Writing Across the Curriculum

TEN SACRED POINTS OF BASIC GRAMMAR AND STYLE

Kaitlin Briggs, USM Honors Program

1.  Write in Complete Sentences.

Make sure that you understand what a sentence is.  A sentence is often defined as a complete thought.  But what does this definition mean?  The notion of a complete thought can be very deceiving.  Although “Jump” is only one word, it represents a complete thought.   At its bare bones, for the most part, a sentence must have a verb.  The subject of a sentence can be implied, but the verb, the essential action in the mini-universe of a sentence, must be stated.

Read your work out loud.  Examine every sentence --especially the more complex ones--to make sure that there is at least one subject and at least one verb in a proper tense.  A run-on sentence often contains more than one sentence inappropriately attached to the original (“I was not concerned with the opinions of others, I relied on my own sense about things.”).  Watch out!  Many popular writers, such as John Grisham, use this kind of construction.  And it is not actually wrong to use it if the sentences are short.  However, I insist that students master the basics first.  Various artistic or rhetorical effects can be explored down the road.

THE RUN-ON SENTENCE IS ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENT MISTAKES!

A sentence fragment does not have all the components of a sentence, although length can deceive the writer into mistaking the fragment for a complete thought.  (“Having gone to the office, where he was going to work on his presentation for next Friday’s meeting.”  These are two subordinate clauses that can’t stand on their own.)  

2. Commas – Yes!
1. Use commas to connect the items in a series.  Example:  “Red, white, and blue.”  You can leave out the second comma, but you must be consistent in this choice throughout a piece of writing.
2. Use a comma to attach two sentences together with a conjunction (a compound sentence).  Example:  “I am from Portland , and you are from Bangor .”  Leaving out this comma is another common mistake.
3. Use a comma to attach a subordinate clause to a sentence.  Example:  “Although she had never been in college before, she felt very comfortable.”  Short, introductory adverbial phrases, however, really do not need commas.  Example:  “On Tuesday the class discussed George Orwell.”
4. Use commas to offset a parenthetical expression.  Example:  “Mr. Curtis, my high school English teacher, taught me how to diagram a sentence.”  A parenthetical expression is an extra, explanatory phrase that is NOT integral to the meaning of the sentence.  However, in the sentence, “My sister Sally and I went to the store,” no commas are needed to set off “Sally.”  Why is this the case?  “Sally” is integral to the meaning of this sentence because it distinguishes which sister is being talked about; there may be more than one sister.  Thank you to Wanda Whitten, the editor of The Maine Scholar, for this example.  (Or might I say, “I want to thank Editor Wanda Whitten for this example?”)

3. Commas – NO!

Do NOT use a comma to divide two verbs with a common subject.  Example:  “She went to the play and saw her friends.”  There is no comma after “play.”  This mistake is another one of the most frequent.  Do not be a commaholic.  Many writers simply do not understand that commas have very specific uses and are not used when a writer simply wants to insert a pause as one might do in conversation.

4. The Possessive Case

The possessive case of a noun indicates ownership and generally requires an apostrophe followed by an “s,” as in “Sylvia Plath’s poetry.”  In general plural nouns ending in “s” take only an apostrophe:  “students’ books.”  The most common mistake is to leave out the apostrophe altogether.  Comb your work to make sure that you have correctly used the possessive case to indicate ownership.

One important exception:  The possessive form of “it” is “its.”  It is NOT “it’s,” which is a contraction for “it is.”

5. The Colon

A colon sets up a major division in a sentence to indicate that what follows will be a list of particulars or an elaboration of what has just been stated.  A colon usually follows an independent clause and should NOT be used to separate a verb from its predicate (“The school rules included:  no running in the halls; raising your hand, etc.”).  This sentence is best rewritten this way:  “The school rules included the obvious ones:  not running in the halls, etc.”  Neither should a colon be used to separate a preposition from its object (“On Saturday  we went to:  The camera shop, the Laundromat, etc.”)  This sentence is best rewritten by simply using commas to separate the series of prepositional objects.  A colon can also be used to introduce a quotation that supports a preceding clause.  

6. The Semicolon

A semicolon is used to connect two complete sentences that share a close relationship; one that would be lost by structuring the two sentences separately, by disconnecting them with the finality of a period.  Example:  “I am clueless about how to improve this essay; perhaps I’d better sit down and think about it.”  Strunk and White suggest that “this simple method of indicating relationship between statements is one of the most useful devices of composition.”   

A semicolon should also be used to separate a series of complex items.  An item in a list is complex if it contains internal commas.  Example:  “The Friday before vacation the Nortons had to accomplish the following tasks:   walk, groom, and feed their dog; cancel their weekly periodicals, including Mrs. Norton’s Sunday New York Times; and order an itinerary, along with several maps, from AAA.”  

However, writers BEWARE!  Editor Whitten has suggested that what most writers do with semicolons should be illegal.  The semicolon is probably the most abused and misunderstood punctuation mark.  Its two most common uses are the two listed here.  

7. Quotation Marks and Punctuation

Commas, question marks and periods go inside of quotation marks.  A sentence ends with only one punctuation mark—not one inside and one outside the quotation mark.  For example:  John said, “I am going downtown.”  Colons and semicolons, however, go outside of the quotation marks.  

8. Avoid using “This”

Avoid the use of “this,” as in the sentence, “This eventually became a problem.”  Writers often use this construction as a device to move their writing along.  Ask yourself, “This what?”  Do you mean this situation, this behavior, this relationship?  Remember, whenever you use “this” without a clear antecedent, your writing loses focus, and the reader loses track of what you are talking about.  

9. Be a vigilant “Which” hunter/huntress (term borrowed from Strunk and White)

“That” and “which” are not quite the same thing.  “That” defines without limiting.  “The washing machine that we bought is arriving Tuesday.”  In this sentence “that” is defining our specific washing machine.  “Which” adds a fact but does not define the subject.  “The washing machine, which we bought yesterday, is arriving Tuesday.”   

Strunk and White suggest that, in general, your written work can be improved by changing you “whiches” to “that’s;”  in other words, by going “which hunting.”  

10. Watch out for Dangling Modifiers

Dangling modifiers are phrases that sit too far away in the sentence from the subject to which they refer.  They are often afterthoughts, semi-poetic descriptive kinds of content that the writer tacks on at the end of a sentence.  “The children sat in their seats while Mrs. Butler yelled at Sally, praying for recess.”  It is the children who are praying—not Sally.  This construction can be fixed the following ways:

      -While the children sat in their seats, praying for recess… (create introductory adverbial clause)

      -Praying for recess, the children sat in their seats, while… (Attach modifier to the modified at the beginning of the sentence)

      -The children sat in their seats and prayed for recess, while… (Change to two verbs with a common subject)