1. Students using footers instead of headers or they’re
using both footers and headers.
2. Students writing essay titles in italics or using both
italics and quotation marks. For essay titles, use quotation marks only. For
books, newspapers, and films, use
italics.
3. Students are following singular nouns with plural
pronouns: When a person shops for image, they are succumbing to vanity and
the myth of democracy. You should use
“people” instead of “person” and change the verb of course.
4. Students are writing comma splices: Americans
bought more economy than ever last year, however, most of these buyers are
experiencing consumer regret. You
should have a period or semicolon before “however.”
5. Students are putting quotation marks inside commas and
periods: McMahon says in his blog that “consumerism is equivalent to a
religion”. The period should go
inside the quotation mark.
6. Students are writing fragments sentences: Within the
pizza box of melted cheese, savory hand-tossed dough, olives, peppers, and
mushrooms.
7. Students are still misspelling “Works Cited.” I’m
getting “Work Cited,” “References,” “Bibliography,” “Works Citations,” etc.
8. Confusing a nonessential clause, which requires one or two
commas and an essential clause, which has no commas.
Essential clause: Peaches
that are green taste like sour poison.
Essential clause: Cars that have direct-injection
six-cylinder engines are faster than four-bangers.
Nonessential clause: The
Infiniti, which has a special paint electronically bonded to the metal, has low
resale value.
9. Using semicolon before which: Anorexics are masters of exaggeration; which
leads to severe food reduction. No semicolon here. Use a comma.
10. Using a verb after a prepositional
phrase when you should have a noun: According to the article “There’s a Sucker
Born Every Minute” by Clive Thompson shares lots of information.
Correct Version:
The article “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute by Clive
Thompson shares a lot of information.
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