Here are some errors to avoid in writing, listed by the codes I use
to identify them on student papers, and illustrated by examples from actual
student papers to go with them. There are also links for places to find help.
With special thanks to Marialla Colvin, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Professor Gene Myers, Huxley College
The following stresses certain technicalities of writing that all college
students should master. Making mistakes on these kinds of things has a way
of instantly undermining the credibility of any professional writing. If
you haven't had to learn basic rules like these, now is the time!
That said, the most fundamental part of writing is not these technicalities,
but the task of making sense with words. If you cannot write clearly on your
topic, you probably have not thought clearly on it. Ultimately composition
is an extended process that depends essentially on discussion and revision.
I strongly encourage you to take advantage of Western's Writing Center,
including their Writer's Resources
on the web, to improve your writing abilities.
Note: abbreviations below in capitals are codes I use in marking up papers.
MIS: MISmatch of pronouns or subject terms
- 1. Two humans may experience the exact same physical pain but one may
suffer more simply because their personal threshold for pain is different
than the other person.
- 2. Our national parks are a vehicle that creates environmentalism.
- 3. Another significant player in the establishment of national parks
was the formation of many conservation groups in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries.
To Writing
Center Help on Pronouns
SV: mismatch of Subject and Verb
- 1. ....a change that enables humanity to exist in a more harmonious
relationship with the natural world they inhabit. (humanity=singular; thus,
"...it inhabits")
- 2. ... The club began to lose popularity because its history of middle
to upper-class, white collar members were no longer the norm in the United
States. (its history = singular; thus, "...was no longer..." Awkward phrasing
should also be corrected.)
- 3. The Bureau's plans to flood the Hetch Hetchy Valley in California
in order to supply water to the city of San Francisco was met by stong opposition...
To
Writing Center Help on Subject and Verb
R-O: Run-On, or sentence boundary problem
- 1.The post-war economic boom was not without its effects on the environment,
the intense development and production of goods put a heavy demand on the
natural resources of the country.
To
Writing Center Help on Sentence Boundaries
PASS: avoid the PASSive voice here - use the active voice instead
- 1. For there to be a change in attitude, an open mind must be kept
of others' feelings towards that issue. (try: If people are to change their
attitudes, they must keep open minds towards others' feelings about the issue.)
- 2. Focus now must be shifted to those environmental problems which
are not (solely) a product of the private sector.
- 3. A simple example is displayed by Singer where a stone and a mouse
are compared. (try: A simple example is Singer's comparison of a stone and
a mouse.)
- 4. Often argued are the accusations that deep ecology is misanthropic...
- 5. The benefits mentioned were just starting to be realized.
Link
To Writing Center Help on Passive/Active Voice
// (two parallel lines by a sentence): use parallel structure
- 1. The issues the dam raised and the emotion evoked.... (try: The issues
the dam raised and the emotions it evoked...)
- 2. Brower led major fights against the Echo Park Dam and, in the mid-1960's,
two dams proposed for the Grand Canyon. (try: Brower led major fights against
the Echo Park Dam and, in the mid-1960's, against two dams proposed for the
Grand Canyon.)
To
Writing Center Help on Parallel Structure
REF?: unclear REFerent
- 1. By denying people food, the population problem can be curbed, however,
it comes into direct conflict with the social ecology view of trying to understand
the problem and working towards a solution. (What does "it" refer to?)
To
Writing Center Help on Referents
TENSE: inconsistent or improper verb TENSEs
- 1. These two men are legacies in the world today and the battle that
was fought over Hetch-Hetchy would change the way others in the country would
react to nature. (compare "are" in first part vs. "would". This sentence also
has problems with verb choice (can a dead person "be" a legacy? If they left
legacies, did they do it "today"?) and run-on construction.)
- 2. This time the conservationists would win and in doing so crossed
over from conservationists to environmentalists...
NACS: Not A Complete Sentence
- 1. Issues such as rainforest destruction, disappearance of pristine
wilderness, species and habitat preservation, stratospheric ozone depletion
and so on and so forth.
- 2. Because higher animals are much like humans and we have realized
that.
- 3. In that one species is more important to the whole ecosystem and
individual members are not self sufficient.
- 4. Especially as related to the environment.
- 5. A system free of politics where the public could journey and experience
the true natural treasures of America.
To
Help on Fragments; more at WWU
Writing Center
WORDY: cluttered with superfluous WORDs; not concise
- 1. The social ecologist's criticism is valid considering that the disagreement
social ecologists have of this view appears to stem from the point that deep
ecology has a strong focus on oneness with nature and social ecology has
a focus on culture and the workings of society.
- 2. When broken down into categories (higher animals, organisms, species,
and ecosystems), because each is related to the existence of each other, placing
less or no value (and thus, acting accordingly) on any relative level of
this existence may disrupt the well being of the whole.
- 3. In this paper, however, I have attempted to show that these differences
in thought do not have a differentiating role when it comes to the end result
of either philosophy's ultimate goal of changing human behavior.
- 4. In his argument, Rolston states.....
To
Writing Center Help on Wordiness
INF: language is too casual or INFormal for academic writing (Note:
This does NOT mean it is okay be jargony, stodgy, or pretentious - just simple
and direct!)
- 1. During this time of high unemployment and harsh times... (also has
awkward repetition)
- 2. One of the most influential and controversial environmental organization
has got to be Greenpeace.
- 3. The one event that sticks out in my mind is the...
SP: SPelling problem
When in doubt about the spelling of a word, use a good dictionary. At a bare
minimum, use an electronic spell-checker -- but be aware it will not detect
words that are spelled correctly but are the wrong choice (i.e., their and
there). Either way, make an effort to memorize the correct spelling. See also
the Writing Center list of "prejudicial" mispellings.
P: Punctuation
The problem here may be your use of a comma, period, colon, semi-colon,
hyphen, quote mark, apostrophe or other marker. See the Writing Center
links for Punctuation (near bottom of page to which this links).
AWK: AWKwardly constructed sentence or phrase - often because of several
other contributory problems.
- 1. This is a society ours is envious of and often makes comparisons
to, an action needing to be altered.
Wavy underlining, or circles around words
Sometimes these marks are accompanied by explanations, but sometimes I use
them alone. They indicate a problem which I'm leaving to you to diagnose and
correct. The problem might include any of the above-mentioned difficulties,
or others.
A common problem is mis-use of the apostrophe -- see
Writing
Center for help on apostrophe use