1. Take notes! I don’t want to see any of these errors in future writing assignments.

2.  Instead of saying, “I believe” or “I think” or “My reason is,” just drop these phrases and you probably still have a decent sentence. It will also sound more confident and therefore, true.  Instead of saying, “They do tests on animals…,” or “She graded papers all afternoon,” come up with a name/category of people. Be specific!

3.  Instead of saying, “And this is why” or “But the reason is” or “Therefore, you can see that,” join the sentence that begins with the conjunction to the previous sentence, usually with a semi- colon.  Remember: Conjunctions JOIN sentences together; therefore, when you’ve written two separate sentences, but one starts with a conjunction, you really should have just one longer sentence.

4.  Don’t say “some things” or “whatever” or “something like it” or “anything.” Come up with an example!  Don’t say “they are” or “she was” or “he is.” Come up with a strong, active verb instead of variations of “to be.” Usually you have a better verb hiding after the “to be” verb – find it and use that one instead!

5.  One of the easiest ways to lose points on an essay is to make silly spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and agreement errors.  Check all of your work. Have someone else check your work. Read your work aloud.  Pay attention to the red and green squiggly lines on Microsoft Word; they are telling you that you have made a mistake. Right click them to see the available options to fix the mistake.

6.  Formal English does not contain contractions or abbreviations or slang.  Which is correct? cannot or can not  What is the difference between there, they’re, and their?  What is an antecedent (think pronouns)?  A sentence must have a subject, a verb, and a complete thought.  What is the difference between than and then?

7.  How can you fix a run-on sentence, otherwise known as a comma splice?  If your subject is singular, your verb should be singular. If the subject is plural, the verb should be plural.  Examples of first person are ______.  Examples of second person are _______.  What is the difference between affect and effect?

8.  When writing about an author, introduce them with their full name, then throughout the paper, use their LAST name.  In-text citations should appear EXACTLY as they do in the source and look like this:  “When writing about an author, introduce them with their full name, then throughout the paper, use their LAST name” (Kuffa).  Your Works Cited entries MUST MATCH your in-text citations. They should start with the author’s last name, and if that is unavailable, ONLY THEN should they begin with the title of the article you are citing. Titles should be in quotation marks.

9.  If your author makes a mistake in the original source, then copy the mistake EXACTLY as it appears in the source, inserting [sic] immediately after the error:  “When write [sic] about an author, introduce them with their full name, then throughout the paper, use their LAST name” (Kuffa).  Your other option is to paraphrase the information, thus eliminating the error entirely.

10.  If citing within a sentence, and your own words come before and/or after the quote, the parenthetical citation will STILL come immediately before the period.  For example:  During her writing tips lecture, the teacher stated, “When writing about an author, introduce them with their full name, then throughout the paper, use their LAST name” which is a rule that few students follow (Kuffa).

11.  If you are omitting information from your source, quote up to the point you’ve made an omission, then insert […]. You can then either pick up the quote where you left off or close the quotation marks.  For example:  During her writing tips lecture, the teacher stated, “When writing about an author, introduce them with their full name, then […] use their LAST name” which is a rule that few students follow (Kuffa).