LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 1 29 7. Which part, sentence, or paragraph do you think needs more work because it is unclear or confusing or just doesn’t sound right? Explain. _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Do you find errors in written English? ___________________________________________________ Please look for the following and give examples from the writing to help the author in the revision process. ■ sentence fragments _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ comma splices _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ semicolon errors _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ subject-verb agreement errors _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ pronoun case errors _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ –IMPORTANT WRITING PRACTICE– CHAPTER 1 • LearningExpress Skill Builders 30 ■ pronoun-antecedent agreement errors _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ double negatives _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ ■ homonym errors which cause confusion i.e., are/our, there/their, to/too, its/it’s, etc. _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ –BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– SELF CHECK REVISION SHEET As you reread your work, be tough on yourself. Look at it from different perspectives to see if your reader may be confused by anything you have written. Your goal is to make your writing very, very clear. Before submitting your work, check the following: ______ 1. Can I easily identify (underline) my thesis statement? ______ 2. Does each paragraph begin with a recognizable topic sentence that introduces a major point to be developed in the paragraph? ______ 3. Can I identify (underline) transitional phrases in each paragraph? ______ 4. Are my pronoun references clear? ______ 5. Does my conclusion restate my thesis? ______ 6. Is my writing concise and exact? ■ Do I use active voice where possible? That is, do I avoid the use of the verb to be, specifically am, is, are, were, was, be, being, been? ■ Can any sentences be combined? ■ Am I repetitious? ______ 7. Have I allowed time for peer review and further revisions? If you have answered no to any of these questions, this is a good time to go back and revise your essay. LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 2 31 C • H • A • P • T • E • R SUMMARY Since grammar is commonly tested on college placement exams, this chapter takes you through several grammar exer- cises. When you complete the exercises, you can find the answers at the end of the chapter. n Chapter 1, there was a list of the most common grammar errors typically found in student placement essay exams. Taken individu- ally, these are the kinds of mistakes you may find on your paper and need to correct in your writing. Let’s look at them again. 1. sentence fragments 2. comma splices and fused sentences 3. semicolon errors 4. subject-verb agreement errors 5. pronoun-antecedent errors 6. pronoun case errors 7. double negatives 8. homonym errors that cause confusion BASIC GRAMMAR 2 2 I I CHAPTER 2 • LearningExpress Skill Builders 32 SENTENCE FRAGMENTS If it starts with a capital and ends with a period and it looks like a sentence, be careful! It may not be a sen- tence. It also needs a subject and a verb. The three most common errors that create a fragment are a missing sub- ject, a missing verb, or a missing conjunction. For some samples, look at the sentences that follow. They begin with a sentence, but what follows is most defi- nitely a sentence fragment.You’ll find the fragments ital- icized. They masquerade as complete sentences, but they are really only parts of the sentences that come before them. ■ What makes me special is the guitar. Not my voice or my dancing! ■ I’m a good listener. Especially to my friends and family. There are only two ways to correct a fragment. If we were to correct them, they would look like this: ■ Make it a separate and complete sentence. For example: What makes me special is the guitar. It is not my voice or my dancing! ■ Connect it to the preceding or following sen- tence with a conjunction or with proper punc- tuation. For example: I’m a good listener, especially to my friends and family. Fragments can be hard to recognize because they are often phrases or subordinate clauses and they sound and look right. Examine the paragraph below and und erline the fragments. (1) What makes me special is that I have the ability to care too much about everything. (2) I am very compassionate. (3) Talking to people, noticing their reactions, sensing when they are happy or sad. (4) I love noticing people’s reactions to words and situations. (5) Especially when they think I’m not looking. (6) I have a special ability to be a distant observer. (7) Off to the side. (8) Where no one is looking. If you chose (3), (5), (7), and (8) then you were right on target.All three are fragments. Now write them cor- rectly. You may have to do some rewriting to provide a logical connection for the fragments. 1. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 2. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 3. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 4. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ Check the end of the chapter for suggested answers. COMMA SPLICES AND FUSED SENTENCES Correcting, even avoiding, sentence fragments could lead to two other common and major errors in sentence structure: the run-on sentence, sometimes called a fused sentence, or the comma splice. These are just fancy ways –BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 2 33 to describe writing that ignores the independence of sentences and runs two or more sentences together without proper punctuation. You’ve heard the com- parison between traffic signs and punctuation at least once in your English classes, but it is a comparison worth making again. Imagine you are moving along in traffic and you ride right past the stop sign.You’d be lucky if there were no other cars on the road. So, too, if you run the red light. You might make it, but then again, what if you don’t? It’s easy to imagine the horror of a traffic acci- dent that damages your car or even injures you, but it’s hard to compare such mayhem to a simple piece of writ- ing. But that piece of writing could mean a great deal to your success, whether it’s a placement essay that will save you money and time or a cover letter for a resume that could land you a job. So, if you run one idea into the next, and you confuse your reader so much that he or she gives up, then you have created mayhem. Try reading the following passage from a student essay on legalizing marijuana. Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used worldwide for centuries. It has been used for medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and relaxation, most common today would be medicinal and relaxation, it is proven that marijuana aids in headaches, various aches and pains, anti-nausea, glaucoma, and sleep deprivation. Although this drug is a cure-all it does have an intense effect on your body, unlike alcohol marijuana gives you a calm, soothing feeling, marijuana does have defects. Such as lung cancer and various cancer causing chemicals these chemicals are also used to make its effects intensified. I believe if the United States legalized marijuana the outcome would be more positive than negative. How many times did you have to stop and reread to try to decide what the author really meant or was try- ing to say? That’s your first clue that something is seri- ously wrong with this piece of writing. But look at what simply stopping for the red lights and stop signs does to improve the sense of this paragraph. (1) Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used worldwide for centuries. (2) It has been used for medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and relaxation. (3) Most common today would be using marijuana for medicinal and relaxation purposes because it is proven that marijuana aids in relieving headaches, various aches and pains, nausea, glaucoma, and sleeplessness. (4) Although this drug is a cure-all, it does have defects; marijuana has been linked to lung cancer and it does contain various cancer causing chemicals to intensify its effects. (5) However, I believe if the United States legalized marijuana the outcome would be more positive than negative. There are three basic ways to correct sentences that run together. ■ Come to a complete stop. Use a period and cre- ate two separate sentences. This is what was done between sentences (2) and (3). ■ Slow down and look both ways. By using the conjunction because, sentences (3) and (4) were connected logically, and the reader was able to move with understanding on to the next sen- tence. ■ Slow down. A semicolon lets you know that the next sentence is directly related to the one that precedes it. Look for the connection. By ending sentence (4) with a semicolon the writer is telling us that sentence (5) is going to specifi- –BASIC GRAMMAR– CHAPTER 2 • LearningExpress Skill Builders 34 cally develop what sentence (4) started already. In essence, you should see a connection about the defects. In most cases, the period and the semicolon are interchangeable and the writer determines where the emphasis should go. Just be careful. A semicolon separates two complete sentences that are closely related to each other. Closely related is the key phrase here. However, you cannot use a semicolon to connect a frag- ment to a sentence. See the section on semi- colon errors that follows! You should also notice that in correcting the obvious sentence errors, transitions were used to cre- ate bridges to connect the sentences and establish stronger logic. For example, although and however in sentences (4) and (6) helped to correct the sentence errors by creating separate sentences and making the author’s point more clear. In the next paragraph, und er- line and correct the following student sentence errors, all found in a piece of writing by an entering commu- nity college freshman. (1) Cigarette smoking should be banned from all public areas, it is a foul and disgusting habit. (2) It should be banned altogether, cigarettes are dangerous to both the smokers and the people near them. (3) Another reason to ban smoking is because it is disrespectful to others why would anyone deliberately want to show such disrespect cause anger and hostility when trying to enjoy a meal or performance? (4) As to why smokers smoke, it is still a mystery even to them. (5) Public areas are where people come to enjoy themselves; not to be bothered with cigarette smoke. On the lines that follow, correct any sentence fragment errors that you find using proper punctua- tion or conjunctions. 1. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 2. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 3. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ 4. _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ Check the end of the chapter for suggested answers. SEMICOLONS Because the semicolon is one of the corrections for the comma splice or the fused sentence,you have to be care- ful that you are not substituting one mistake for another. You cannot just insert a semicolon in place of a period or a comma. The semicolon has only two uses: 1. The semicolon separates closely related sentences. Notice the words closely related. You cannot sep- arate any two sentences with the semicolon. A good rule to follow is to consider using the semi- colon only if there is a coordinating conjunction that could be used instead. For example: –BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– . sometimes called a fused sentence, or the comma splice. These are just fancy ways BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 2 33 to describe writing that ignores the independence. semi- colon only if there is a coordinating conjunction that could be used instead. For example: BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– . etc. _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE– SELF CHECK REVISION SHEET As you reread your work, be tough on yourself. Look