COMMON ERRORS

LETS BEGIN WITH STRUCTURE/ORGANIZATION:  Many of you did not include either the title of the book or author of the book in your introductory paragraph. Yes, I know what book you are talking about but it still needs to be stated IN YOUR INTRODUCTION. Also, your thesis should be the last sentence in your introductory paragraph and SHOULD MATCH THE TOPIC DISCUSSED IN YOUR BODY PARAGRAPHS.  Part of structure and organization are lead ins to your quotes and citations. Many of you were missing lead ins and some of your were missing citations and/or incorrectly citing page numbers.

LEAD INS 1. The said lead in (easiest and most popular). Begin quote with “He said, or some variation of that Example: Bella was shocked when Edward said to her, “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…” (Meyer, 274).

LEAD INS CONTINUED: 2. The sentence lead in (easy, but not used very often for some reason). Write a complete sentence, but follow with a colon and the quote that supports your idea after the colon. Example: Edward feels that he will harm Bella, so he tries not to fall in love with her but fails: “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…” (Meyer, 274).

LEAD INS CONTINUED 3. The blended lead in (the most challenging and usually only requires snippets of quotes, not whole quotes). The quote needs to blend in with your sentence, making it seem like the words are yours. Example: When the “lion fell in love with the lamb,” the tone of the entire book changed from mysterious to romantic (Meyer, 274).

CITATIONS:  To do this correctly with one text that has one author, like Of Mice and Men does, there are a couple of things to remember:  The first time you do a citation, you need to include the authors last name followed by a space and then followed by the page number (Kingsolver 127).  After you cite the author’s last name the first time, you just do page numbers in parentheses (90).  Articles:  Cite author’s last name at the end in parentheses.

CITATIONS CONTINUED  Also, you put your page number citations at the end of the sentence in which you used the quote followed by a period (345). Many of you “would put the page number after the quote” (165) but it would be in the middle of a sentence. This is incorrect   If you use 2 quotes in one sentence, the citation still goes at the end but has the page numbers separated by a comma (127, 458).  If the quote starts on one page but ends on another, you need to indicate that in your citation (45-6).

TRANSITION, TRANSITION, TRANSITION!  words.html words.html To make your sentences, your paragraphs, and your essay flow and appear seamless, you need transition words. Many of you would not use a transition word when switching from discussing the obstacles George faces to the obstacles Crooks faces. You need to transition!!!

DICTION  I know it is difficult, but try to work on elevating your language when you are writing an in class essay. Think about the following:  Choose stronger verbs (limit your “be” verbs: am, is, are, was, were, can be, could be, should be, could not be, etc.).  Choose stronger adjectives when describing people, places, events.  Vary your word choice. If you used the same phrase over and over, particularly at the beginning of sentences, it makes your essay repetitive and boring.

EXAMPLES OF WHAT NOT TO SAY:  Went  Got/get  goes  A lot  Very  Things  Bad  Good  This shows…  In this quote…  On page 277….  Fixes  This supports my thesis…

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:  “It is about two friends that go to find a job in order to get their dreams, and very few things go their way.”  “Lennie killing Curley’s wife was a very big thing.”  “This quote shows how Crooks is alone.”  How could you improve the diction in these sentences?

DICTION CONTINUED  Additionally, items that fall under diction include informal language, personal pronouns, contractions, abbreviations, and text language.  Please, refrain from using I, me, we, us and if at all possible you. And do not refer to your paper in any way.  “[Adah] soon goes back to America to get help and fixes her limp completely”  “Curley still sucks.”  “What I intend to talk about in my essay are the differences between the American Dream then and the American Dream now.”

CONTENT  What kept most people from receiving full credit for content was that you did not come up with new ideas. And if a new idea was presented, I then looked at the development of the idea. It is not enough to assume I know what you are talking about, you still need to tell me in your essay.

CONTENT  Make sure your content is accurate (word choice can affect the meaning of your sentence here as well). For example, one student said Crooks “was not good at his job.” It implies he is isolated from the other ranch hands and has a bad back, but never implies he is bad at his job.

WORDS THAT MESS WITH OUR MINDS:  To, too, and two  Too is like the word also  To is a preposition  Two is a number  Example: The two girls wanted to go to the store too.

WORDS THAT MESS WITH OUR MINDS  They’re, their, and there  There is a contraction of They are  Their is a pronoun  There is a place  Example: There is a yellow house on Elm street that their mother use to own where they’re currently hiding.

MORE WORDS THAT MESS WITH OUR MINDS:  Where, were, we’re  Where is a place  Were is the past tense of the verb are  We’re is a contraction for we are  Example: We’re going to go where they once were.

MISCELLANEOUS MISTAKES OF NOTE…  Indent paragraph (TAB key)  Block Quotes (several people were missing a block quote):  Colon to lead in (even if it is a said lead in)  No quotation marks  Period before the parenthetical citation at the end  Make sure you cite quotes from all the articles you put on your works cited page:  Title Centered  Times New Roman, 12 point font  Hanging indent  Double Spaced  Page Numbers