Review "Faces in the Mirror" Writing Assignment
Essay Topic for a Cause and Effect Analysis Thesis:
Develop a thesis that answers the following question: What are the causes behind the pathological relationship between celebrities and their admirers?
Sample Thesis
As "Faces in the Mirror" shows us, celebrity worship is a sick symbiotic relationship between celebrity and fanboy characterized by ____________, ____________, ___________, and _____________.
Thesis that disagrees with the above:
While there may be some fanboys who take their celebrity worship too far, celebrity culture is good for us since celebrities give us necessary distractions from our boring lives, they give us beauty and fashion for which we can aspire, they give us glamour, which points to a higher reality than the plain reality society tells us we have to live in, and they give us a shared interest which allows us "normal folk" to bond with one another.
Essay Option:
Compare the themes in "The Faces in the Mirror" with the themes of celebrity in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's masterpiece film Birdman (2014).
“Markets and Morals” by Michael Sandel
One. Why does Sandel give us a litany of things we can buy?
Here’s the list: prison cell upgrade, car pool lane fast track, surrogate mother, citizenship, killing endangered animals, doctor’s cell phone.
Here’s the list of things we can sell: forehead ad space, body for experiments, mercenary in war-torn country, read a book, not watch TV, lose fourteen pounds in 4 months, life insurance of the near dead so you can collect their policy.
Sandel’s point is that market creep has wrapped its tentacles around us so that we don’t even know that buying and selling—consumerism—is the dominant feature of our lives.
If we grew up wrapped in the consumer cocoon, then we think it’s our normal. It is our normal, but it’s crazy. Why? Because in such a world there are no boundaries. Buying and selling becomes our religion. It is the only religion. It is the “Era of Market Triumphalism.”
In Market Triumphalism, we equate greed with "strong moral character." We say to the most ruthless successful person, "You are a hard worker. You must be mature, disciplined, focused, and strong. You are the kind of person I want to be."
In Market Triumphalism, we're just worshipping money and power for their own sake.
Two. What were the forces that led to Market Triumphalism?
The early 1980s ushered Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s conviction of free markets with no regulation. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair continued the legacy.
But in 2008 the Great Recession hit us and now Market Triumphalism has been replaced with doubt.
Three. What more than greed fueled Market Triumphalism?
Growing markets obliterated boundaries between moral and sacred spheres on one hand and market spheres on the other. When the spheres intersected, we entered into a protracted moral crisis.
We mixed the Sacred with the Profane:
Having a baby is a sacred act. Turing it into a business is a human degradation.
Proposing to your girlfriend is a sacred act. Having her post it on Twitter and Facebook for the ad revenue before you’ve even put the ring on her finger is a human degradation.
Putting people into prison is a form of societal punishment. Letting business run prison takes the moral component out of it and makes profit motive the thing that drives the agenda. That is a compromise of a society’s morality.
Pharmaceutical companies want to make money and this incentive clashes with promoting good health.
Health care is a business in our country when other countries say it should not be.
This expansion of the market into all parts of our lives is harmful for two reasons:
It fosters inequality and corruption.
Money buys political influence, medical care, education, safe neighborhoods, and healthy food, to name some.
Markets are also corrupt. For example, if prison and policing are a profit-incentive businesses, then there is incentive to arrest and imprison a quota of people regardless of crime rates.
College is too much of a business in this country and it's geared to the rich as we read here.
And more recently, we see Market Triumphalism in the essay "Why We Should Fear University, Inc."
Essay Option
Support, refute, or complicate the argument that Ty Burr's "Faces in the Mirror" and Michael Sandel's "Markets and Morals" complement the theme of human degradation and "moral vacancy" in an age of excessive marketing and pathological self-promotion.
Sample Thesis
Reading “Faces in the Mirror” by Ty Burr and “Markets and Morals” by Michael Sandel, it is apparent that we live in an age of unchecked marketing that is to society’s detriment evidenced by a free market untethered by ethical concerns______________, ________________, _____________, and _________________.
“Understanding Black Patriotism” by Michael Eric Dyson
One. What is the difference between black patriotism and “lapel-pin nationalism”?
The history of black people is the history of struggle, to fight against slavery, Jim Crow, unfair incarceration laws, unequal income distribution, to name some, and this struggle for a better country through the struggle is far more in-depth and arduous than people spewing easy slogans and clichés.
If one is angry toward one’s country, then one has hope for change. True abandonment of one’s country is not expressed anger or outrage but apathy, and the percentage of people of all colors who stay at home on election days speaks to apathy.
In contrast, there is “My country, right or wrong,” which is a dogmatic credo of the ignorant peasant who subscribes, not to patriotism, but to jingoism, the act of cheerleading or being a fanboy for one’s country without doing the research or hard work concerning the relevant issues.
A jingoist is a Kool-Aid drinker or fanboy who blindly embraces all things that pertain to one’s country.
A true patriot, according to Dyson, is a critical thinker who wants an accurate diagnosis of America's ills in order to make a better America.
Two. What examples does Dyson provide regarding hypocrisy of patriotism?
Dyson points at the five deferments of Dick Cheney, hawkish on terrorism, who may have been hawkish when he was calling the shots, but when it came to him fighting he stayed home from the war five times. He really used those deferments but was eager to make others fight his war.
In contrast, African American critic of American racism Jeremiah Wright surrendered his student deferment and volunteered to join the Marines.
Essay Option
Defend, refute, or complicate the assertion that critical patriotism, the kind that Dyson attributes to great African American thinkers, is a superior variety of patriotism to the white jingoism described in the essay.
Sample Thesis
Pro Dyson Thesis
Those who attempt to dismiss the criticisms of great African American thinkers as being anti-American are engaging in the most vile form of tribalism and jingoism, and they would be well served to embrace these African American thinkers’ authentic patriotism, which is evidenced by __________, ___________, ___________, and ____________.
Pro Dyson Thesis
Attempts to label the great African American thinkers who have criticized US policy as anti-American collapse when we consider that these thinkers are the truest kind of patriot. This is evidenced by _____________, _______________, ________________, and ____________________.
Against Dyson Thesis
While I concede to Dyson’s point that we can criticize US policy and still be patriotic, Dyson’s examples are too extreme evidenced by _________________, _________________, ________________, and _______________________.
In the following video, we see Michael Eric Dyson make his point about true patriotism as he contrasts it with false patriotism:
False patriots apologize for abusers of civil rights.
False patriots white-wash the real narratives that define racism in America.
False patriots get defensive when truthful criticisms are put on the table.
False patriots romanticize America's ugly past, "the good old days," which were actually a toxic environment populated by racist zombies drunk on the poison Kool-Aid of White Supremacy.
Writing Successful Paragraphs
A successful paragraph is like a mini essay. Instead of a thesis, it has a topic sentence. Instead of mapping components, the paragraph has supporting details.
An A paragraph contains the following:
Structurally, it contains a topic sentence, either explicit or implicit.
It has supporting concrete details.
Its supporting details logically follow the other, which give the paragraph coherence.
It contains transitions (avoid, if you can, elementary transitions such as first, second, third, and so on), which give the paragraph cohesiveness.
Rhetorically speaking, an A paragraph should be written in a passionate, distinctive voice. The language should be precise, lively, and colorful, reflecting the writer’s passion for the subject.
A successful paragraph has the following:
1. topic sentence (mini thesis)
2. supporting details
3. unity: all the supporting details are relevant to the topic sentence
4. cohesiveness: all the supporting details logically follow the other with the help of transitions. Advanced writers attempt to use transitions other than the familiar “first . . . second . . . third . . . Finally”
5. concluding sentence (optional)
Sample A Paragraph Response to the Question: How has the iPod degraded our listening of music?
The innovation of the iPod and its marriage partner, iTunes, have seemingly created Listening Paradise for the music lover. Now you can have thousands of songs at your fingertips and customize your own playlists, make ratings, burn your own CDs and in essence believe that it's you--not the recording artists--who is the “creative genius” for all your music. But in fact, you will most likely face the sad truth that as you amass thousands upon thousands of songs, you will reach a point in which your ability to appreciate music will actually diminish, not deepen, because having tens of thousands of songs and hundreds of playlists will degrade your music listening pleasure. The first thing you’ll notice is that you won’t even remember what songs you have and the treasures that used to give you so much joy become buried under a pile of newer and newer songs that muddle your memory. The second thing that will happen is that in your determination to listen to as much of your music as possible, you will create huge playlists and the music will play all day and night as you multi-task at your computer so that you’re not really focusing on music the way you used to. Your relationship with music has changed drastically to the point that it is now a form of “wallpaper,” a droning in the distance that swaths you with a feeling of security. But whatever security you gain from cocooning yourself in your music, you will lose from becoming more and more self-conscious about what kind of songs you own because you’ll become aware that you live in a culture in which your identity is judged largely on your playlists and “brand identity” as determined by your music tastes will become more important than actually enjoying music. Finally, when you have hundreds and hundreds of playlists, you will suffer from “choice anxiety.” Fretting over what to play and always worrying that you’re neglecting a huge chunk of your music will become a distraction that compromises your music-listening experience. Thus we are a culture with the technology capable of fitting 40,000 songs on an iPod, but our brains cannot embrace that much music without suffering some kind of permanent meltdown.
Another Example of an A Paragraph
A paragraph that explains why Octo-Mom stirs the hostility of so many (transitions underlined) :
The California woman who relied on the dubious practices of a fertility doctor to give birth to 14 children, has become a national demon who stirs our most primitive fears and hostilities and compels us to gather our pitchforks and torches and to chase her from our midst. Her demonic reputation exists in part because she has become a metaphor for the malignant parasite whose ravenous, pathological appetite to bear bus loads of children with legal and government sanction stirs the general public’s greatest Malthusian nightmare: Paying the hefty tax tab to cater to the wild irresponsible desire of an emotionally-arrested woman whose sole passions in life are to bear more children than she can take care of and to liken her image to celebrity goddess Angelina Jolie. Her reputation as a monster is reinforced by her very title, Octo-Mom, which suggests a malevolent invader who bears similarities to the pod creatures in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Finally, our resentment is vindicated when it is reported that she and her litter will live in luxury paid for by the generosity of others, thus making us feel like it is the grossly irresponsible in this world who are rewarded while the rest of us who play by the rules having nothing to look forward to in this life except for getting punked.
"In Defense of Single Motherhood" by Katie Roiphe
One. Do people say single mothers are bad or do people state the obvious, that there is a link between poverty and being a single mother?
Perhaps people don't demonize single mothers. People protest the poverty that results too often from being a single mother. In fact, 40% of single mothers live in poverty.
Poor single mothers are at higher risk for cycles of poverty, illness, imprisonment, etc. Roiphe, a privileged single mother, seems out of touch.
No one is "hating" on single mothers. It appears Roiphe is creating a fake controversy to attract attention to herself.
She's been irrelevant for decades. She appears desperate to be heard and is trying to be provocative for its own sake, a sign of neediness and intellectual dishonesty.
There is no "basic notion that single mothers are irresponsible and dangerous to the general order of things . . ." as she writes.
No one ever accused single mothers of being irresponsible.
In fact, most fair-minded people see the problem residing with dead-beat dads, men who abandon their families.
Essay Prompt
Develop a thesis that agrees or challenges the critiques we've seen against Katie Roiphe and support your thesis in a 4-5-page essay.
"People Like Us,” by David Brooks
One. What explains our hunger for sameness in terms of the people we surround ourselves with?
We’re anxious and alienated from “people who aren’t like us.” We’d rather feel connection and comfort from being with “members of our tribe,” be it in education, politics, class aspirations, etc. We want to be around people who share our values and our way of seeing the world.
Such tribalism is both comforting and effective in making us happy.
Here’s the killer fact we don’t want to confront: We’re happier by remaining in our tribe. We don’t want to be around people who don’t share our values.
Why?
Because we are hard-wired to be self-segregating based on interests and values.
If we’re hipsters, we want to live in a community of hipsters.
If we’re suburban consumers, we want to be around suburban consumers.
If we’re creative, we want to be around a community of artists.
People who shop at Trader Joe’s are of a certain educated and political ilk.
People who shop at Whole Foods are of a certain educated and political ilk.
People who don’t vaccinate their children hang out with other likeminded parents.
People who watch Fox News hang out with Fox News viewers.
People who watch MSNBC hang with MSNBC viewers.
People who like luxury watches create online watch communities.
The Internet with its millions of blogs is all about consolidating people of common interests. The same can be said with YouTube and its over 500 million channels.
If you’re a college graduate the chances are your friends will be college graduates.
If you’re not college educated, the chances are your friends won’t be either.
If you’re fat, your friends probably are also.
If you’re skinny, your friends probably are also.
If you're beautiful, your friends probably also enjoy a fair amount of pulchritude.
If you’re an MMA fighter or enthusiast, your friends probably are also.
If you’re a vegan, so are your friends.
If you’re sympathetic to civil rights and equal justice, you probably don’t have friends who harbor racist views.
If you’re against guns, you probably don’t hang out with outspoken members of the NRA.
If you’re an atheist, especially an outspoken one, you probably don’t have a lot of Christian friends.
If you think skinny jeans on men look stupid, you probably don’t have a lot of male friends who wear skinny jeans.
Foodies hang out with foodies.
Coffee connoisseurs hang out with coffee connoisseurs.
Gamers hang out with gamers.
Sommeliers hang out with sommeliers.
If you're a gourmand who gorges on camembert, you probably hang out with other gourmands who wallow in camembert.
If you're a member of the cognoscenti, you probably hang out exclusively with other members of the cognoscenti.
If you're a Morrissey freak, you probably hang out with other Morrissey freaks.
We want to live in a bubble with people just like us. We feel comfortable being insulated from the “outside world.”
So let’s get real: There is no diversity. There’s only sameness.
Writing Response
Support, refute, or complicate the assertion, based on the context of Brooks' essay, that humans are hard-wired away from diversity and toward sameness.
Sample:
Brooks is accurate to say that we are hard-wired to live in our Same Tribe because we are a lazy people evidenced by _____________, _____________, ______________, and ____________________.
We should not denigrate ourselves for hanging out with people who are "just like us." We do so for survival reasons, which include _______________, _____________, ____________, and ______________.
“The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson
One. In the first paragraph, Dickerson writes that the president will struggle to explain what race is to space aliens. She suggests that no one knows what race is, yet it is the “central drama” of America.
Why is race, which is such a vague and confusing term, our nation’s obsession?
Because people of color have traditionally been excluded from the American Dream and there is a history of genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow (segregation and racism), human rights violations that were rooted in the idea of race.
Genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow were justified by white people who, intoxicated by the doctrine of White Supremacy, felt entitled to treat others in the horrid manner of racism and all its resulting evils.
In our contemporary society, we enslave migrant workers in tents up and down the agricultural worksites of California and elsewhere.
In the United States, we imprison black and brown men for the same crimes as whites at a ratio of 10:1.
So race, even in its vague definition, is still a hot-button issue and points to a crisis of injustice and moral bankruptcy.
Two. What does Dickerson mean when she writes that “race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege”?
The creators of White Supremacy, who escaped the tyranny of European kings knew the value of freedom. But they loved money more than freedom and they only valued freedom for themselves, not others.
White profiteering sociopaths who were envious of the profits slave traders were making in Britain, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere, wanted a piece of the action, but they knew the white Christian peasants and farmers were too religious and too caught up in the command "Love thy neighbor as thyself" to embrace slavery, so the white sociopath conmen insidiously put White Supremacy, the belief that God and Jesus are white and that the world was made for white people, into the white peasants' Bibles and soon enough the peasants and farmers drank enough of this White Supremacy or "evil Kool-Aid," as I'm fond of calling it, and they were on board with the white conmen.
Here's an important point: The white conmen were too clever to be fooled by race. They knew that race doesn't exist, that race is a canard and they used race as a canard to fool the white peasants.
The white peasants actually believed in the Kool-Aid the conmen gave them.
I don't know if there's a Hell, but if there is one with descending levels of torment, it would seem the conmen who knew race was a canard all along would go in the deepest part of Hell.
The peasants would still go to Hell because there's no excuse for their "complicit ignorance," as I like to call it, but they're not as diabolical as the white sociopaths who invented White Supremacy for their own profit.
Review of White Supremacy
White Supremacy is an evil religion, a hybrid of Christianity and white superiority narratives, which states whites were put on Earth lord over everyone else in any manner they saw fit.
The Inventors of White Supremacy Didn't Believe in It Themselves But Created It to get poor Christian farmers to "get on board" with slavery.
The creators of White Supremacy didn’t even believe in it. They were cynics who created a false religion because they knew the masses of white people would “drink the Kool-Aid” and become converts to White Supremacy as slavery became a powerful economic engine that made America into a super power.
In the United States, there was no such thing as "race" until slavery came along.
Before the false religion of White Supremacy, people did not have a consciousness of race or skin color. Race and skin color were inventions, or if you will, an elaborate fiction or fairy tale designed to justify genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow.
White farmers and slave owners drank the Kool-Aid and saw themselves as “good Christians” even as they exacted cruelty upon people of color. They were able to use White Supremacy (“I’m just doing what the good Lord ordained me to do.”) to assuage their conscience and perform heinous acts, which constituted the most depraved human rights violations.
Three. What attitudes did white Americans feel toward European immigrants from Ireland to Greece?
They were looked upon as subhumans that would takeover America as “mongrel hordes” unless the white Americans started breeding more.
There was a racial hierarchy with Anglo Europeans at the top, Italians, Slavs, Greeks, and Irish at the middle, and brown and black people relegated to the bottom.
Hostility was so bad against non-Anglo Europeans that 11 Italians were lynched in Louisiana in 1891.
The Anglo whites wanted to assimilate the southern Europeans into more jobs and get their votes, so they “promoted Southern Europeans to whiteness,” whiteness being equivalent to the gold card of freedom, respect, and privilege.
This privilege gave “fascist-leaning Italians” full respect while patriotic Japanese were put into internment camps.
One of the horrid things about southern Italians becoming full white Americans was in sharing white Americans’ hate and disdain for people of color. For example, we read that Italian Americans took delight in beating up black people.
This was their sick rite of passage into “being fully white.”
Four. How was FDR’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal a sort of affirmative action for whites only?
The states could decide who got the New Deal money and it always went to poor whites, never to blacks. White liberals in the north allowed southern states to do with the New Deal as they liked, state by state. There was no federal enforcement so that all people benefited.
During the Depression, relief only went to poor whites. Poor blacks received nothing.
Blacks were not eligible for Social Security until the 1950s.
These injustices, which happened 70 years ago, give weight to the argument for affirmative action, Dickerson argues.
We did have affirmative action for the poor, Dickerson reminds us, but 70 years ago, it was only the white poor who received it.
Essay Options
Develop a thesis that addresses the tribalism discussed in David Brooks' essay "People Like Us" and the "scientific racism" discussed in Debra J. Dickerson's "The Great White Way."
Sample Thesis
Brooks' and Dickerson's essays show that tribalism is a double-edged sword that brings out both our best and worst traits evidenced by ______________, ______________, _______________, and _____________________.
Sample Thesis
Brooks' and Dickerson's essay compel us to be cautious of tribalism because it inclines us to _____________, _____________, _____________, and _________________.
Brooks' and Dickerson's essay compel us to suppress our tribalistic tendencies because _____________, ____________, _____________, and ________________.
While Dickerson's essay reveals the evil injustice that too often results from tribalism, Brooks' essay shows that tribalism can be a force for good evidenced by ___________, ___________, __________, and ________________.
Another Essay Option
Address “The Great White Way” by developing a thesis that analyzes how race is more of a social fantasy than it is an objective reality.
Sample Thesis
"The Great White Way" makes the persuasive case that race is a canard and a social construction that has nothing to do with scientific reality and everything to do with privilege evidenced by __________, ____________, ______________, and ________________.
Sample Thesis
"The Great White Way" and the Rachel Dolezal controversy both reinforce the idea that race is an arbitrary social construction, an insane fantasy, and an anti-humanitarian fiction designed to give a false order of things, to provide a rationale for exploitation, and to reinforce our base tendencies for tribalism.
Related Readings
"There Is No Such Thing As Race"
"Race Is a Social Concept, Not a Scientific One"
Topic of Race: Rachel Dolezal
"I am black, and Rachel Dolezal is not" by Rebecca Carroll, Dame
"Black Like Who? Rachel Dolezal's Harmful Masquerade"
"Rachel Dolezal's Unintended Gift to America"
Defining race has been in the national news since fraud Rachel Dolezal has been exposed for the mountebank and pathological narcissist that she is.
Essay Prompt
In a 4-5-page essay with 3 sources, defend or refute the proposition that Rachel Dolezal's racial identity is not authentic self-expression but the pathology of a confused fraud.
Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.
Examples:
While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.
Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.
Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.
I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.
I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.
We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:
The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:
|
after |
once |
until |
I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.
Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.
My elbow hurts. I’m working out.
Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.
We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.
The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.
I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.
I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.
Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences
Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.
You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.
I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.
I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.
I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.
Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.
The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:
McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.
Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.
Another Example
Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.
Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.
Another Example
Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger, forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and wild beast. During the struggle, the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
Don’t Do Subordination Overkill
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.
“The Restoration of Faith” by Amitava Kumar
One. What is restorative justice?
After a crime has been committed, even a homicide, the emphasis isn’t on punishment but on how the person who committed the crime how he or she must address the needs of the victims.
Writing Option
Support, refute, or complicate the notion that restorative justice brings more real justice to victims of crimes than conventional forms of justice.
According to Andrea A. Lunsford in The St. Martin’s Handbook, Eight Edition, there are 20 writing errors that merit “The Top 20.”
One. Wrong word: Confusing one word for another.
Here's a list of wrong word usage.
A full-bodied red wine compliments the Pasta Pomodoro.
Compliment is a to say something nice about someone.
Complement is to complete or match well with something.
The BMW salesman excepted my counteroffer of 55K for the sports sedan.
The word should be accepted.
Kryptonite effects Superman in such a way that he loses his powers.
Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb, so it should be the following:
Kryptonite affects Superman in a such a way that he loses his powers.
There superpowers were compromised by the Gamma rays.
We need to use the possessive plural pronoun their.
Two. Missing comma after an introductory phrase or clause
Terrified of slimy foods, Robert hid behind the restaurant’s dumpster.
In spite of my aversion to rollercoasters, I attended the carnival with my family.
Three. Incomplete documentation
Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness.”
It should read:
Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness” (277).
Four. Vague Pronoun Reference
Focusing on the pecs during your Monday-Wednesday-Friday workouts is a way of giving you more time to work on your quads and glutes and specializing on the way they’re used in different exercises.
Before Jennifer screamed at Brittany, she came to the conclusion that she was justified in stealing her boyfriend.
Five. Spelling (including homonyms, words that have same spelling but different meanings)
No one came forward to bare witness to the crime.
No one came forward to bear witness to the crime.
Every where we went, we saw fast food restaurants.
Everywhere we went, we saw fast food restaurants.
Love is a disease. It’s sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation.
Its sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation.
Six. Mechanical error with a quotation
In his best-selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure”.
In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure.”
In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure” (18).
“It forever stuns me that people make life decisions based on something as fickle and capricious as love”, Michael Manderlin writes (22).
“It forever stuns me that people make life decisions based on something as fickle and capricious as love,” Michael Manderlin writes (22).
Seven . Unnecessary comma
I need to workout when at home, and while taking vacations.
You do however use a comma if the comma is between two independent clauses:
I need to workout at home, and when I go on vacations, I bring my yoga mat to hotels.
I need to workout every day, because I’m addicted to the exercise-induced dopamine.
You do however use a comma after a dependent clause beginning with because:
Because I’m addicted to exercise-induced dopamine, I need to workout everyday.
Peaches, that are green, taste hideous.
The above is an example of an independent clause with a essential information or restrictive information. Not all peaches taste hideous, only green ones. The meaning of the entire sentence needs the dependent clause so there are no commas.
However, if the clause is additional information, the clause is called nonessential or nonrestrictive, and we do use commas:
Peaches, which are on sale at Whole Foods, are my favorite fruit.
Eight. Unnecessary or missing capitalization
Some Traditional Chinese Medicines containing Ephedra remain legal.
We only use capital letters for proper nouns, proper adjectives, first words of sentences, important words in titles, along with certain words indicating directions and family relationships.
Nine. Missing word
The site foreman discriminated women and promoted men with less experience.
The site foreman discriminated against women and promoted men with less experience.
Chris’ behavior becomes bizarre that his family asks for help.
Chris’ behavior becomes so bizarre that his family asks for help.
Ten. Faulty sentence structure
The information which high school athletes are presented with mainly includes information on what credits needed to graduate and thinking about the college which athletes are trying to play for, and apply.
A sentence that starts out with one kind of structure and then changes to another kind can confuse readers. Make sure that each sentence contains a subject and a verb, that subjects and predicates make sense together, and that comparisons have clear meanings. When you join elements (such as subjects or verb phrases) with a coordinating conjunction, make sure that the elements have parallel structures.
The reason I prefer yoga at home to the gym is because I prefer privacy.
I prefer yoga at home to the gym because of privacy.
11. Missing Comma with a Nonrestrictive Element
Marina who was the president of the club was the first to speak.
The clause who was the president of the club does not affect the basic meaning of the sentence: Marina was the first to speak.
A nonrestrictive element gives information not essential to the basic meaning of the sentence. Use commas to set off a nonrestrictive element.
12. Unnecessary Shift in Verb Tense
Priya was watching the great blue heron. Then she slips and falls into the swamp.
Verbs that shift from one tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers.
13. Missing Comma in a Compound Sentence
Meredith waited for Samir and her sister grew impatient.
Without the comma, a reader may think at first that Meredith waited for both Samir and her sister.
A compound sentence consists of two or more parts that could each stand alone as a sentence. When the parts are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a comma before the conjunction to indicate a pause between the two thoughts.
14. Unnecessary or Missing Apostrophe (including its/it's)
Overambitious parents can be very harmful to a childs well-being.
The car is lying on it's side in the ditch. Its a white 2004 Passat.
To make a noun possessive, add either an apostrophe and an s (Ed's book) or an apostrophe alone (the boys' gym). Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns ours, yours, and hers. Useits to mean belong to it; use it's only when you mean it is or it has.
15. Fused (run-on) sentence
Klee's paintings seem simple, they are very sophisticated.
She doubted the value of medication she decided to try it once.
A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation.
16. Comma Splice
I was strongly attracted to her, she was beautiful and funny.
We hated the meat loaf, the cafeteria served it every Friday.
A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and or because, or restructure the sentence.
17. Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement
Every student must provide their own uniform.
Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular antecedent can refer to a man or woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals.
18. Poorly Integrated Quotation
A 1970s study of what makes food appetizing "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565).
Corrected
In a 1970s study about what makes food appetizing, we read, "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565).
"Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life" (Eighner 383). Finding edible food is especially tricky.
Corrected
"Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life," we read in Eighner's book (383). One of the drawbacks is that finding food can be especially difficult.
Quotations should fit smoothly into the surrounding sentence structure. They should be linked clearly to the writing around them (usually with a signal phrase) rather than dropped abruptly into the writing.
19. Missing or Unnecessary Hyphen
This paper looks at fictional and real life examples.
A compound adjective modifying a noun that follows it requires a hyphen.
The buyers want to fix-up the house and resell it.
A two-word verb should not be hyphenated. A compound adjective that appears before a noun needs a hyphen. However, be careful not to hyphenate two-word verbs or word groups that serve as subject complements.
20. Sentence Fragment
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Grammar: Dangling Modifiers
Rewrite the following sentences to correct the dangling modifiers:
1. Larded with greasy fries, the waiter served me a burnt steak.
2. Mr. McMahon returned her essay with a wide grin.
3. To finish by the 4 P.M. deadline, the computer keyboard blazed with the student's fast typing fingers.
4. Chocolate frosted with caramel sauce, John devoured the cupcakes.
5. Tapping the desk with his fingers, the school clock's hands moved too slowly before recess.
6. Showering the onion rings with garlic salt, his sodium count spiked.
7. The girl walked her poodle in high heels.
8. Struggling with the tight jeans, the fabric ripped and made an embarrassing sound.
9. Turning off the bedroom lights, the long, hard day finally came to an end.
10. Piled high above the wash machine, I decided I had better do a load of laundry.
11. Standing on the hotel balcony, the ocean view was stunning.
12. Running across the floor, the rug slipped and I collapsed.
13. Writing anxiously, the essay looked littered with errors.
14. Mortified by my loss to my opponents, my baseball uniform sagged.
15. Hungry after a day of football, the stack of peanut butter sandwiches on the table quickly disappeared.
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