with strong nouns and verbs in
the first drafts of your papers. Tacking on descrip-
tive passages later is rarely productive.
If you are not convinced that nouns and verbs are
the roots of strong writing, then consider what other
parts of speech might qualify. Pronouns simply stand
for nouns. Interjections are never central but only
intensifj. what is central. (Wow, is she beautiful!)
Conjunctions and prepositions connect and show
important relationships between ideas. (Sarahjumped
over (not in)the stream; John or (not and) Tom will

12
drive.) Though properly used connectors clarify the
relationship between your nouns and verbs, your
nouns and verbs have to be clear in themselves.
What about adjectives and adverbs? What, for
instance, does “thick, green” do for Mike Raleigh’s
“turf”?When we say turf instead of field or ground,
don’t we usually mean thick and green? The adjectives
emphasize the depth and color of turf, making sure we
see the image just as their author wants us to. Some
would say that turf is enough, while others would say
that thick and green are necessary. The question is of
style. What do you think?
Most students use adjectives and adverbs too fie-
quently, creating free-floating language, not rooted in
the good ground of our five senses. Compare these
abstract and rooted words.

Abstract Rooted
an old, famous, beautiful American
tree that is now nearly extinct an elm?
a chestnut?
a quick, dangerous turn a swerve
a long, prose story someone made up a novel
a small country just west of Spain Portugal

Notice that the abstract column is not only more

vague than the rooted column, but also wordier.
Here are more examples of how nouns and verbs
root language and save words:
Mr. Fenely, my sixth-grade band conductor, perched on
his podium, glaring down at us like a vulture on some
dying prey.
David Nute

13
VAGUE Home is a doorjamb upon which has been recorded
every centimeter of growth since the toddler age.
Lisa Arkfeld
Just aRer the Cross-County Parkway turns into Route
684, there is a very contemporary office building. I
believe it belongs to the Aetna Corporation. . . . The sun
reflects brightly off the cobalt blue, mirrored windows of
the structure; and the parking lot’s rows of cars are very
evenly ordered, almost like a group of soldiers.
David Hart

What are the strongest nouns and verbs? What

adjectives and adverbs work best? Note that some
adjectives, like cobalt, are also nouns and that others,
like glaring and ordered (participles),are also verbs.
These adjectives, carrying their nounness and verb-
ness along with them, are often stronger and livelier
than adjectives that are only adjectives. What do you
think of the schoolgirl friendship, the summer love,
the stolen fruit, the dying horse, and the red Chevy?
Note that these nouns and verbs used as adjectives
strengthen the phrases.
In academic writing, the best way to show what
you mean is to blend your words with the words of the
text you are discussing. Note how Lee Scharges moves
gracefully into a quotation that shows a character’s
determination to remain alone:
About twenty years later, after his father’s death, the
two are reunited by Catherine’s ever-meddling Aunt
Lavinia. Catherine, however, turns him away and ‘pick-
ing up her morsel of fancy-work, [seats] herself with it
again - for life, as it were.’

A writer less skilled than Lee Scharges might have

handled the quotation this way:
. . .Catherine, however, turns him away. ‘Picking up her
morsel of fancy-work, [seats] herself with it again - for
life, as it were.’

14
 By not integrating the quoted words with his own FL QU
sentence, this less skilled writer creates a choppy pas-
sage and what is called a FLOATING QUOTATION -
one that is not part of the author’s sentence but,
rather, floats free. If you keep in mind that all quota-
tions, no matter how long, are viewed grammatically
as one word, you will realize that, in order not to be
fragments, they must be used as some part of your sen-
tence - subject, verb, direct object, whatever.
Here is a typical FLOATING QUOTATION:
Macbeth is courageous. “Give me my armor.”
Correct this error by saying, Macbeth, still coura-
geous, says, “Give me my armor.”Now your quota-
tion is part of the grammar of your sentence, the direct
object of says.
Note now how Josh Scala’s two quotations, like
Lee Scharges’, give us things to see and thus focus
our imagination:
The most outstanding metaphor in Dickinson’s poem
compares faith to a ‘pierless bridge.’ This bridge has no
supports, which is impossible in real life, yet faith
explains the impossible. By showing the soul as being
‘rocked in arms of steel,’ the poet [personifies] faith, the
mother or generator of the soul.

Had Josh Scala not given us words that we can see

like pierless, arms, rocked, steel and support, he
would have left us unrooted and confused by abstrac-
tions like faith and soul.
These well-integrated quotations not only give the
two passages substance and clarity, but also demon-
strate a genuine familiarity with, if not admiration for,
the text. A well-chosen, well-discussed passage, like a
confident voice, will help convince your reader that
you know what you are talking about.
And this passage does not have to be long. In fact,

15
FL QU a few words examined in depth are more effective than
many words discussed superficially. Here, for exam-
ple, is just one sentence by Jen Airoldi:
The reader feels the bleakness of the ‘gray and bare’ jar
and the wilderness surrounding its place ‘upon a hill.’

By quoting two groups of three words from Wallace

Stevens’poem “Anecdote of the Jar,” by borrowing two
other words that appeared in the poem (jar and
wilderness),and by changing the forms of two others
(placed becomes place and surround becomes sur-
rounding), the author blends her language with
Stevens’. In doing so, she assures us that she is com-
fortable with the language of the poem and that she
understands the nature of the poem’s bleakness, a
very abstract word. Her reader is glad she did not sim-
ply say, “One feels the poem’s bleakness.” Instead, we
see the bleakness of the “gray and bare” jar on its hill
in the wilderness.

WaITING EXERCISES
1) Write 300-600 words of description about a subject
you know well. Keep in mind that strong, specific
nouns and verbs are the most effective tools of
description. Also, don’t forget that a confident,
engaging voice convinces your readers that you
know your subject.

2) In a piece of the same length, describe why a certain

passage of poetry or fiction is effective. Use at least
five well-chosen quotations. Avoid FL QU and
unnecessarily long quotations.

16
 A knowledge of grammar is to the
writer as a knowledge of anatomy
is to the painter.
Charles Lamb
As Charles Lamb suggests, the writer who recog-
nizes and understands the powers and limitations of
the various grammatical structures will be far more
assured than the writer who must rely on his ear to
decide questions of clarity, punctuation, and usage. In
case your grammar is rusty, here is a review of the pri-
mary grammatical structures.

GRAMMAR REVIEW G
PARTS OF SPEECH
NOUN - names a person, place, thing or idea; func-
tions as a subject (Sub.), direct object (D.O.), indi-
rect object (I.O.), object of the preposition (O.P.)
and predicate nominative (P.N.)
Ex. - Sally, Boston, freedom

PRONOUN - used in place of a noun

Ex. - I, we, me, you, they, us, them, my, their,
which, that, who, whose, whom, all, some,
everyone, everybody, each

ADJECTIVE - modifies a noun or a pronoun

Ex. - mild weather

17
 VERB - expresses action or being
Dansitive verbs take objects.
G Ex. - Ernest drove the truck.
Ex. - Jim walked the dog.
Intransitive verbs express action but do not take
objects.
Ex. - Ernest laughed.
Ex. - Ernest ran, but Jim walked.
Note that to walk, like many verbs, can be tran-
sitive or intransitive, depending on its use in the
sentence.
Linking verbs link a subject to a P.A. or a P.N.
They express thought but not action. The common
linking verbs are all forms of to be, as well as to
feel, to look, to smell, to sound, to taste, to
appear, to become, and to seem.
Ex. - Though the day is clear, the air feels cold.

ADVERB - modifies a verb, adjective, or another

adverb and usually ends with Zy
Ex. - The sun shone brilliantly, and the time
passed too quickly.
TWENTY-FIVE COMMON ADVERBS
(that do not end in ly)
almost here once too
also last quite twice
anyhow late rather very
anyway never somehow well
anywhere not someplace
everywhere now somewhat
far often there

18
PREPOSITION - shows the relationship between a G
word and a noun or pronoun called the object of
the preposition
Ex. - At the end of the trail, Black Rock rises
fifty feet above your head.

TWENTY-FIVE COMMON PREPOSITIONS

above between inside over
about by instead of since
after down like through
among during near under
around for next to
at from of
before in outside

CONJUNCTION -joins words or groups of words

Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases,
and clauses of equal importance.
Ex. - for, and, nor, but, or, yet (FANBOY)
Correlative conjunctions also connect words,
phrases, and clauses of equal importance.
Ex. -either. . . or, neither.. . nor, both.. .
and, not only. . . but (also),whether. . .
or, but. . . not
Subordinating conjunctions begin dependent
clauses.
Ex. - because, before, if, while, when,
although, since
See Dependent Clauses (pages 24-27) for more
examples.

19
 INTERJECTION - expresses emotion and has no
G grammatical connection with the rest of the sen-
tence
Ex. - Well, you finally showed up!
Ex. - Wow, this view is beautiful!

THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE

This section reviews the ways we use the parts of
speech to form complete thoughts.

SUBJECT - performs the primary action of the sen-

tence or clause.
Ex. - Monica threw the ball.

VERB or SIMPLE PREDICATE - describes the pri-

mary action or state of being in the sentence. The
predicate is the verb and the words that modify
and complement it.
Ex. - Monica threw the ball.

DIRECT OBJECT - receives the action of a transi-

tive verb.
Ex. - Monica threw the ball.

INDIRECT OBJECT - precedes the direct object and

tells who or what received the action. An indirect
object either is or can be preceded by to or for.
Ex. - Monica threw (to) me the ball.

OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT - is a noun or an

adjective that follows the direct object and that

20
 helps complete the meaning of a verb.
Ex. - The players did not elect Osgood (D.O.) G
captain (O.C.), for no one considered him
(D.O.) qualified (O.C.).
Ex. -You make me (D.O.) angry (O.C.).
This complement is used infrequently, for it fol-
lows only a few verbs such as to name, to
call, to consider, to make, and to elect.

PREDICATE NOMINATIVE - follows a linking verb

(p. 18) and restates the subject.
Ex. - Monica is captain.

PREDICATE ADJECTlVE - follows a linking verb

(p. 18) and modifies the subject.
Ex. - Osgood is isolated.

APPOSITIVE - an appositive directly follows and

restates a noun or a pronoun.
Ex. - Monica, the captain, drinks root beer.
VERB OR INDIRECT DIRECT
UBJECT APPOSITIVE SIMPLE PREDICATE OBJECT OBJECT
1 Sally, our friend, sent (to) us the message I
COMPOUND COMPOUND PREDICATE
SUBJECT PREDICATE ADJECTIVE

Janet and Thomas looked and felt miserable.

PREDICATE OBJECTIVE
NOMINATIVE COMPLEMENT
bm e Monica is our hero, we have named her captain.

21
 VERBALS

G Verbals are verbs used as other parts of speech.

GERUND - a verb used as a noun; always ends with

ing; fimctions as a noun - subject (Sub.), direct
object (D.O.), indirect object (I.O.), object of the
preposition (Obj. of Prep.), object of a verbal (Obj.
of Verbal) and predicate nominative (P.N.).
Ex. - Sleeping mends the mind. (Sub.)
Ex. - J a n e t loves running. (D.O.)
Ex. - She is in the habit of running. (Obj. of
Prep.)

PARTICIPLE - a verb used as an adjective, ends

with ing,ed or with an irregular ending (beaten,
swollen, grown).
Ex. - The hired man held the sleeping cat.
Ex. - Osgood's tattered and worn hat was
thirty-years old.

INFINITIVE - a verb preceded by to and used as a

noun, adjective, or adverb.
Ex. - The stream wants to run (D.O.) where
the hill begins to fall. (Adv.)
Ex. - To play baseball (Sub.) seems to be fun.
(P.A.)
Note that baseball and fun are each part of
infinitive phrases.

22
 A phrase is a group of words that lacks a subject G
and/or a predicate and that acts as a unit.

VERBAL PHRASE - verbals that are modified

and/or that take objects.
Gerund phrase
Ex. - Burying her hamster helped Marybelle
accept its death.
Participial phrase
Ex. - Dreaming of her lost summers,
Marybelle sipped a cherry Coke.
Infinitive phrase
Ex. - Osgood loves to oil his new baseball
glove.

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES - a preposition

always has an object.
Ex. - The children sat in the first row at the
theater.

APPOSITIVE PHRASES - an appositive directly

follows and restates a noun or a pronoun.
Ex. - Osgood, the expert oiler, lost his new
glove.
Ex. - Osgood, the person who oiled his new
glove eight times a day, rarely caught a
ball.

23
 ABSOLUTE PHRASES - contain a subject and a
G participle or an infinitive; cannot stand alone as a
sentence; do not serve as parts of a sentence or as
modifiers.
Ex. - His glove lost in the woods, Osgood
looked miserable.

CLAUSES
A clause is a group of words that contains a subject
and a predicate and that acts as a unit.

INDEPENDENT CLAUSE - a complete thought

that can stand alone as a sentence.
Ex. - Marybelle leaped across Glen Brook.

DEPENDENT CLAUSE - does not make sense alone.

Adjective clause (also called a relative clause) -
modifies a noun or a pronoun and begins with
the relative pronouns which, who, whom,
whose, or that, and the relative adverbs why,
when and where.
Ex. - Marybelle, who was already playing
deep in center field, caught the fly that
Jenny hit.
Ex. - Osgood, whose ancient hat is turning
green, recalls the day when his father
gave it to him.
Ex. - Osgood’s father, whom everyone
knows, understands the reason why old
baseball hats are worth saving.

24
Noun clause - acts as a noun (Sub., D.O., I.O.,
P.N., Appositive, Obj. of Prep., Obj. of Verbal)
and often begins with these words: how, that,
who, whose, what, whoever, whomever,
whatever, when, why, which, whether.
Ex. - Tom told us what we should wear
(D.O.), where we should camp (D.O.), and
how we would get there (D.O.).
Ex. - Whomever you choose (Sub.) will be
happy to play where you wish (Obj. of
Infinitive).
Ex. - Whether I should pick Marybelle or
Jenny (Sub.) is hard to decide.
Ex. - I know why I can’t decide (D.O.).
Ex. - I’m afraid of what the other person
might think (Obj. of Prep.).

Adverb clause - acts as an adverb and often begins

with these subordinating conjunctions:
after before though
although if until
as since when
as though so that where
because than whether
while
Ex. - After Marybelle jumped Glen Brook,
she grabbed the ball.
Ex. - Marybelle hits better than Jenny. (Note
that the verb hits is omitted. The adverb
clause than Jenny hits modifies the adverb
better .)
Ex. - We came inside when the sun went
down.

25
G Ex. - Elven, our center fielder, plays where the
grass grows high.

Identifying Dependent Clauses

Since words like that, when, which, why, and
where can begin more than one kind of depen-
dent clause, you must understand the function
of each clause - what the clause does within
the sentence’s structure. Keep these points in
mind:

1. An adjective clause normally follows a noun.

Ex. - The dog that ate the bone ran away.

2. Adverb clauses usually precede the subject or

follow the complement (D.O., I.O., P.N., P.A.).
Look, therefore, for adverb clauses at the
beginnings and ends of sentences.

3. Like adverb clauses, noun clauses often

appear at the beginnings and ends of sen-
tences. A noun clause at the beginning of a
sentence will probably function as the subject
and, unlike an adverb clause, be followed.by
a verb. At the end of a sentence a noun clause
functions as a complement (D.O., I.O., P.N.,
P.A.), completing the verb.

Now identify the adjective, adverb, and noun

clauses below:
1. I know that you love cities.
2. You are the girl who loves cities.

26
 3. I drove faster so that I would not be late. G
4. Warm weather is the reason why we
moved south.
5 . I thank you for telling me why you moved
south.
6. New York City is where I want to be.
7. Do you know the place where I live?
8. I remember the girl whom we liked.
9: I know the person of whom you speak.
10. When the weather warms, we’ll play outside.
11. Remember the day when we first met?

ANSWERS:

(1)Noun clause - D.O. of know; (2)Adjective

clause - modifies girl; (3) Adverb clause -
modifies faster; (4) Adjective clause - modi-
fies reason; (5) Noun clause - object of the
gerund telling; (6) Noun clause - P.N. fol-
lows the linking verb is and restates the sub-
ject New York City; (7) Adjective clause -
modifies place; (8) Adjective clause - modi-
fies girl; (9) Noun clause - object of preposi-
tion of; (10) Adverb clause - modifies will
play; (11)Adjective clause - modifies day

27
 FOUR KINDS OF SENTENCE
STRUCTURES
G SIMPLE - one independent clause and no dependent
clauses
Ex. - Monica ran to second base.

COMPOUND - two or more independent clauses

Ex. - Monica ran to second base, and
Marybelle threw to third.

COMPLEX - an independent clause and one or more

dependent clauses
Ex. - As Monica ran to second base, Marybelle
threw to third.

COMPOUND-COMPLEX - two or more independent

clauses and one or more dependent clauses
Ex. - As the umpire said, “Play on,” Osgood
found his glove behind the backstop, and
Luther wildly pounded his fists on the
ground.

FOUR KINDS OF SENTENCES

DECLARATIVE - makes a statement
Ex. - The glove is green.

IMPERATIVE - gives a command or makes a request

Ex. - Drop that vile glove, and please wash your
hands.

28
INTERROGATZVE - asks a question
Ex. - How long was that glove behind the back-
stop?

EXCLAMATORY - expresses strong feelings

Ex. - How lucky I am to have found my glove!

PUNCTUATION P

Punctuation marks have four primary functions:

to end sentences, to introduce, to separate, and
to set off.

ENDING SENTENCES
1. Use a period to end declarative and imperative sen- .
tences.
Ex. - It’s warm outside. Open the door.

2. Use a question mark to end interrogative sentences. ?

Ex. - Why did Osgood oil his glove with olive
oil?

3. Use an exclamation mark to end sentences express- !

ing emotion.
Ex. - Osgood, you dope!

29
 INTRODUCING

P 4. Place a comma after introductory elements in a

sentence.

a. Adverbial clause
Ex. - When Osgood showed the team his glove,
no one said much.

b. Verbal phrase
Ex. - Sitting alone, Osgood began to cry.

c. Prepositional phrase - when the comma is need-

ed for clarity
Ex. - From the other end of the long wooden
bench, Monica heard Osgood.
Ex. - In the evening they went to Elven Wood’s
house.

m
m
5. Use a colon to introduce a list of appositives, a
formal quotation, and a business letter.

a. list of appositives
Ex. - Monica guesses that the forlorn sound is
none of these things: a train whistle, a dying
rabbit, or Marybelle’s grandmother.
Colons do not introduce a list of predicate nomi-
natives or direct objects.
ERROR: Monica knew that the forlorn sound was:
not a train whistle, a dying rabbit, or Marybelle’s
grandmother.

30
 CORRECTION: Monica knew that the forlorn P
sound was not a train whistle, a dying rabbit, or
Marybelle’s grandmother.

b. formal quotation ..
Ex. -All of a sudden Osgood rose and addressed
his teammates: “I weep for my happiness in
finding this great old glove.”
Ex. - Here are Osgood’s words: “I weep for my
happiness in finding this great old glove.”

c. business letter
Ex. - Dear Sir:
Ex. - To whom it may concern:

SEPARATING
6. Separate independent clauses with a comma and 9

a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or,

yet: FANBOY).
Ex. - No one had actually realized that Osgood
was crying, and only Monica paid attention
to his announcement.
Independent clauses joined by a comma but with no cs
coordinating conjunction (FANBOY) create a
comma splice (CS).

7. Use a semicolon to separate independent m

9
clauses not connected by a coordinating conjunc-
tion (FANBOY).
Ex. - No one had noticed that Osgood was cry-

31
P ing; only Monica had paid attention to the
address.
Conjunctive adverbs (such as however, there-
fore, then, also, moreover) joining main clauses
must be preceded by a semicolon.
Ex. - We played all day; then we went to the
dance.
Ex. - I love playing tennis; however, I hate
having to take lessons.

Y 8. Use a semicolon to separate independent clauses

with internal punctuation.
Ex. - No one had noticed that Osgood was cry-
ing; no one even looked up, I am sorry to
report, except Monica, who wasn't even sure
of what she had heard.

9 9. Separate items in a series with commas and use

a comma before a coordinating conjunction.
Ex. - Finally Osgood glanced down at Norton,
Polly, Luther, and Monica.
.
9 10. Use a semicolon to separate items in a series
when one or more of the items contain internal
punctuation.
Ex. - It was Marybelle - leaper of narrow water
ways; Marybelle, dreamer of lost summers;
Marybelle, cradler of sick and dying cats -
who came running to Osgood's side.

11. Use a comma to separate a series of adjectives if

their order does not affect the meaning of the
phrase.

32
 Ex. - the dusty, worn book P
Ex. - the worn, dusty book
Ex. - the kind old lady ,
Ex. - the shy math teacher
Old kind lady would change the meaning of kind
old lady because we consider old lady one idea
modified by only one adjective, kind. Also, the
math shy teacher obviously carries a different
meaning than the shy math teacher.

12. Use a slant to indicate the end of a line of poetry. I

Ex. - Do you know the lines “I’m nobody! Who
are you? / Are you nobody too?”

SETTING OFF
13. Pairs of commas set off parenthetical expres-
sions, appositives, and non-restrictive adjec-
tive clauses.

a. Parenthetical expressions (however, never- 9 ,

theless, on the other hand, for example,
moreover, for instance)
Ex. - Monica, however, got up and spoke to
Osgood.
Ex. - Luther, not to anyone’s surprise, just
stared at the ground.

b. Appositives and appositive phrases

Ex. - Luther, the stone-faced prophet, noticed ,,
nothing.

33
 P Because restrictive appositives are essential
to the sentence’s meaning, they do not need to
be set off with commas.
Ex. - The poet Homer, your friend Marybelle,
the year 1953
Note that the appositives above tell which poet,
which friend, and which year.

c. Non-restrictive adjective clauses

Ex. - Luther, who has written a book on the phi-
losophy of bench-sitting, never says much.
Because restrictive clauses are essential to
the sentence’s meaning, they do not need to
be set off by commas.
9 9 Ex. - The player who paid least attention to the
game had ants in his glove.
The “who” clause (above) is essential (restric-
tive) because it identifies the player. (Player?
Which player? The one who paid least atten-
tion to the game.)

9 9 14. Set off the second and all following items in an

address or date.
Ex. - Marybelle married Osgood on September
13, 1953, in Rutherford, New Jersey, at the
home of Dr. William Williams.
9
15. Set off words and phrases that introduce and
explain quotations.
Ex. - Osgood asked, “May I play now?”
Ex. - Luther inquired, “What about the ants?”

34
16. Set off nouns of direct address. P
Ex. - Marybelle, may Osgood play? 9

17. Set off yes and no. 9

Ex. - No, he may not play.

18. Use dashes to set off (a) a series of appositives

or (b) an appositive phrase with internal
punctuation. I-

Ex. - Luther - old shoe, old horse, constant

companion, dark brooder on summer after-
noons - why can’t you be nice to Osgood?
Ex. - Monica - the only one curious, bold, and
crafty enough to catch and hold Luther’s eyes -
stepped solemnly toward Luther.

19. Set off incidental explanatory information in ()

parentheses.
Ex. - Luther (he always wore rope sandals) con-
sidered his toes.

20. Use brackets to set off (a) information within a

quotation when the information is not 11
part of the quotation or (b) explanations
within parentheses.
Ex. - At last Luther wrote on the pad he always
carried, “I am a thousand years olde [o-1-d-e
is Luther’s spelling], and I am getting
younger every day.”
Ex. - Monica turned toward the field (she was 1
wearing her yellow blouse with the red polka
dots [Monica was partial to polka dots] and

35
 P her red shorts) and shouted, “Did you hear
that?”

66 y y 21. Set off quotations in these ways:

a. Place periods and commas inside end quotation

marks.

b. Place colons and semicolons outside end quota-

tion marks.

c. Place question marks and exclamation marks

according to the sense of the sentence.
Ex. - In his essay “Three Bags, One Plate and
One Plato,” did Luther write, “Baseball is
Iowa; football is Tennessee”? .
Ex. - Marybelle asked, “If baseball is Iowa, then
is softball a state of the union or a state of the
mind?”

66 Y Y Never use more than one end mark to conclude a

sentence.
ERROR: Did Marybelle ask, “If baseball is Iowa,
then is softball a state of the union or a state of
the mind?”?
CORRECTION: Did Marybelle ask, “If baseball is
Iowa, then is softball a state of the union or a
state of the mind?”
d. When writing dialogue, begin a new paragraph
for each new speaker, no matter how little a
speaker may say.

36
 Ex. - “Luther, you’re the smartest person I’ve P
ever known,” said Marybelle.
“Thank you.”
“I wish you were a better softball player.”

e. When quoting more than two lines from a text, tt YY

indent the passage on both margins, and do not

use quotations; for your indentations have set
the passage off for you. For an example, note
the indented passage by Edward Abbey on
pages 43-44.

f. Use quotation marks to indicate titles of essays,

short stories, poems, song titles, one-act plays,
titles of chapters, and articles. Underline (or
italicize) titles of long works: novels (and all
other books), plays, newspapers, magazines,
films, and record albums.
Ex. - Luther’s first book, Baseball and the
American Intellectual Dadition, was praised
in Willy Mays’ essay “Why I Never Stop
Reading.”

22. Use ellipsis marks, three spaced periods (. . .), to ..

~

show an interruption in quoted material. If ellipsis

marks end your sentence, add a fourth period.
Thoughtful use of ellipsis marks will help you rid
quoted passages of words that do not further the
point you are proving.
Ex. - Ray says, “We are mixing a cocktail of
memories, and history, and love, and imagi-
nation.”
W. P. Kinsella

37
 Ex. - Ray speaks of ". . . mixing a cocktail of
memories . . . and love. . .79

W. P. Kinsella

PRACTICE SENTENCES
P Punctuation
DIRECTIONS: Correct the error or errors in the fol-
lowing sentences, and in the space at the left write the
ar>r>ror>riate
number(s) of the Dunctuation rule(s) that
wadwere) broken. Place a C before sentences that are
correct.
Most of the punctuation errors in sentences 1-15 focus
on punctuation rules 1-12 on pages 29-33
1. When it rains this steadily in May the grass
gets very green and the robin's chirps seem
loud and shrill
2. Sitting inside here I can hardly keep my
mind on my Spanish homework
3. After dinner I'll go outside for awhile
4. Do you ever take walks in the spring
5. For my big sister there is only one kind of
walk long high speed ones.
6. Before one of those walks she quoted a line
from an article in one of her nature maga-
zines It's better to walk for ten minutes in
the woods than to run an hour on a street
7. She says walking in the woods benefits three
things your body your mind and your spirit
8. Three cheers for long walks says my sister
9. My brother says walking makes him tired
hungry and grumpy

38
 10. On a day like today when rainwater drips off P
every twig and bud it’s hard for most people
to even imagine going outside they would
rather stay dry
11. Josh began the letter to his employer Dear
Mr Richards I am writing to request a
transfer to Atlanta
12. Abe’s letter to his friend began Dear Sam I
just asked my boss for a transfer however I
doubt that I’ll receive one
13. We remembered the tent ground cloth and
cook kit but somehow we forgot sleeping
bags, which we had purchased especially for
the trip
14. The sly old man picked up his worn ancient
volume of Robert Frost’s poetry and read
aloud this two-line poem Forgive 0 Lord my
little jokes on Thee And I’ll forgive Thy great
big one on me
15. We were very happy we were very tired

Most of the punctuation errors in the sentences 16-40

focus on punctuation rules 13-22, pages 33-38.

16. The robin however seemed to ignore the

cooper’s hawk
17. In the spring we often see cooper’s hawks
medium-sized raptors that prey on other
birds gliding through the trees near our
house
18. However many CDs he has in his room John
never seems to have enough
19. The writer Francis McCourt author of
Angela’s Ashes gave a moving reading to a
gathering of English teachers and students
P 20. McCourt who was a high school teacher for
most of his life knew his audience well
21, The climber who scrambled up the ledge the
fastest was Sally from Seattle the city of
misty sunsets
22. On September 4 1977 my family drove to
Santa Barbara California to visit relatives
23. Alec asked Are you going to the prom
24. No I didn’t hear him but did you hear Jean
ask Are you still dating Maria
25. George shut the door please
26. White spring wildflowers especially blood-
root Dutchman’s breeches saxifkage and
Painted Trillium abound in the New
England woods
27. Painted Trillium we always find them about
halfway up the mountain are the most beau-
tiful spring wildflower in this part of the
state
28. Coleridge’s poem The Rime we usually spell
the word r-h-y-m-e of the Ancient Mariner
still moves us powerfully
29. John’s new mountain bike it cost $1,543.95
his parents buy him anything he wants
encountered a sturdy young oak tree about
six inches in diameter the tree looks fine
30. After the accident John said rudely to his
mother Aren’t you glad you have insurance
31. His mother who wasn’t pleased said I’m glad
you have a summer job to pay for the repair
if it can be repaired
32. Leslie told us don’t forget your game shoes
she is good about reminding everyone about
details
33. Get ready to go his roommate said to Bill
who is often late to class

40
34. I heard Bill mutter to himself why should I P
rush
35. I have to go to play practice after dinner Al
announced to Tom and Lucy And I have a lit-
erary society meeting Tom said well I guess
I’ll just go for a walk all by myself said Lucy
sweetly
36, My mother loves to quote these four lines
from Emily Dickinson This is my Letter to
the world, That never wrote to me - The
simple news that nature told, With tender
majesty
37. The Lottery was the most popular short
story we read last year, There Eyes Were
Watching God was the favorite novel, and A
Midsummer’s Night Dream ranked as the
best play
38. The New York Times, Redbook and Gourmet
all ran articles entitled Food for Fun
39. Everyone in the class memorized the famous
soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet To be -
the question [the author of this sentence has
used a dash to indicate that eight words are
left out .I
40. The bluebirds found the box we built the
sparrow found it first

41
 The writer must to some extent inspire
himself. Most of his sentences may at first
be dead in his essay, but when they are all
arranged, some life and color will be
reflected on them from the mature and
successful lines. . . and he will be able to
eke out their slumbering sense. . . .
Henry David poreau

To shape your free writing is “to eke out” the

“slumbering sense” of your best lines by rearranging
words and throwing out what does not fit your pur-
poses. So far you have worked with a rough idea, a
hunch. Here are some ways to clarify a rough idea and
focus your paper upon it.

SHAPING PERSONAL WRITING

POINT OF VIEW
If you are writing an autobiographical paper or a
short story, you have probably done your free writing
in the first person. Question why you are telling the
story yourself and not having another narrator tell it.
If the event you describe involves you directly, perhaps
PT v you should shift the point of view away from you, the
central character, to a secondary character or to an
omniscient narrator. Selecting a personal paper’s nar-
rator, its point of view, affects your paper’s shape
and focus.
If you write, for instance, about the time you ran
through a sliding glass door when you were six, you

42
 will probably begin writing as an older person looking
back on the event. This point of view will distance
your reader from the action. He or she knows, after all,
. that you survived and are looking at the event in ret-
rospect. What if, on the other hand, you tell the story
in the voice of the six-year-old you used to be, or of PTV
your mother who wasn’t there at the time, or of the
babysitter who was, or of the doctor who sewed the ten
stitches in your forehead? As you examine the merits
of each point of view, you will learn something about
your story’s purpose. Remember, because readers
aren’t going to care about your accident unless they
can relate to it, you’ll have to bring your tale alive.
Perhaps the words of a six-year-old would, in their
innocence, be amusing and powerful. Perhaps the
babysitter’s point of view would move your audience,
many of whom may have baby-sat. Perhaps, by having
your mother tell the story, you would discover that
your real interest is how your mother felt when she
read the babysitter’s note saying you were at the hos-
pital having your scalp sewn up. Rewriting a story in
a new point of view is to a writer what taking a picture
from a new position is to a photographer: both of you
are looking for just the right angle.
This experimentation with point of view also helps
writers develop a voice, for when speaking in the voic-
es of others, we think and say things we would not
normally think of. In many ways, we write in costume;
and like anyone in costume, we enjoy the freedom of
not being the person everyone thinks we are. Edward
Abbey, a novelist and essayist, says this of the narra-
tor he uses in his essays:

The Edward Abbey of my own books, for example, bears

only the dimmest resemblance to the shy, timid, reclu-
sive, rather dapper little gentleman who, always cor-

43
 rectly attired for his labors in coat and tie and starched
detachable cufl‘s, sits down each night for precisely four
hours to type out the further adventures of that arro-
gant, blustering, macho fraud who counterfeits his
name.

Who is the real Edward Abbey - the narrator of his

essays or the narrator of this quoted sentence?
Probably neither. The point is that Edward Abbey the
man has learned that he can write his essays most
effectively through the voice of Edward Abbey the lit-
erary character. Try this trick; it is like acting a part
in a play.

ORDERING EVENTS
Point of view raises the question of the order of
events, for each narrator experiences a narrative
(story) differently. The mother, for instance, would
begin her story with finding the sitter’s note, while a
detached narrator (like the child looking back years
later) might relate the events in a clear, chronological
order. The beauty of telling stories, true or fictional, is
that the chronological order is always there to use. But
chronology can be boring if there aren’t surprises
along the way, complications that will hold your read-
ers’ interest. For instance, the flight of Malcolm and
the escape of Fleance complicate Macbeth’s plans and
keep the reader wondering what will happen next.
Rather than dragging the reader through each
adventure in the order that it occurred, Homer begins
The Odyssey in the middle of things (in medias res).
He then flashes back to the beginning, catches up to
the middle, and finishes chronologically. To decide how
to order the events of a story, question your purpose. Is
it to reveal character, to surprise or shock, to develop

44
a theme, or a combination of these? Like the question
of point of view, the question of order implies purpose.
What do you want your point of view to do for your
paper? How will the order of events affect the way
your reader understands your point?

WRITING EXERCISE
Write three short pieces, 150-300 words in length
describing an event or process from three different
points of view. Have fun; use your imagination; take
advantage of the potential irony and humor that mul-
tiple narration can create. Keep in mind that different
narrators are apt to order their ideas differently.

SHAPING ACADEMIC WRITING

THESIS
DEVELOPING A THESIS
Unlike personal papers, academic papers require
that you, the student, narrate and that you organize
your material according to the logic of your argument.
To discover the purpose of an academic paper is to dis-
cover exactly what you want your argument to prove.
Ask yourself these questions about the idea you’ve
been trying to develop in your free writing.

+ Do I have an argument to prove?

If so, try writing it out in a SENTENCE. Arguments
are sentences, not just phrases. Some thing (sub-
ject) must happen (verb).

45
 Here is a non-argument: Evil in Macbeth. This
idea has no action.
Give it a verb: Evil is a theme in Macbeth. Now
you have to prove that evil is a theme in the play.

+ Is my argument too broad?

Yes. Because evil permeates Macbeth, you’ll be able
to find it practically anywhere, and your paper will
be too broad for you to show a real familiarity with
the text. Your teacher, who wants to find out if you
. understand the significant details of plot and the
THESIS fine points of character, will not be impressed by an
argument based exclusively on relatively obvious
facts of plot, such as Macbeth’s murder of Duncan.
Look for an argument that will investigate beyond
the obvious facts of plot to make inferences - con-
clusions you have drawn from facts. Here is anoth-
er, more specific argument about evil: The three
witches are the primary source of evil in
Macbeth. Now you have narrowed your focus to the
three witches.

+ What a m I disproving?
Since all sound arguments must argue against as
well as for,you will have to disprove points that
appear to contradict or weaken your case. For
instance, the paper about the three witches could
begin this way: Though the main events of the
play appear to be initiated by Lady Macbeth
and Macbeth, the three witches control the
play’s primary action. Now you have something
to disprove - that though Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth commit evil deeds, they are not the source
of evil. You have given your paper an antagonistic
force; and once you have defeated this force, proven

46
 it invalid, you will have strengthened the validity of
your main argument.

LOGICAL ORGANIZATION
+ How will I organize my argument?
Most teachers like to see your main idea in your
first paragraph so that, knowing from the start just
what you intend to prove, they can follow your argu-
ment carefully. More important than where you
place your main idea - also called a thesis state-
ment - is that you create a clear, logical line of LOGIC
thought from sentence to sentence and paragraph
to paragraph (>). Here is a rough line of thought. >
1-Introduce and state your main idea (thesis)
about how the witches control Macbeth’s primary
action.
2 - Show how Lady Macbeth reacts to Macbeth’s let-
ter, which is in itself a reaction to the witches’
prophecies. Quote Lady Macbeth and discuss
your quotations.
3 - S h o w that though the murder of Duncan is a
response to Lady Macbeth’s urgings and to
Macbeth‘s ambition (quote to prove this ambi-
tion), the witches’ prophecy has encouraged this
ambition and has prompted the letter.
4 - Discuss the finer points of Macbeth‘s character -
his bravery in battle, his reputation as a loyal
thane, and his susceptibility (in contrast to
Banquo) to the witches’ prophecies.
5 - Return to plot and observe how the second set of
prophecies propels the play to its conclusion.
6 - Conclude not with a boring rehash of your main

47
 argument, but with what you have proven - that
because the witches are the play’s source of
action and because the witches personify evil,
Shakespeare’s play frightens us by suggesting
that evil is a real and powerful force.

These six points have begun to organize your free

writing into a logical line of thought. Perhaps you
will find that in this stage you will be able to modify
and rearrange ideas and examples from your free writ-
ing, but most likely you will discover some points that
you have not yet considered. If so, you are still learn-
ing about the text.
Now write out your summary as a first draft of
your paper, and pay attention to these elements of
organization:

THE BEGINNING
Think not only of stating your thesis in the first
paragraph but also of writing an engaging opening
sentence that will begin your paper strongly. Your the-
sis itself, or a preliminary form of it, can also serve as
your opener. You could write, for instance, Though
they appear in only three short scenes, the three
witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth control the
central action of the play. This opener states the
title and author of the work being considered,
announces the paper’s basic thesis, and withholds for
later in the paragraph the points that the writer must
disprove.
If you can introduce your paper and your thesis in
one sentence, do not write a one-sentence para-
graph. Instead, simply merge your sentence with the

.r
48
first point you intend to discuss, thus avoiding a one
sentence paragraph.
n

THE INTERNAL P m G R A P H S n
In academic writing, paragraphs are rarely short-
er than three or four sentences because they must pro-
vide a transition from the previous paragraph, state a
general idea called a topic, prove the idea with spe-
cific evidence, and then conclude. Most internal para-
graphs, therefore, are miniature essays with their own
general points to prove. If a paragraph or a whole
paper offers generalities without sufficient supporting PROOF
evidence (proof),the reader will not be convinced. (In
a longer paper, we might need a paragraph of general-
ities to help the reader follow the line of a long argu-
ment: “As we have seen thus far, . . .”>On the other
hand, if the paper offers a great deal of textual proof
without stopping regularly to state the generality
being proven, the reader will become confbsed and dis-
engaged. Successful papers move paragraph by para-
graph, from generality to specific and back to general-
ity.

THE TRANSITIONS
As you write out your summary in paragraph TRANS
form, you’ll have to clarify the relationship between
each paragraph so that your line of thought will
remain, perhaps not straight, but always clear. For
instance, point four, in order to treat Macbeth‘s char-
acter, puts aside the discussion of how the witches
affect the plot’s action. This interlude proves the
essential point that the witches alter Macbeth’s char-

49
 acter and gives the reader a rest from the review of
important but obvious facts of plot. The conclusion of
this paragraph and the beginging of the next must put
the reader back on the track of the witches’ influence
upon plot. Look over the six summarized points and
think of transitions that will take the reader from one
point to the next.

AVOIDING GROCERY LISTS

GL Transitions that do not develop ideas but simply
add on more are called “grocery list” transitions. If
you find yourself beginning paragraphs with “another
reason” and “also,”you are not building on the previ-
ous paragraph; you are just piling on more ideas.
Grocery lists often begin with main ideas like this:
Three forces destroy Macbeth - his ambition, his wife,
and the three witches. The internal paragraphs are
apt to sound like “The first reason is . . . ,” “The second
reason is . . . ,” “The third reason is . . . ” Not very inter-
esting! The student could improve this paper by shap-
ing those three points into a logical order and by using
transitions that make the order explicit. Below are
three transitional sentences.
- Before blaming the fall of Macbeth entirely upon
outside forces, one should consider his powerful
ambition.
- Lady Macbeth feeds her husband’s ambition.
- The three witches, however, appear to be the great-
est force behind Macbeth’s tragic fall.
Now this paper develops by building one idea upon
another. When it reaches its conclusion, it will have

50
 traveled a bit; and its author may have learned
enough to end with an interesting thought.

THE ENDING
Because introductions set up endings, papers that CONCL
have no clear point to prove cannot be concluded
gracefully. Usually papers like this just stop. For
instance, Evil in Macbeth would be hard to end
because it would just list examples of evil, and there
can always be one more item on a grocery list. Even
though you may think you have mentioned every
example of evil in Macbeth, your reader will not know
you are at the end of your list until you get there and
say, “And the final example. . . . ”Your paper will be
ready to end not because you have concluded your
argument, but because you’ve said you are finished.
On the other hand, a logically developing essay,
having proceeded step by step from paragraph to para-
graph, will conclude itself when it has proven your
point. You will not have to say something like “And so
one can easily see. . . ” or “Thus, it is obviously clear
’ that. . . ” When you find yourself having to use stilted

phrases like these, check your main argument. Is it

there? Have you proven it logically, step by step?

LOGIC
LOGIC
As you check your logic, look for these two common
problems :
+ Unqualified generalization - generalizes with
sweeping statements

51
LOGIC Ex. - Everyone knows Lady Macbeth helped
Macbeth.
Ex. - No one likes to hike.
Ex. - Frederic Henry never is frightened.
To avoid unqualified generalizations, use quali-
fiers like these: often, usually, rarely, in
many cases, frequently.

+ Hasty generalization - makes a broad generaliza-

tion from too little evidence
Ex. - Macbeth is a violent play; therefore, all of
Shakespeare’s plays are violent.
Ex. - Because I can’t play football, I probably
can’t play any outdoor sport.

WRITING EXERCISES
1)Using as your text a novel or short story you are
reading in class, develop a thesis using the three
questions explained under “Developing a Thesis”:
Do I have an argument to prove? Is my argument
too broad? What am I disproving? When you pre-
sent your thesis, be prepared to explain how you
have dealt with each question.

2) Write a logically organized outline or summary that

presents the main points of your paper.

3) Write the first draft of your paper. Underline the

thesis, the topic sentences of the internal para-
graphs, your transitions, and the main idea of your
concluding paragraph.

52
4) Edit, revise, and re-revise your first draft, keeping
in mind that all good writing is rewriting.

5) Write your final draft.

HOW TO WRITE ACADEMIC ESSAYS

ABOUT POETRY
Since each word of a poem carries a great deal of
meaning and since this meaning is not only denotative
(what a word literally means) but also connotative
(what a word suggests) and aural (the music a word
helps to make), you will have to discuss specific words
and phrases in depth. Long quotations followed by
brief discussions suggest a superficial analysis. Here
are some ways to be sure that your essays make use-
ful observations about the ways that poems work:

1) Explain the poem’s literal level - what physically

happens, even if it is impossible in real life. When
Emily Dickinson says below, “Hope is a thing with
feathers,” she means just that.

254
“Hope” is a thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard

And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

53
 I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of Me.

Remember, we must give ourselves over to the

world of the poem, accept it as it is, and ask ques-
tions later - even though we know, for instance,
that abstract ideas (like hope) do not have physi-
cal properties (like feathers). Since the poet
always means what he or she says, we never have
to hunt for “hidden meanings.”

Ask yourself what appeals to you most about the

poem (if nothing appeals, write about another
poem); then identify the device(s) that create(s)
that appeal. Always remind yourself that if theme
were all, the poet could have written a sentence of
prose. For instance, if Emily Dickinson had want-
ed to say no more than that hope is always with
us, no matter how hard life gets, why did she both-
er to write four closely rhymed and metered qua-
trains of poetry? There must be something in the
way Emily Dickinson constructed her poem that
makes the theme appealing. You must discover
and articulate that way, that how.

3) Some observations about mediocre, good, and

excellent poetry papers:
Mediocre papers never advance beyond a dis-
cussion of theme. To say that hope is always with
us, even in times of trouble is not “wrong,”for the
poem’s bird does sing most sweetly in the gale. But
there is much more to say about how the poet con-

54
veys her meaning, about the way the poem affects
the reader.
Good papers say that the poem contains a cen-
tral metaphor (hope is a bird), which the poet
extends by having the bird survive a “gale” and
the “chillest lands.” Then these good papers may
go on to identify other poetic devices such as the
ABAB rhyme scheme, the alliteration in
“strangest sea,” the interesting off rhyme of “soul”
and “all,”and the strong visual imagery in words
like “feathers,” “perches,” and “crumb.” It is clear
that the authors of these papers can recognize
poetic devices, but it is also clear that the authors
cannot explain how the devices actually make the
poem effective. Usually these student writers
resort to cheerleading: “the vivid images in this
poem are extremely effective” . . . “Emily Dickinson
uses off rhyme brilliantly” . . .“only a poet as great
as Dickinson could have extended her central
metaphor, hope is a bird, for twelve magnificent
lines.” . . . Though these statements may sound
impressive, none of them proves that their author
understands how each technique actually works in
this poem. We know only that the student can rec-
ognize poetic devices and that he or she thinks
that if Emily Dickinson uses them, it is safe to say
that she uses them brilliantly.
Some students who recognize that they must
do more than state that the poet uses a certain
device but who do not know what to say about
how that device functions in the poem, stray from
the text in search of something to say:
As we all know, birds are very hopeful little fellows.
They come back to the same nest each year, usual-
ly, even though the tree might have been cut down

55
 for a development. This sad situation occurred
right next door to me . . . .

Stick closely to the text, making only careful

inferences that fit into the context of the whole
poem. Man’s encroachment upon nature has nothing
to do with Dickinson’s meditation upon the nature of
hope.
The best papers explain the poem’s literal level,
state the theme, identify the poetic devices that make
significant contributions to theme, and (most impor-
tant) explain how the poetic devices make the poem
moving. Note these two examples:
One pictures a chickadee or a sparrow clinging to a
branch in a February storm.
Had Emily Dickinson said in her first line, ‘Hope is a
bird,’ she would not have involved the reader’s visual
and tactile senses as she does with the phrase, ‘a thing
with feathers.’We understand that the ‘thing‘is a bird;
we see the feathers; and we wonder what kind of a bird
this is. Later the poet shows us her ‘little bird.’

Note that the two examples above testify to their

author’s interest in and appreciation of the poem.
Because the student has explained how the metaphor
in the first line has affected his imagination, it would
be superfluous for him to say that he likes the poem or
that Emily Dickinson is a fine poet. Note also that the
first example, while illustrating the poem’s power to
evoke an image in the reader’s imagination, does not
distort the poem by going too far, as does the example
of the development next door. Also, this first example
does not fall into the common trap of saying that the
“little bird” is a chickadee or a sparrow. This wise stu-
dent knows that because a poem means what it says,
the “little bird” can never be any more than that, but

56
it can and does suggest a chickadee or sparrow to an
American reader.
The second example could have simply read,
“Hope is a thing with feathers is a very effective
metaphor”; but, instead, it shows us how the
metaphor involves our mind and our senses. In other
words, this second example examines how a poetic
device functions to help the poem affect the reader.

WRITING EXERCISE
Using as your text a poem you are reading in class,
employ the following process to write a 30040 600-
word academic essay:

1)Write out the poem’s literal meaning in the form

of a paraphrase.
2) Write some notes on what aspect of the poem
appeals to you most. Say why you like specific
words, phrases, lines, and poetic devices.
3) Now write an essay that
(a) presents a thesis which states directly why
the poem is effective;
(b) reviews the poem’s literal meaning;
(c) identifies significant elements, such as
the speaker’s tone of voice, theme, sound
devices, and figurative language;
(d) explains how these elements contribute to
the poem’s effectiveness.

57
 The next two parts of The Portable Writer,
“Shaping Sentences’’ and “Being Correct,” contain
most of the material covered on standardized exami-
nations such as the A.C.T., the expanded PSATNMSQT,
and the S.A.T. 11. As you study these chapters thor-
oughly, remind yourself that because test makers
know what “sounds right” to most students and what
does not, you cannot trust your ear to tell you if a pas-
sage is correct. Instead, you must know the rule.
For instance, “between you and I” sounds correct to
many people; but since the object of the preposition
between must be in the objective case, “between you
and men (not I ) is correct. Note, therefore, the rules in
the next two parts and pay particular attention to
right words that sound wrong and to wrong words that
sound right.

58
 All I know about grammar is its infinite
power. To shape the structure of a sentence
alters the meaning of that sentence as def-
initely and inflexibly as the position of a
camera alters the meaning of the object
photographed. Many people know about
camera angles now, but not many know
about sentences.
Joan Didion

A sentence is more than “a complete thought”; it’s

an action: some thing (subject) happens (verb).You,
the writer, use grammar to shape and direct your
reader’s response to this action.
When Robert Frost wrote that to write is to go “a-
sentencing,” he suggested that a sturdy sentence, like
wild game, is elusive and must be hunted down. Here
is a rewrite of Robert Frost’s famous first lines from
“Stoppingby Woods on a Snowy Evening”:
You thought it was known by you whose woods these
were, though his house was in the village.

This is the original:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though.

Although the original and the rewrite have different

meanings, their nouns and verbs are essentially the
same. The differences come from the angles from
which the nouns and verbs appear; for the rewrite has
changed the tense, voice, person, and grammatical
emphasis. Here are ways you can use grammar to
shape the actions of your sentences:

59
PT V PERSON, AUDIENCE, AND
MORE POINT OF VIEW

When a writer decides who will narrate a piece of

writing, he is really deciding the point (or angle) from
which his reader will view the piece. For instance,
though Frost could have said, “we think we know,”
“they think they know,” or “you think you know,” he
wanted to center the sentence’s action on his narrator,
his “I.” How do you think other points of view would
have altered the meaning of the lines?
PT V As we have discussed, academic papers - unlike
all forms of personal writing, including poems -
require that the narrator be objective and out of the
way. When Robert Frost says later in the poem, “I
have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep,”
he wants his reader to identify with the speaker. On
the other hand, when you argue logically and con-
cretely that the three witches control the action of
Macbeth, an “I t h i n k distracts the reader and weak-
ens your argument’s objectivity.
Person involves your audience as well as your nar-
rator. Think about how the following phrases affect
the way your reader relates to your narrator:

- You know how easy it is to forget an aunt’s

birthday.
- One can easily forget . . . !
- We know how easy it is to forget. ...
- The reader knows how easy it is to forget. . . .
- It’s easy for me to forget. . . .

60
 You and we are familiar, while one and the read-
er keep a formal distance, and It’s easy for me
ignores the reader. In academic papers, you will want
this formal distance between your narrator and your
audience, but in personal papers, you may need to
draw your reader into your essay or story.

COMMON PROBLEMS WITH PERSON PERS

a. Do not use the first person in literary analysis.

b. Avoid shifts of person.

ERROR: If one is interested in oiling baseball
gloves, you should talk to Osgood.
CORRECTION: If one is interested in oiling
baseball gloves, he or she should talk to
Osgood.

c. Avoid using you impersonally.

ERROR: You come to dislike Macbeth.
CORRECTION: One comes to dislike Macbeth.

d. Use you to refer to a specific person.

Ex. - Marybelle, you will play shortstop.

In informal English, you may address the reader

personally as “you.” Do not, however, use you in an
academic essay. Rely not upon being personal, but
upon the strength of your argument.

61
VT VERB TENSE

The past tense completes action - making it safe,

finished, historic, and sometimes even nostalgic. The
future tense also moves action a safe distance away. A
prophecy of future action can be intriguing, even
engrossing, but the reader knows that it has not hap-
pened. On the other hand, the present tense happens
before our eyes.
For evidence of the present tense’s power, ask
yourself why students often shy away from it. Unless
reminded, inexperienced writers discuss literature in
the past tense - even though they know that Holden 1
Caulfield, Macbeth, and Frederic Henry are as present
on the page now as they have ever been. Inexperienced
writers also set personal papers safely in the past,
rather than giving the reader a close-up of the action.
When concluding arguments, these writers usually
say that the reader will see or has seen or can see,
but rarely do they say that the reader sees. Why?
Because the present tense is now; it’s inescapable,
and thus it makes the less confident writer uneasy.
Some writers begin in the past and then bring the
action to the present, thus easing the reader into the
starkness of the present. Some writers treat the past
or the future as if it were present. Science fiction writ-
ers and historical novelists usually tell their stories in
the present tense, thus putting what is safely distant
right before one’s eyes. Similarly, historians make
their subject vital by using the historical present.
VT All the tenses have their particular uses. To use
them appropriately, keep the following points in mind:
a. Write academic essays in the present tense. 1
62
b. Do not shift tenses arbitrarily. VT
ERROR: At the beginning of the novel, Frederic
Henry did not know Catherine, but eventu-
ally he falls in love with her.
CORRECTION: At the beginning of the novel,
Frederic Henry does not know Catherine,
but eventually he falls in love with her.

(I am walking,
c. The progressive form of the verb
was walking, have been walking, had been
walking, will have been walking) describes
action in progress and is rarely useful in an
academic essay.
WEAK: Shakespeare is using the image of blood.
STRONG: Shakespeare uses the image of blood.

d. Use the past perfect tense (I had walked, you

had walked, etc.) to express action completed
in the past before some other action.
ERROR: Once Monica caught Luther’s atten-
tion, he began to philosophize.
CORRECTION: Once Monica had caught
Luther’s attention, he began to philosophize.

63
 PRACTICE SENTENCES
VT VerbTense
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .
1. Just as the game seemed lost, Sam ties it up with
two quick goals.
2. My science teacher showed me that trees grew
annual rings in the trunk.
3. Ptolemy taught that the sun would revolve around
the earth.
4. In Wu Cheng’en’s classic Chinese novel Journey to
the West, Monkey, the central character, often
behaved like Odysseus.
5. Everyone spoke by the time I arrived.
6. Everyone had spoken by the time I had arrived.
7. When the end of study hall came, my work was not
finished.
8. My brother, who hoped t o make the varsity by his
senior year, actually started on the varsity by the
end of his junior year.
9. Dan would like to join the Navy, but he failed the
physical.
10. Having hiked the Appalachian Trail in early
spring, we spot many wildflowers.
11. In A Lost Lady Willa Cather is developing a con-
flict between idealism and reality.
12. Do you think that Hemingway is creating a weak
character in Catharine?
13. Fleur, the main character in Dacks by Louise
Erdrick, was cutting tree trunks halfway through,
so that the next windstorm blew them over.
14. By the time the class ended I took ten pages of notes.
15. Back in mid-March, before most spring wildflow-;
ers finally had bloom, I looked for them on the
north bank of the pond.
64
 VOICE
The active voice makes the doer of action the
subject and the receiver of action the direct object.
Ex. - Osgood oiled his glove.

The passive voice turns a sentence around, mak-

ing the direct object the subject and either changing
the original subject to an object of a preposition or
removing it from your sentence. Avoid the weak pas- Wp
sive.
WEAK PASSIVE: The glove is oiled by Osgood.
or
The glove is oiled.

If the object of action concerns you more that the doer

of action, then use the passive voice.
USEFUL PASSIVE: Luther’s books are widely
read.
Because this sentence needn’t be concerned with
who reads Luther’s books, the passive works well, for
it emphasizes Luther’s books, the real subject of our
concern.
Note that the passive voice, which comes in all
tenses (was read, is read, will be read, had been read,
has been read, will have been read), should not be
confused with the past tense.

65
 PRACTICE SENTENCES
WP Weak Passive
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .
1. A new sled was wanted by Herman for Christmas.
2. It was decided to require bicyclists to wear helmets.
3. After their arrival, visiting families will be given a
tour of the campus.
4. With less than a minute left in the game, the win-
ning goal was scored by Alice.
5. Cucumber sandwiches and fresh scones were
served at the tea party.
6. Uniforms will be handed out at the gym one hour
before the game.
7. Shakespeare’s OtheZZo is portraying jealousy and
its damaging effects.
8. To reach Great Barrington, either Route 7 or
Route 41 may be taken.
9. It was raining all afternoon.
10. Being tired from his performance, the actor lay
down on the couch in the green room.

SUB SUBORDINATION
Subordination is emphasis - expressing main
ideas in independent clauses and subordinate (less
important) ideas in dependent clauses, phrases, and
single words. The emphasis of Robert Frost’s two lines
(page 59) changes when though is moved from the
end of the second sentence to the beginning, where it

66
subordinates the second sentence into an adverbial SUB
clause modifying “know.” “His house is in the village
though” became “though his house is in the village.”
Joan Didion would call the shifting of though a cru-
cial change of angle. How does this shifting of one
word change Frost’s meaning?
Here is a choppy passage that, unlike Frost’s sen-
tences, needs subordination:
CHOPPY Luther had long black hair. He tied
on a bandanna. It was red. He’d made him-
self look like an Apache.
SUBORDINATED: The red bandanna tied
around his long black hair made Luther
look like an Apache.

Below is an exaggerated form of a stringy com-

pound sentence. Most compound sentences can be
rewritten as a complex or simple sentence.
CHOPPY Macbeth is a tragedy, and it was writ-
ten by William Shakespeare, and it is a vio-
lent play, but it attracts large audiences.
SUBORDINATED: William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, though a violent play, attracts
large audiences.
This moving of words from one grammatical structure
to another clarifies thought, smoothes out choppy sen-
tences, and shakes off unnecessary words.

67
 PRACTICE SENTENCES
SUB Subordination
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C.
1. I was driving home from my new job, heading
northward on Route 71, when my car overheated.
2. The coach noticed that I was holding the hockey
stick awkwardly and asked if I was left-handed or
right-handed.
3. I mowed for three hours. I finally finished the
lawn.
4. The group packed food and cooking gear. They
packed clothing, sleeping bags, and other personal
equipment. They also took a tent.
5. Picasso is my favorite painter. I love the variety of
his work.
6. Our lacrosse coach tells us to bend at the waist
when we are scooping, always step into the ball,
and she likes us to cradle the ball hard.
7. I e-mailed my sister. She lives in Ireland.
8. We walked outside. We heard a cardinal singing.
9. He is hot-tempered. I enjoy his company.
10. I exercised regularly for a month, and I made the
lacrosse team for the first time in my high-school
career.
11. Larry is an A student. He received a C in the
course. He had been ill for two weeks.
12. In New England no one expects spring to come
early. We were amazed to have a week of hot
weather in early April.
13. Harry is a fine athlete. We are happy to have him
on our team.
14. The fish swam near our boat. The fish seemed a

68
 yard long. It was orange. I think it was a carp. We
were in China. It was last March.
15. It is late May. The temperature is only forty
degrees. The wind is blowing hard from the north.
The lilacs aren’t even out yet. It’s cloudy. I think it
will rain soon. I hate this weather.

PARALLELISM

Parallelism expresses parallel ideas in parallel

grammatical structure. Like subordination, paral-
lelism structures the grammar of a sentence to com-
plement its meaning. Though, strictly speaking, a
compound sentence puts two or more independent
clauses in a parallel structure, the term parallelism
usually refers to dependent clauses, phrases, and
words.
NOT PARALLEL: I’ll tell you about Luther’s
home run, his double play, and how he stole
two bases.
ANALYSIS:
Luther’s home run, (noun phrase)
I’ll tell you about his double play, (noun
phrase)
and how he stole two bases. (noun clause)
PARALLEL: I’ll tell you about Luther’s home
run, his double play, and his two stolen
bases.
NOT PARALLEL: After adjusting his head-
band, digging his sandals into the dirt, and
he took a dozen practice swings, Luther was
ready for the first pitch.

69
 ANALYSIS:
After adjusting his headband, (phrase)
digging his sandals into the dirt, (phrase)
and he took a dozen practice swings, . . .
(clause)
PARALLEL: After adjusting his headband, dig-
ging in his sandals, and taking a dozen
practice swings, Luther was ready for the
first pitch.

When using correlative conjunctions (either . . .

or, neither. . . nor, not. . . but, not only. . . but
also, both . . . and),be sure that each correlative is
followed by the same grammatical structure.
NOT PARALLEL: Luther was not only tired
but also he was distracted.
ANALYSIS: The adjective tired follows not
only, while the clause he was distracted
follows but also. The most succinct correc-
tion will have both correlatives followed by
adjectives.
PARALLEL: Luther was not only tired but
also distracted.
NOT PARALLEL: I neither have the time nor
the ability to dig ants out of Osgood's glove.
ANALYSIS: The verb have follows I, while the
noun ability follows nor.
PARALLEL: I have neither the time nor the
ability to dig ants out of Osgood's glove.

70
Here are two parallel sentences worth admiring:
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul;
whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before cof-
fin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funer-
al I meet; and especially whenever my hypos [morbid
depressions] get such an upper hand of me, that it
requires strong moral principle to prevent me from step-
ping into the street and methodically knocking people’s
hats off - then, I account it high time t o get to sea as
soon as I can.
Herman Melville

The yellow fog that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
T. S. Eliot

PRACTICE SENTENCES
Parallelism
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .
1. Sally runs fast, thinks quickly, and has a great
attitude.
2. Casey stepped up to the plate, stared at the pitch-
er, and then took his stance.
3. My brother enjoys mountain biking, and he also
hang-glides.

71
4. Exhausted from her journey and famished from
lack of food, Jane collapsed.
5. The job candidate seemed intelligent, articulate,
and had solid references.
6. Elroy promised t o meet us at the concert and that
he would give us a ride home afterward.
7. I have and will continue to be a strong advocate for
the rights of children.
8. Prunella’s home-grown tomatoes were juicier than
Martin.
9. John woke up, got out of bed, and dragged a comb
across his head.
10. As a college freshman, he studied not only
Spanish, but he also took Latin and Swahili.
11. After slamming her adversary into the boards and
she retrieved the puck from the corner, Gertrude
darted around the net and slipped the puck past
the sprawling goalie.
12. Students sat expectantly in their seats, waiting for
the Head of School to speak and they hoped he
would announce a Mountain Day.
13. Ronald could recall neither the author’s name nor
could he recall the book’s title.
14. Florence’s goals were to attend Harvard, major in
comparative religions, and she wanted to study
with Robert Coles.
15. The pianist glared at the keyboard, raised his
hands above the keys, and the Liszt Fantasy
began in a furious barrage of notes.

72
 SOURCES OF WORDINESS
Lack of subordination creates choppy, wordy writ- WORDY
ing; nonparallel sentences usually contain extra
words; and the passive voice adds at least two words
(The ball was hit by Luther compared to Luther
hit the ball). Shaping sentences means not only pre-
senting the action directly and clearly, but also exclud-
ing meaningless or vague language.

VERBAL FALSE LIMBS

George Orwell invented this term to describe our
habit of turning strong verbs into nouns or adjectives
and then substituting weak verbs.

Wordy Tight
that gives the warning that warns
to be envious of to envy
to have an effect upon to affect
to be suspicious of to suspect
that is the cause of that causes
t o put into preservation to preserve

Always seek the strong verb!

GENERAL VERBS WORDY

Beware of using too many all-purpose verbs like

these: to be (am, was, were), to have, to show, to
make, to use, to give, to go. Look for the verb that
describes a specific action.

WEAKVERB: Marybelle is a .300batter.

STRONG VERB: Marybelle bats .300.

73
WORDY FAT PHRASES
Avoid wordy phrases Instead, use these:
like these:
all too often often
due to the fact that since, because
in order to to
as to whether whether
by means of by
for the purpose of for
he is a man who he
this story is a strange one this strange story

EMPTY NOUNS
Nouns like these stand for something but have lit-
tle meaning of their own: element, quality, nature
(the nature of), case, aspect, fact (the fact that),
relationship, thing, one (one of).

WORDY: At first the relationship between

Macbeth and Banquo is one of friendship.
TIGHT At first Macbeth and Banquo are friends.
or
Friends at first, Macbeth and Banquo . . .

WORDY
THERE IS
WORDY There is a character named Macbeth who
becomes king.
TIGHT Macbeth becomes king.

TAUTOLOGY
TAUT (Saying the same thing twice)

74
EX.-
free gift female goddess
my own personal local townspeople
final ultimatum many various
last and final many different
five in number mentally insane
dissolve away new departure
orally aloud refer back
perfectly correct true facts
emotionally worried gather together
completely surrounded continue on
foreign immigrants blue in color
brainstorming ideas inject in
large in size meet together

WORDY CONSTRUCTIONS WORDY

WORDY In this essay about Macbeth, I will show

that the three witches are in control of the
action in the play.
TIGHT The three witches control the action in
Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

VAGUE ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS VAGUE

Instead of using vague adjectives and adverbs
show exactly (with strong nouns and verbs) what hap-
pened and reread the section in this book called “Good
Ground” (pages 11-16).
nice awesome marvelous
good excellent fantastic
bad very pretty (adv.)
unbelievable rather great
horrible amazing
awful almost

75
 PRACTICE SENTENCES
Wordy, Spelling, and Word Choice
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .

1. The maple tree has recieved an attack by tent

caterpillars.
2. John was hoping to be given warning of the forest
fire.
3. Siena is envious of Jeannette’s unlimitted
allowance.
4. No one referred to Jerry, who was actually the
cause of the error at third base.
5. Mary always earns a one hundred percent on the
weekly etymology quizes.
6. While singeing her eyebrows, Earlene all too often
burns herself.
7. Due to the fact that canoeing can be dangerous, we
all wear lifejackets.
8. While shoeing the horses, he is a man who is very
careful.
9. Harry was not decieved by means of the pitcher’s
curve ball.
10. For the purpose of finding the Jones’es house, Tom
asked his mother where they lived.
11. The concert was an odd one because in about half
of the songs, the band sang without playing on
their instruments .
12. In order to understand the affects of the drought,
we will have to visit the farms effected.
13. Since she possessed the quality of flexibility, Mary
adopted easily to living abroad.

76
 14. It is not the nature of George’s eyes to be easily
aggravated.
15. The fact that we have arrived all ready, suggests
that we are anxious for the game to begin.
16. The relationship between the two of us is one of an
improving quality.
17. Joyce received a large amount of free gifts for her
birthday.
18. Bring me t o your own personal leader.
19. We continued on a mile further.
20. I’d be mentally insane to eat the huge desert!
21. Partner, why don’t we corroborate and brainstorm
some ideas?
22. Everyone complemented me on finally buying my
own personal blazer.
23. Ray seems continuously emotionally worried.
24. In this essay about the causes of World War I, I
will sight a large amount of cause.
25. Although the book is large in size, we will cover
less chapters then usual.
26. The female goddess looses her power on poor
Odysseus.
27. The hole world would of benefitted in many, vari-
ous ways.
28. Should I infer from your stern voice that this is
the final ultimatum?
29. Its a case of too many foreign immigrants for the
city to absorb in one month.
30. The dog laying in the middle of the floor is large in
size.
31. Mr. Pepper, please lie down your red pen and
explain my mistake to me.
32. Since Joan was emotionally worried, she laid down
for a rest.
33. I had lain down most of the afternoon for the pur-
pose of resting my bad leg.

77
34. We preceded to ask the local townspeople for
advice.
35. Bob refered back to the fact that we planned to
revenge last year’s three-to-two loss to Hill Top
Academy.
36. The principal reason for the countrys new depar-
ture into plastics is the fact that they need a new
line of products.
37. The school gathers together quit often.
38. Just stand their stationery; I think were com-
pletely surrounded.
39. We meet together more then twice a week.
40. What color are pucks? I think their black in color.
41. I to want to learn the true facts.
42. When good judges listen to orally aloud testimony,
they remain uninterested.
43. The coach seemed disinterested in the nature of
why I came late to practice.
44.We are now aware of the tortuous conditions in
Turkey.
45. All too often we don’t know whether the whether
will change or not.
46. This is the which whom I believe carried the large
in size broomstick.
47.Who do you think will be elected?
48. I’m not sure whom to invite.
49. Your never sure who you think will make the best
captain.
50. Who’s car belong t o who?

78
 SENTENCE VARIETY svo
Avoid the subject-verb-object (SVO) rut by using
introductory elements (prepositional phrases, par-
ticipial phrases, adverb clauses), by placing appositive
and absolute phrases after the verb, and by varying
the length and structure of sentences.

Two alternatives to the SVO rut:

Periodic Sentence: (the main idea comes last)

Ex. - On the seventh pitch Luther, who had not
yet lifted his bat from his shoulder, connected.

Inversion: (subject follows verb)

Ex. - Somewhere in the six-foot-high goldenrod
and Queen Anne’s lace that littered center
field lurked Luther’s ancient enemy - Elven
Wood.

While amateur writers tend to place most of their

ideas before the subject, professionals often withhold
ideas until after the verb. Here is an amateurish sen-
tence that states its main ideas first and then offers a
dull, anticlimactic verb:

After hiking up Black Rock, visiting Elven Wood in his

tree house, and getting back home after dark, Osgood
was tired.

In the following two excerpts from the end of The

Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald extends his sen-
tences beyond their expected conclusions. In the first
sentence, Fitzgerald uses an adverb clause (until . . . )
followed by a delayed appositive phrase (a fresh . . . ).

79
SVQ And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses
began to melt away until gradually I became aware of
the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’
eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world.

Fitzgerald has gracefully and usefully added twenty-

five words after away, the sentence’s likely conclu-
sion.
In this second sentence, the novel’s last, Fitzgerald
gives us a four-word main clause, then adds two more
phrases.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back

ceaselessly into the past.

By withholding the two phrases, Fitzgerald creates a

powerful sentence and avoids one as undistinguished
as this:

So with our boats against the current but still being

borne back ceaselessly into the past, we beat on.

WRITING EXERCISE
Write ten pairs of sentences, the first of each pair
being an SVO construction and the second an inter-
esting alternative, such as a periodic sentence or an
inverted sentence. You may use the examples above as
models for some of your sentences.

80
 IN T
I have never thought of myself as a good
writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that
should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one
of the world’s great rewriters.
I find that three or four readings are
required to comb out the cliches, line up pro-
nouns with antecedents, and insure agree-
ment i n number between subjects and verbs. It
is, however, this hard work! that produces
style. You write the first draft really to see how
it’s going to come out.
My connectives, m y clauses, m y sub-
sidiary phrases don’t come naturally to me
and T m very prone to repetition of words; so I
never even write an important letter in one
draft. I can never recall anything of mine
that’s ever been printed in less than three
drafts.
James A. Michener

Ironically, the last things you do with your writing

(correct spelling errors, agreement problems, sentence
errors, vague references of pronouns, etc.) are the first
things your reader notices. Because a teacher encoun-
ters many technical errors in student papers, it is easy
to see that he or she may unconsciously equate good
writing with correct writing. On the other hand, if
your writing is correct, your teacher-reader, undis-
tracted by glaring errors, will be better able to appre-
ciate your paper’s content and style.
As you edit your papers, don’t forget James
Michener and all the other writers who find it difficult
to be correct. “This hard work” of correcting errors, Mr.
Michener reminds us, “produces style.”

81
 b. Do not use an apostrophe with the personal pro-
noun in the possessive case: his, hers, its, ours,
yours, theirs, and the relative pronoun whose.

CAPITALIZATION CAP

Capitalize the following:

1. Proper names: France, New York, Shakespeare
2. Proper adjectives: French, New Yorker, Shakespearean
3. Organizations: Chess Club, Student Life Committee
4. Religions, races, cultures: Protestant, Negro,
Japanese
5. Places: Santa Barbara, Chester County, Iowa,
Italy, Asia
6. Important events: Battle of the Bulge, Middle
Ages, Cold War, Earth Day, Junior Prom
7. Particular places or things such as ships, planes,
and documents: the Queen Elizabeth, the Bill of
Rights, the Washington Monument, Mount Fuji,
Fifth Avenue
8. The first words and all other words in titles of
books, short stories, poems, articles, etc., except
articles, conjunctions, and prepositions:
The Heart of the Matter.
9. Titles and family relationships when they are not
preceded by a possessive pronoun:
Ex. - This is Dr. William Rush, our family doctor.
Ex. - My mother is waiting for Dad and Uncle Al.

85
 WRITING WORDS CORRECTLY

LEG LEGIBILITY
If your readers cannot read your writing, or if they
have to reread it to decipher your manuscript, print!
Or type. Or, best of all, use a word processor.

SP FIVE SPELLING RULES

1.Adding suffixes to words ending in a final consonant.
a. For one-syllable words that end in a single con-
sonant preceded by a single vowel, double the
final consonant for suffixes beginning with a
vowel.
Ex. - hop - hopping sin - sinful
trip - tripped BUT man - manly
b. For words of more than one syllable, double the
final consonant if the accent is on the last syllable.
Ex. - omit - omitted limit - limited
refer - referring BUT number - numbered

2. Adding a suffix to words ending in a silent e.

a. If the suffix begins with a vowel, drop the e.
Ex. - hope - hoping
scrape - scraped
b. If the suffix begins with a consonant, keep the e.
Ex. - hope - hopeful
pride - prideful

82
 EXCEPTIONS: SP
1)Truly, Mr. Duly, your ninth argument is wholly
awful.
- That is an acknowledgment of your judgment.
2) To retain the soft sound in words (such as the g
in change or the c in notice) keep the e before
suffixes beginning with a, o and u (changeable,
outrageous, noticeable, and serviceable.
3) Dyeing and singeing keep the e so as not to be
confused with dying and singing.
4) Canoeing, hoeing, tiptoeing, and shoeing
keep the e to avoid the oi sound of coin and
join.

3. Adding suffixes to words ending in y.

The letter y following a consonant changes to i
except before an i suffix.
Ex. - cry - cried cry - crying
satisfy - satisfied BUT satisfy - satisfyi.ng
Note that the y’s in the following words follow
vowels and thus do not change: prayed, valleys,
chimneys, pulleys, enjoyment.
EXCEPTIONS: Laid, paid, said, slain, daily

4. IE, EI or EIGH.
Use i before e (chief, brief, piece, niece, field,
etc.) except after “c” (receive, deceive, receipt,
etc.) or when sounding like a (vein, veil, reins,
reign, freight) as in neighbor or weigh.

83
 EXCEPTIONS: Neither leisured foreigner seized
the weird heights.
Forfeit counterfeit heifer protein.
An ancient species of man had a conscience
like a glacier. (Note that we keep the i before
the e to retain the sh sound of ci.)

POS 5. Forming possessives.

Follow this procedure for forming possessives:

a. Write out the desired number of your noun -

singular or plural.
Ex. - Mountains (plural)
I
b. Add the sign of the possessive (apostrophe and s);
Ex. - Mountains’s

c. If an s immediately precedes your apostrophe,

drop the s following your apostrophe.
Ex. - Mountains’ (the plural possessive of
mountain)
EX. - SINGULAR POSSESSIVE PLURAL POSSESSIVE
dog‘s (dogs’s) dogs’
(Morris’s) Morris’ (Morrises’s) Morrises’
person’s people’s

EXCEPTIONS:
a. In forming the singular possessive of a noun
ending in s, you have the option of either retain-
ing or dropping the s following the apostrophe.
Ex. - Morris’s car OR Morris’ car.

84
 CAP Do not capitalize common nouns, such as town,
city, road, street, freshman, college, bank.
Ex. - The sophomores decorated for the Junior
Prom.
We capitalize “Junior” because it is part of the
name of an important event.
10. Capitalize days and months, but not seasons.
Ex. - By the first Sunday in October, fall had
arrived.
11. Capitalize directions when they represent a geo-
graphical area, but not when they indicate a direc-
tion.
Ex. - If you head north, you will reach the
Mason and Dixon’s line, which divides North
and South.

CONFUSING PAIRS OF WORDS

SP ACCEPT and EXCEPT
and/or
Since everyone except Luther accepted the invi-
WCh tation, Luther excepted (excluded) himself.

ADOPT and ADAPT

Monica adapted to the difficult situation.
Marybelle adopted a stray dog.

AFFECT and EFFECT

Do you know how the effects (noun, “results”) of
the program affected (verb, “influenced”) farmers?

86
AGGRAVATE and IRRITATE SP
I am irritated (annoyed) not only because these andor
new contact lenses irritate (inflame or make sore) WCh
my eyes, but also because this windy weather
aggravates (makes worse) the condition.

ALL RIGHT and ALREADY

All right, you may play, but the game has
already begun.

AMONG and BETWEEN

Just between the two of us, I think that we are
among several serious students.

AMOUNT and NUMBER

A number of students complained about the small
amount of free time and the large amount of
homework.

BRING and TAKE

Bring (to) me another watermelon and take (from
me) this rind.

COMPLIMENT and COMPLElMENT

Osgood complimented Marybelle on how well
her red shorts complemented her blue sneakers.

CONSCIOUS, CONSCIENTIOUS, CONSCIENCE

Marybelle’s conscience always bothered her if
she did not consciously try to be a conscientious
team player.

87
SP CONTINUAL and CONTINUOUS
and/or Martha’s continual (repeated often) interrup-
WCh tions disturbed what I had hoped would be my
continuous (unbroken) train of thought.

CORROBORATE and COLLABORATE

The writer corroborated (confirmed) the story
that he and a fellow writer had collaborated
(worked together) on the novel.

DESERT and DESSERT

Luther says he’d rather cross a desert than
desert a dinner table before dessert.

FARTHER and FURTHER

The farther (a measurable distance) we had to
run, the further (additionally) annoyed we
became.

FEWER and LESS

If we had less time in class, we would cover fewer
chapters of the text.

GOOD and WELL

No one is surprised when a good (adjective) team
plays well (adverb).

HAVE and OF
You must have (not of) heard of Elven Wood, the
elusive center fielder.

88
HOLE and WHOLE SP
The whole family of foxes ran down the hole in and/or
the hillside. WCh

ILLUSION, ALLUSION, ALLUDE, ELUDE

Luther alluded (referred) to Plato’s philosophy
when he said that softball is an illusion - no more
a reality than elves and magic bats. Not even
Osgood, who was busy eluding a wasp, recognized
Luther’s allusion to Plato.

IMPLY and INFER

Are you implying that we should leave tonight?
I infer from your comments that you think we
should leave tonight.

INCREDIBLE and INCREDULOUS

Marybelle looked incredulous (unbelieving)
when Elven Wood wagged his incredible (unbe-
lievable) ears.

ITS and IT’S

It’s (It is) a pleasure to hear its (possessive)motor
running yell.

LIE, LYING, LAY, LAIN (to recline) and

LAY, LAYING, LAID, LAID (to place)
PRESENT Lay down the book and lie down to
rest.
PAST Yesterday she laid down the book and lay
down to rest.

89
SP PAST PERFECT After she had laid (placed) down
and/or the book and had lain (reclined) down to rest, a
WCh softball came flying through her window.
Note that the present tense of lay and the past
tense of lie are both lay.

LOOSE and LOSE

Don’t lose that loose hat.

NO ONE, NO, KNOW

No, we don’t know for certain that no one can go.

PROCEED and PRECEDE

When they proceeded (went on) to the church,
Monica’s car preceded (came before) Osgood’s.

PRINCIPLE and PRINCIPAL

When the principal (head) stated his principal
(main) concerns, we realized that he was a man of
principle (rule of conduct).

QUIET and QUITE

It’s quite a quiet day.

REVENGE and AVENGE

To avenge (verb) his ancient people, Elven Wood
sought revenge (noun) upon Luther.

STATIONARY and STATIONERY

Monica’s lime green stationery (writing paper)
has been stationary (motionless) since she

90
 received it from Aunt Gigi. SP
and/or
THEN and THAN WCh
Then (at that time) Osgood said that an olive oiled
glove was more honest than (introduces an
unequal comparison) a magic bat.

THERE, THEIR, THEY’RE

They’re (they are) there (a place) with their
(possessive) little brothers.

TO, TOO, TWO

Two dirty dogs wanted to play too (also).

TORTUOUS and TORTUROUS

Climbing the tortuous (winding, twisting) path
was torturous (involving torture).

UNINTERESTED and DISINTERESTED

A disinterested (unprejudiced) spectator said the
ball was fair.
The uninterested (not interested) student day-
dreamed during the lecture on Charles Dickens.

WE’RE, WERE, WHERE

We’re (we are) in a class where two students spell
were with an h.

WHETHER and WEATHER

Whether or not we go depends upon the weather.

91
SP WHICH and WITCH
and/or Ms. Goodie, that old witch, says, “Don’t forget the
WCh first h in which.”

WHO and WHOM (see Page 107)

Bill Allan, who (nominative case) lives next door,
sold his car to a boy whom (objective case) we
know.

WHO’S and WHOSE

Who’s (who is) the person whose (possessive) sis-
ter called?

YOUR and YOU’RE

Your (possessive) mother remembered you’re
(you are) coming to the party.

PRACTICE SENTENCES
The practice sentences for Spelling and Word
Choice are combined with Wordy on page 76.

Capitalization and a Review of Punctuation

DIRECTIONS: Correct the error or errors in the fol-
lowing sentences, and in the space at the left write the
amropriate numberb) of the punctuation rule(s) that
wadwere) broken. Place a C before sentences that are
correct.

92
 1. On july 10 1997 dad drove all the way to the
national gallery in Washington d.c. where he
met aunt sally they were looking for their
favorite thomas Cole painting entitled kin-
dred spirits.
2. If you spend a semester in china your Chinese
will undoubtedly improve
3. Japanese taiwanese indonesian indian viet-
namese and korean kids all belong to the
school’s asia society the religion club has
buddhists Catholics hindus jews moslims and
Protestants
4. During the renaissance the english language
gained hundreds of latin words most of which
were used by William Shakespeare
5. In chapter XVII entitled The grangerfords
take me in of the adventures of huckleberry
finn mark twain includes a poem ode to
stephen dowling bots, dec’d.
6. my friend officer coney lives on a little street
called petunia way a block from the first
national bank in newark delaware a few
miles south of wilmington.
7. Now that fall has come to the east tony can
think of only one thing footballs spiraling
through clear blue skies against yellow and
red backdrops.
8. Drive south ten miles on the old post road
hop on the mass. pike get off at the lee exit
and follow the signs to stockbridge the for-
mer home of norman rockwell and now a pop-
ular tourist trap.
9. Are you sure mother asked Is the roast
cooked yet
10. No mary I don’t know who produced the
movie Fargo.

93
 WRITING SENTENCES CORRECTLY

SE SENTENCE ERRORS
Avoid all forms of sentence errors: sentence frag-
ments, comma splices, and run-on sentences.

FRAG 1. A sentence fragment is a word, phrase, or clause

punctuated as a sentence.
ERROR: Do you know why Marybelle climbed
Black Rock? Because she was looking for
elves.
Note that the fragment, an adverbial clause,
sounds like a complete sentence because the
missing main clause is understood.
CORRECTION: Marybelle went up to Black Rock
because she was looking for elves.
or
Do you know that Marybelle went up to Black
Rock to look for elves?
In personal papers that imitate everyday speech
patterns, the fragment is necessary and appropri-
ate, but it is inappropriate in academic
papers.

cs 2. The comma splice uses a comma to join two inde-

pendent clauses.
ERROR: We were tired from climbing, the trip had
taken only thirty minutes.
CORRECTION: We were tired from climbing; the
trip had taken only thirty minutes.

94
 or (better)
We were tired from climbing, although the trip
had taken only thirty minutes.

3. Conjunctive adverbs. When we use adverbs like

then, however, nevertheless, moreover, also,
and therefore to join main clauses, we must pre-
cede the adverb with a semicolon.
ERROR: The trip had taken only thirty minutes,
nevertheless, we were tired from climbing.

5 CORRECTION: The trip had taken only thirty

minutes; nevertheless, we were tired from
climbing.

4. The run-on sentence joins two main clauses with- RC

out using either a semicolon or a comma with a
coordinating conjunction (FANBOY - for, and, nor,
but, or, yet).
ERROR: We looked up a peregrine falcon flew
from its nest high on Black Rock.
CORRECTION: We looked up, and a peregrine fal-
con flew from its nest high on Black Rock.
or (better)
As we looked up, a peregrine falcon flew from its
nest high on Black Rock.
Note that compound sentences usually can be sub-
ordinated.

95
 PRACTICE SENTENCES

SE Sentence Errors: FRAGMENTS, COMMA SPLICES,

AND RUN-ONS
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write
out the following sentences correctly. If the sentence
contains no errors, simply write a C .

1. Mary playing golf.

2. Mary is playing golf.
3. Mary plays golf
4. Since Mary plays golf.
5. All one thousand of us enjoyed the concert.
Because Phish is the best band since the Dead.
6. Then the class was over.
7. When the class was over.
8. We began late, you had probably already started
home.
9. He felt fine he was just upset for a moment.
10. Thirty-two people went to the game, it was excel-
lent.
11. Mr. Merrill is frowning, you had better stop hum-
ming.
12. Mr. Merrill is frowning; you had better stop hum-
ming.
13. Since Mr. Merrill is frowning you had better stop
humming.
14. The bike was in demand. Because it was cool.
15. I caught three fish, we had them for dinner.
16. I work in a deli I enjoy eating food.
17. The big, black dog named Zack.
18. I like to swim; thus I want a pool.
19. The night was long we stayed up for seven hours.
20. I am cold. Because I am wet. 1

96
21. Clear the track here comes the first runner. SE
22. Glenny Brook is still running because we’ve had
rain all summer.
23. The chair was comfortable I sat in it.
24. The new teacher with a beautiful wife.
25. I looked at my ties; I picked one from the rack.
26. I looked at my ties, I picked one from the rack.
27. Because I looked at my ties. I picked one from the
rack.
28. The dog was fat he took up too much room in the
car.
29. The dog was fat, he took up too much room in the
car.
30. Lying on top of the mountain without a jacket in
below zero weather.
31. Because I fed my dog Purina dog chow.
32. After dinner we all had ice cream; I had vanilla.
33. After dinner we all had ice cream, I had vanilla.
34. After dinner we all had ice cream. I had vanilla.
35. Everybody wanted tickets. Because they love
Phish.
36. He is reading WaZden, he has no idea what it
means.
37. I am too young. My father does not want me to
drive.
38. You went to Japan last summer because you won
first prize.
39. Stop lying I will not be your friend.
40. He has a car and he drives too fast.

97
AGR AGREEMENT OF SUBJECT AND VERB
1. A noun coming between the subject and its verb
can be confusing.
ERROR: The trails up the mountain begins in
the same place.
CORRECTION: The trails up the mountain
begin in the same place.

2. Again, remember that these indefinite pronouns

are singular:
anybody everybody no one
anyone every one one
each everyone somebody
either neither someone
Ex. - Everyone climbs (not climb) up to Black
Rock.
Ex. - Each of the three thousand men carries
(not carry) his (not their) own equipment.

3. These words are plural: both, few, many, sev-

eral.
Ex. - Few of Luther’s friends understand him.

4. These words are singular or plural, depending

on the meaning of the sentence: all, any, most,
none, some.
Ex. - All the preparation seems complete.
Ex. - All of the players like Marybelle.
5. Compound subjects take plural verbs.
Ex. - Osgood and Luther rarely argue.

98
6. Beware of long, possibly confusing phrases that AG R
come between a subject and its verb.
Ex. - Osgood (subject) as well as most of his
friends takes (verb) softball seriously.
Ex. - Part (subject) of the difficulty with identify-
ing spring warblers is (verb) simply seeing
these small birds.

7. When a subject is joined by or or nor, the verb

agrees with the nearer subject.
Ex. - Neither the players nor the coach likes
Luther’s lemonade.
Ex. - Neither the coach nor the players like
Luther’s lemonade.

8. Collective nouns may be singular (the group as a

whole) or plural (the group as separate individuals).
Ex. - The team were arguing about Luther’s bat.
Ex. - The team was convinced that Luther had
polluted the lemonade.

AGREEMENT OF PRONOUN AGR

AND ANTECEDENT
Pronouns must agree in number and gender with
their antecedents, the nouns to which pronouns refer.
Ex. - Luther said he did not use Ironwood, his
bat, to stir the lemonade.

1. Again, remember the singular indefinite pronouns

99
AGR listed previously in Agreement of Subject and
Verb.
Ex. - If anybody drinks that lemonade, watch
him carefully.
Ex. - Each took his turn.

2. Use a singular pronoun to refer to singular nouns

joined by or or nor.
Ex. - Neither Monica nor Marybelle has given
her opinion of Luther’s concoction.

3. When neither . . . nor or either . . . or join the

subjects of a sentence, the verb agrees with the
nearer subject.
Ex. - Either Monica or her parents have brought
donuts to the game.
Ex. - Either the parents or Monica has brought
donuts to the game.

4. Use a plural pronoun to refer to two or more sin-

gular nouns joined by and.
Ex. - Monica and Marybelle have not given their
opinions.

PRACTICE SENTENCES
Agreement: SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT and
PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .

100
 1. The sun is warm and bright, and around him is AGR
acres of grain.
2. The kid with all the friend always seem happy.
3. Is the lady and the tramp friends?
4. A group of teachers who are not afraid to change
the rules break into the gym.
5. Not only Charlie but also Billy are running the
race this summer.
6. The students’problem are their many distractions.
7. The desire of students are good grades.
8. Ethics are his least favorite class.
9. There is many styles of music on local radio shows.
1 10. Neither of them were eager for the evening to end.
11. Are politics always corrupt?
12. Neither my brother nor my sister are here.
13. There remain only a few rattlesnakes on Black
Rock.
14. She has an obsession for those type of people.
15. He desires those kind of flowers.
16. My best friend and sister have arrived. [sister is
the best friend]
17. A flock of sea gulls dives through the garbage.
18. They think Eli have no right to do that.
19. Both Sally and I am hoping to be in the play.
20. Skiing and golfing is my favorite sports.
21. Not all of the course are dry yet.
22. The reason for the storms as well as the earth-
quake are hard to understand.
23. Neither Bill nor his parents is home.
24. Both my mother and father is coming to visit.
25. The class were confused about the assignment.
26. Everybody should return their uniforms.
27. Neither of them were ready to graduate in April.
28. Either Melissa or one of her parents is at the store.
I 29. The team of scientists are not studying butterflies
this semester.

101
30. A swarm of bees are heading for his head.
31. If she was an experienced climber, she would not
have fallen to her death.
32. The crowd of shoppers are running out of the burn-
ing mall.
33. A pack of wolves are starting for the wounded leop-
ard.
34. He dances to those kind of songs.
35. Elaine want to travel to Morocco.
36. Aman sell pipes at the crossroads.
37. Eating and drinking is Nora’s greatest pleasure.
38. Both Lucy and her aunt Lida is flying to Kiribis for
fly-fishing.
39. Neither Chaucer nor Shakespeare are still alive.
40. The class were debating the theme ofA Farewell to
Arms.
41. The doctor’s concern are her heart patients.
42. My cousin are at the triathlon in Canada.
43. Molly along with her roommate run with the pres-
ident on Thursdays.
44. None of us is going to the game.
45. Everybody must remain in their seats.
46. Neither the Orphum nor the Wang are holding
concerts tonight.
47. Arguing and winning are what makes her a
lawyer of distinction.
48. Korean and Japanese is Uki’s first languages.
49. Slang are a big part of English.
50. Hong Kong and China is reuniting in the summer
of 1997.

102
 REFERENCE OF PRONOUN PRO REF

The antecedents of pronouns must be nouns - not

phrases, not clauses, and not whole sentences. Here
are some common problems with pronoun reference.

1. Ambiguous Reference: a pronoun with more

than one possible antecedent.
ERROR: Osgood told Luther that he was sick.
CORRECTION: Osgood told Luther, ‘You are sick.”
or
Osgood told Luther, “I am sick.”

2. Broad Reference of Pronoun: a pronoun that

refers to a whole phrase or a sentence. This error
usually involves which or this.
ERROR: Luther was tired, which accounted for
his pale face.
CORRECTION: Luther looked pale because he
was tired.
ERROR: Marybelle looked pale also. This made
Monica wonder about the lemonade.
CORRECTION: Marybelle’s pale face made PRO REF
Monica wonder about the lemonade.
or
When Marybelle began to look pale, Monica
wondered about the lemonade.

3. Vague Reference:a pronoun that has an implied

but unstated antecedent.
ERROR: They say it will rain.

103
PRO REF CORRECTION: The weatherman predicted rain.
ERROR: The author, protesting that his novels
were not romantic, said that contemporary
writers rejected it.
CORRECTION: The author, protesting that his
novels were not romantic, said that contempo-
rary writers rejected romanticism.
ERROR: Jogging through the woods is not as
harmful to your back as jogging on paved roads,
because they are not jarring.
CORRECTION: Jogging through the woods on dirt (
trails is not as harmful to your back as jogging
on paved roads.
ERROR: It says Frederic Henry rowed across
Lake Geneva.
CORRECTION: Frederic Henry rowed across
Lake Geneva.
ERROR: In Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, he
sets the novel in Italy and Switzerland.
CORRECTION: Hemingway sets A FareweZl to
Arms in Italy and Switzerland.
Note that the he in the error above cannot refer
clearly to Hemingway’s, which is acting as an
adjective.

104
 SOME HUMOROUS PROBLEMS PRO REF
WITH REFERENCE OF PRONOUN
Try to identify the kind of reference error in each
of these examples taken from Richard Lederer’s
Anguished English (Wyrick & Co.).
- Guilt, vengeance, and bitterness can be emotional-
ly destructive to you and your children. You must
get rid of them.
- Anti-nuclear protestors released live cockroaches
inside the White House Friday, and these were
arrested when they left and blocked a security
gate.
- Great care must always be exercised in tethering
horses to trees as they are apt to bark.
- A fortune cookie message: You have many personal
talents that are attractive to others, so be sure to
use them.
- Two cycles belonging to girls that had been left
leaning against lamp-posts were badly damaged.
- My mother wants to have the dog‘s tail operated on
again, and if it doesn’t heal this time, she’ll have to
be put away.
- Jerry Remy then hit an RBI single off Haas’s leg,
which rolled into right field.
- About two years ago, a wart appeared on my left
hand, which I wanted removed.
- On the floor above him lived a redheaded instruc-
tor in physical education, whose muscular calves
he admired when they nodded to each other by the
mailbox.
- Do not park your car at the taxi stand or it will be
towed away.

105
PRO CASE CASE OF PRONOUNS
Use pronouns in the correct case.
1. Do not confuse nominative pronouns with objec-
tive pronouns. Use nominative pronouns - I, you,
he, she, it, we, you, they - as subjects and as
predicate nominatives.
Ex. - We walked in the woods.
Ex. - It was we who were in the woods.

Use objective pronouns - me, you, him, her, it,

us, you, them - as objects.
Ex. -Ask Osgood about Monica and us.
Ex. - Luther told Monica and me.
Ex. - The secret remains between you and me.

2. Use the possessive case before a gerund.

Ex. - Elven Wood doesn’t like my climbing up to
Black Rock.

3. Use appositives in the case of the noun to which

they refer.
Ex. - Elven invited all of us - Marybelle,
Osgood, Luther, Monica, and me - to his tree
house.
Ex. - The players - Elven, Luther, Marybelle,
Osgood, Monica, and I - had a party in
Elven’s tree house.

4. Use reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself,

herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, them-
selves) to describe action that the subject directs to
himself.

106
 Ex. - Elven hurt himself on the ladder.
Ex. - Marybelle asked herself why Elven lived
in a tree.
- and to intensify an idea.
Ex. - Elven himself loved life in the trees.

Do not use reflexives as subjects.

ERROR: Monica and myself loved Elven’s tree
house.
CORRECTION: Monica and I loved Elven’s tree
house.

Do not use a reflexive pronoun as an object if the

subject is different from the object.
ERROR: Elven asked Monica and myself to visit
some of his forest friends.
CORRECTION: Elven asked Monica and me to
visit some of his forest friends.

5. Whoandwhom
As relative pronouns, who is nominative and
whom objective.
Ex. - Elven introduced us to Legolas, who
bowed majestically. Legolas is a brave elf
whom J.R.R. Tolkien created in The Lord of
the Rings.
Here is a way to tell whether who or whom is cor-
rect:
When who or whom is followed by the subject of

107
 the dependent clause, whom is the correct pro-
noun. When, however, who or whom is followed
by a verb, who is the subject of that verb.
EXCEPTIONS: This rule works unless a paren-
thetical clause follows the who or whom or the
verb is a form of to be.
Ex. - Legolas is the same elf who, you recall,
lived in Lorien.
Don’t let the you recall mislead you. It is not
part of the sentence’s structure. Who is the sub-
ject of lived and thus should remain who.
Ex. - I don’t know who Legolas is.

MOD MISPLACED MODIFIERS

Place your modifiers as close as possible to the
words they modify.
ERROR: After almost resting an hour, the team
began the seventh inning. (misplaced adverb)
CORRECT After resting almost an hour, the
team began the seventh inning.
ERROR: Luther wrote that he’d like to leave
Camp Heart Stone in a letter. (misplaced
phrase)
CORRECT Luther wrote in a letter that he’d like
to leave Camp Heart Stone.
or
In a letter, Luther wrote that he’d like to leave
Camp Heart Stone.

108
 I

ERROR: The man will have prosperity who rises

early. (misplaced clause)
CORRECT The man who rises early will have
prosperity.

Avoid squinting modifiers, modifiers that refer to

either the preceding or the following word.
ERROR: Luther agreed on the next day to let
Osgood make the lemonade.
CORRECT On the next day Luther agreed to let
Osgood make the lemonade.

Do not split infinitives.

ERROR: Osgood tried to correctly make lemon-
ade.
CORRECT Osgood tried to make lemonade cor-
rectly.

DANGLING MODIFIERS DANG

Dangling modifiers are usually verbals that have
nothing to modify.
ERROR: While stirring the lemonade, a sea
gull flew overhead.
CORRECTION: While stirring the lemonade,
Osgood saw a sea gull fly overhead.
or
While Osgood stirred the lemonade, he saw a
sea gull fly overhead.

109
 ERROR: Before making lemonade, a proper
stirrer must be found.
CORRECTION: Before making lemonade, one
must find a proper stirrer.
or
Before making lemonade, find a proper stirrer.
NOTE: To identify a dangling modifier, ask your-
self who did whatever the dangling verbal is
doing (Who stirred the lemonade? Who made
the lemonade?). If the modifier is dangling,
there will be no doer of that action (no stirrer,
no maker). Then you must add the doer of
action (Osgood,one, or an implied you).

SOME HUMOROUS PROBLEMS

WITH MODIFICATION
Here are some more bloopers from Richard
Lederer’s Anguished English (Wyrick & Co.).

- Please take time to look over the brochure that is

enclosed with your family.
- Plunging 1,000 feet into the gorge, we saw
Yosemite Falls.
- CALF BORN TO FARMER WITH TWO HEADS
- Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton
Police yesterday.
- As a baboon who grew up wild in the jungle, I real-
ized that Wiki had special nutritional needs.
- In 1979, he bought majority control of the compa-
ny’s stock, along with his mother.

I10
- Do not sit in chair without being fully assembled.
- She died in the home in which she was born at the
age of 88.
- Amy Carter was among more than 100 Americans
returning from a 10-day tour of the Soviet Union
during the weekend.
- Farmhand Joe Mobbs hoists a cow injured while
giving birth to its feet.

IS WHEN, IS WHERE, AND IS BECAUSE

IS WW
Avoid awkward constructions that try to use IS BEC
adverbial clauses as predicate nominatives.
ERROR: An example of symbolism is when a big
apple stands for New York City.
CORRECTION: An example of symbolism is a big
apple standing for New York City.
ERROR: The reason is because elves live in the
forest around Black Rock.
CORRECTION: The reason is that elves live in the
forest around Black Rock.

PRACTICE SENTENCES
Pronoun Reference, Case, Misplaced Modifiers,
and Dangling Modifiers
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C .

111
 THE WHOLE
Offer a useful title, remembering not to underline it or
put quotation marks around it.
Introduce your thesis (central idea) logically.
Paragraph logically and usefully.
Transition - Have the first sentence in each internal
paragraph introduce a new idea in a clear relationship
with the previous paragraph’s central point.
Back up your arguments with examples from the text.
Conclude your essay logically and smoothly.

125
 PRONOUN REFERENCE AND MODIFIER ERRORS

1. “Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a ser-

pent stung me.”
2. The bird disappeared into the woods that we had
seen earlier in the front yard.
3. While jogging with a friend along the beach, a
dead seal appeared in the surf like a big, smelly
rock.
4. Ms. Finneran asked Jane to represent the class
because she is responsible and articulate.
5. After reading the rest of the play, her theory of
why Macbeth murdered Duncan changed.
6. Although Tom enjoyed coaching football as part of
his internship at Fox Run School, he does not
intend to become one.
7. Missing for years in the attic of the old library, Mr.
Sullivan found the notes of the school’s first facul-
ty meeting.
8. It says Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are ruthless
murderers.
9. Running too fast, a wall bruised Mary’s forehead
and sprained her toe.
10. Tired from mowing the grass for two hours, the
glass of ice tea was a treat.
11. Larry came late to first period class every day,
which annoyed his teachers.
12. Tim dropped his glove as the ball bounced towards
him, so he has to pick it up.
13. The new leaves are a deep green and still hanging
loosely from their stems. This is beautiful.
14. They say we don’t have a chance against Berger
Academy.
15. Avoid leaving your book bag in the classroom or it
will be taken away.
 16. Having chipped the ball from the sand trap into
the cup, the crowd applauded the golf pro.
17. I want to go to the movie tonight, but I have a
paper due tomorrow, which is a problem.
18. Harry told his parents that he was leaving college
in an e-mail message,
19. To help make sure everyone plays in the game,
players are put on the field in units, rather than
one at a time.
20. My father is a doctor, which is a profession that
does not interest me.
21. In Shanghai they have wonder dumplings for sale
on the streets.
22. We had to carry heavy canoes plus all of our gear
on the canoe portages, which was too much to do
in one trip.
23. Wearing her pink dress, Bill saw Mary going to the
prom.
24. He had a new pair of Reeboks on his feet which he
had purchased at Bob's Shoes.
25. Ms. Toner told Martha that she was no longer
spending the summer in town.
26. In Shakespeare's HumZet, he has the action take
place in Denmark.
27. I heard about the robbery on the evening news.
28. Saying we needed t o pay attention to it, Mr. Hall
gave his famous lecture on the history of love and
marriage.
29. The man was playing with his cat when he became
annoyed and scratched him.
30. Good teachers like Mr. Marvel know that since dis-
tractions impede student progress, they have to be
minimized.
31. Terry, a nice hockey player, can do it all winter
D without losing his interest.

I13
32. I began painting the house, dressing in old clothes
and dirty sneakers.
33. This book belongs to Mary that is about how to
cook in the wilderness.
34. The robin sat on the fence, which began singing
before dawn.
35. Bill laughed and told Harry he was a great guy.

PRONOUN CASE REVIEW

1. These are the students from who you must get

some help.
2. Samuel and myself decided that we had to go to
town.
3. He will give us boys advice and understanding.
4. All the actors who I know would like to play
Hamlet.
5 . We didn’t want him driving my car without ask-
ing.
6. There are several characters who are difficult to
understand in Hamlet.
7. The boss invited every one in the department -
Peter, Suzanne Joe, Grover, and I - to the fancy
dinner.
8. She gave herself a pat on the back for getting in all
of her work on time.
9. These are the men, I think, who know how to solve
the computer problem.
10. It is she who orders the supplies.
11. I didn’t know who had gone on the search.
12. Mary and Margaret are the ones whom went to the
fire.
13. Mr. Wale finally told John and me how to break
the puck out of our zone.

7 74
14. Just between you and myself, I don’t love pasta.
15. Janey, to whom I confided all my summer secrets,
has told them to everyone in the dorm.
16. No one told Dick and myself that the bus is leav-
ing early.
17. Tony is taller than him.
18. It was me who allowed the boys to leave class
early.
19. The referee who he insulted kicked the coach out
of the game.
20. Larry is one of the boys whom I have asked to be
in the play.
21. If Mr. Hamilton hadn’t repainted the wood-and-
canvas canoes over the winter, today us campers
would be painting, not paddling.
22. Who did you ask?
23. I don’t like them complaining constantly about the
homework.
24. Mom never liked my hiking alone.
25. Helen and I told them to rush the job.
26. He is one of those people who hand in work early.
27. I wonder who I should take to the prom.
28. Clyde Mather, who never used to dress up, has
started wearing his grandfather’s bow ties and his
father’s old tweed jackets.
29. Tom told us kids to meet him in town at noon.
30. It is I who built the clay tennis court.
31. Do anyone know about you and I?
32. Everyone knows it was him.
33. Did anyone remember that it was us who came in
late?
34. Is it Arnold or she that will edit the yearbook?
35. The dean assigned Meg and I to cover Wednesday
study halls.

I15
FC FAULTY COMPARISON
Make sure your comparisons are logical and com-
plete.
ERROR: Osgood said that Legolas’ ears are as big
as elephants. (Illogically, this sentence com-
pares ears to elephants.)
CORRECTION: Osgood said that Legolas’ ears are
as big as an elephant’s ears.
ERROR: Legolas is one of the bravest elves.
(There can only be one bravest.)
CORRECTION: Legolas is one of the braver
elves.
ERROR: Legolas is taller than any elf.
CORRECTION: Legolas is taller than any other
elf.
ERROR: Lady Galadriel, the queen of the elves, is
so beautiful.
CORRECTION: Lady Galadriel, the queen of the
elves, is so beautiful that I can not forget her.
ERROR: Elven Wood is such a loyal elf.
CORRECTION: Elven Wood is such a loyal elf
that he often visits Lady Galadriel.

Be careful to use the correct pronoun case when

using comparative forms of adjectives and adverbs.
ERROR: Missy is a better skier than me.
CORRECTION: Missy is a better skier than I.
(than I am)

116
 ERROR: They played better than us.
CORRECTION: They played better than we.
(than we played)

SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD MOOD

Use the subjunctive mood to express conditions
contrary to fact.
Ex. - If I were (not was) Elven, I’d miss Lorien.
Ex. - I insisted that each of you be (not is)
treated fairly.

DOUBLE NEGATIVES DBL NEG

Use one (not two) negative word to convey a neg-

ative meaning.
ERROR: Osgood is not scarcely ever on time.
CORRECTION: Osgood is scarcely ever on time.
ERROR: Osgood cannot hardly hit the ball.
CORRECTION: Osgood can hardly hit the ball.
Note that scarcely and hardly convey negative
meanings.

LIKE VERSUS AS, AS IF, AS THOUGH

LIKE/AS
Do not use like as a conjunction. Instead, use as,
as though, or as if.
ERROR: Osgood looks like he is tired.

117
 CORRECTION: Osgood looks as if he is tired.
ERROR: It looks like the dog is dead.
CORRECTION: It looks as though the dog is
dead.

X
FACTUAL ERROR
Know your subject well, and support your argu-
ments with correct information.

r1JO WRITE OUT Q

Do not use informal abbreviations such as w/ for
with and & for and.

Write out numbers that are one or two words.

Ex. - Our library contains seven thousand vol-
umes.

Always write out a number that begins a sentence.

Ex. - Two hundred and five children went to
school today.

118
 PRACTICE SENTENCES
Is When, Faulty Comparison, Mood, Double
Negative, Likelh
DIRECTIONS: On a separate piece of paper, write out
the following sentences correctly. If the sentence con-
tains no errors, simply write a C.

1. Comma splices are where two complete sentences

are joined by a comma.
2. My excuse for being lazy is because I don’t like hik-
ing.
3. A simile is when comparisons are made using like
or as.
4. The reason I am not going to study hall is because
I am on the honor roll.
5. Jeff thinks that Domino’s pizza is better than
Pizza Hut.
6. After Harry had played squash for two hours, his
appetite is as huge as a bear.
7. When she is angry, Felicity’s scowl is as mean as a
bull.
8. Elise’s trapping skills far exceed Ester.
9. Making the soccer team is one of the nicest things
that has happened to me this year.
10. Because they pass often, Sarah and Eve are two of
the most generous players on our team.
11. However, even those two girls could not help us,
for we played one of our worst games last
Wednesday.
12. Our opponents scored five of the easiest goals I’ve
ever seen.
13. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of
my life as goalkeeper.
14. Boston is busier than any city in New England.

I19
 15. Which book did you like best, Moby Dick or The
Scarlet Letter?
16. Jane is stronger than any girl in her dorm.
17. Jerome is the most capable of the two writers.
18. After World War 11, the U.S. was stronger than
any country in the world.
19. When he speaks before the student body, Gerrard
is so convincing.
20. This beach has so many rocks on it.
21. There is so much sugar in this coffee.
22. Jay has chosen such an interesting essay topic.
23. When I worked in the diner this summer, the
kitchen was always so hot.
24. On every quiz, Andy gets a better grade than me.
25. Although I am older than her, Terry gets to stay
out later.
26. If he gets to the den before me, Bo will certainly
take the best seat for watching television.
27. This chess match will determine whether the com-
puter is smarter than me.
28. If she was taller, she would be able to spike the
volleyball easily.
29. I could get my driver’s license if I was a year older.
30. He acted as though he was not responsible for the
food spilled on the table.
31. If I was going to Big Y, I would buy some soda and
chips for the picnic.
32. I wish that I was in the fall play, since that musi-
cal is my favorite.
33. Polly hasn’t hardly any free time this semester.
34. The librarian can’t help but appreciate your keep-
ing the newspapers in order.
35. There wasn’t scarcely enough food for everyone at
our table.
36. The trouble with Belmont is that he cannot give
anyone no respect at all.

120
37. With these new glasses, I can’t hardly see the
blackboard.
38. He cooks spaghetti like the Italians do.
39. Miranda sings like she is the star, but she has only
a minor role in the opera.
40. From those clouds that are gathering, I think it
looks like it is going to rain.
41. Laughing loudly, Maria sounds like she has had a
wonderful time riding the skateboard.
42. By the end of the classroom day, I feel like I have
run a marathon.
43. If I was thinking of resigning my job as treasurer,
I would certainly tell the class president.
44. Shannon is by far one of the fastest skaters on the
first line.
45. You may not agree, but I think that your brother is
so hilarious.
46. That truck‘s tires are as high as a tractor.
47. If you can’t run faster than me, you should expect
to be passed on the track.
48. I could not hardly believe that Chris was going to
wear that blazer to class.
49. Because there is no state-wide speed limit, drivers
may go faster in parts of Montana than anywhere
in the United States.
50. Once again it looks like the Mets will end up in the
cellar.
51. I realized when I went to Crater Lake that nature
can be so beautiful.
52. Some people can’t help but be messy when they
eat a bowl of soup.
53. I would not go to the mall if I was expecting to be
bored.
54. In all respects, my father is a more experienced
carpenter than me.
55. Grandma is one of my most generous relatives.

121
 ISSPELLE
acquire inference separate
among knowledgeable sergeant
argument leisurely Shakespeare
basically led significance
beginning liquor sincerely
breathe marriage solely
business medieval speak
category noticeable specimen
character Negroes subtle
choose occasion succeed
commitment occurrence succession
conscience offered surprise
conscious passed supersede
consistent plague suppress
couplet playwright tolerance
definitely possess traffic
dilemma precede tragedy
disappearance prejudice transcend
entrance principal transparent
existence proceed tried
experience psychological twelfth
fault pursue unnatural
forty quietly vacuum
fourth receive variation
guerilla reference vehicle
grammar referred vengeance
hereditary reminiscent vigilance
immediately responsibility villain
influential reveal welcome
initiative rhyme whisper
innocent sacrilegious yacht
intellectual safety yield

122
Others:

123
THE WRITER’S CHECKLIST
THE WORDS
Write legibly. Avoid gross misspellings (SP):
a. Simple words (which, were, a lot, etc.);
b. Contractions (it’s, who’s, you’re, etc.);
c. Words from the text you are writing about - the
author, title, characters, places;
d. Common literary terms (tragedy, character, imagery,
rhyme, rhythm).

THE SENTENCES
Avoid all forms of sentence errors (SE):
a. Run-on (RO)- two main clauses joined without punc-
tuation or a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor,
but, or, yet - FANBOY);
b. Comma splice (CS ) - two main clauses joined by a
comma, without a coordinating conjunction;
c. Fragment (FRAG) - a word, phrase or dependent
clause punctuated as a complete sentence.
Make subjects agree with verbs, and pronouns agree
with their antecedents (AGR).
Give pronouns clear antecedents (PRO REF) and place
modifiers close to the words they modify (MOD).
Avoid awkward ( A m ) sentences by arranging your
words in ways that are clear and not rough or ugly-
sounding.
Fit your sentences together clearly and smoothly. (>)
Keep tense and person consistent. In all academic
papers, use the present tense and avoid the first person
singular.

124
 I

CORRECTION SYMBOLS (continued from inside front cover)

LIKEIAS likelas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11’7-18

MOD misplaced modifier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108-9
MOOD error of mood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
I1 parallel ideas expressed in unparallel
grammatical structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69-72
PERS shift in speaker or an inappropriate
speake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
PT V point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42-43, 60-61
PRO CASE error of pronoun case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106-8
PRO REF faulty reference of pronoun . . . . . . . . . . 103-5
P error of punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29-41
RO run-on sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95-97
SE sentence error (fragment, comma splice,
or run-on) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
SUB faulty subordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66-68
svo subject-verb-object construction . . . . . . 79-80
VT error of verb tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62-64
WP weak passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
(>> an unclear relationship between
twosentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 124

THE WHOLE
TITLE insufficient title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
THESIS unclear thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45-46
41 illogical or unclear paragraphing . . . . . . . . 4 9
LOGIC error of logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47,51-52
GL “grocery list,” an apparently random
list of ideas or examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
PROOF inadequate evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
TRANS inadequate or absent transition. . . . . . .49-50
CONCL weak or absent conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
X factual error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
 c
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