Essay #4 Options (Needs 5 sources for Works Cited) Due July 27
One. Support, refute, or complicate the argument that the presence of trolls on Twitter compel us to delete our Twitter account. Consult Lindy West's "I've Left Twitter," Joel Stein's "How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet," Kathy Sierra's "Why the Trolls Will Always Win," Andrew Marantz's and "The Shameful Trolling of Leslie Jones." You can also refer to the documentary Lo and Behold by Werner Herzog.
Two. Support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion from “Degrading to De-grading” that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon.
Three. Support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family.
Four. In the context of one or more essays we’ve read about standardized testing, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that standardized testing is a money-making canard sodden with incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy, and therefore must be abolished.
Five. Support, refute, or complicate the argument that “Against School” and any other essays we’ve covered persuasively evidence that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.
Six. In the context of John Taylor Gatto’s “Against School,” support, refute, or complicate the argument that that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.
Seven. Bell Hooks sees the self-destruction from extreme self-abasement on one hand and extreme privilege on the other. She is on a quest for a healthy middle ground. These components of toxic self-abasement and toxic privilege, and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and poor, are evident in Hooks' essay, "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" (287). Toxic abasement and the sick symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor is also evident in "The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" (342), "How the Poor Are Made to Pay for Their Poverty," and Linda Tirado's online essay "Why I Make Terrible Decisions." Develop a thesis that compares the toxic symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor in the aforementioned essays and show that human redemption is from a sense of healthy, well-balanced privilege that doesn't exclude social conscience. (This prompt has the thesis embedded in it.)
Eight. Addressing Cathy Young's online essay "Linda Tirado's Poverty Tale: Not Quite Fake, Far from Accurate," develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the charge that Tirado is guilty of committing a "poverty hoax."
Today's Class: Introduce David Brooks' essay "How We Are Ruining America."
Consider the real reason for educational inequality is not a lack of tests, a smokescreen to the real problem, but the privileges of the top economic tier discussed in David Brooks' essay "How We Are Ruining America."
Slate critique of Brooks' essay.
Slate's Osita Nwanevu writes "David Brooks Almost Gets It" as a response to Brooks' infamous essay.
Sample Outline in a Student Essay That Challenges Bell Hooks
Paragraph 1: Summarize Hooks' essay.
Paragraph 2: Explain how David Brooks and his critics are addressing Hooks' theme of climbing the social class ladder.
Paragraph 3: Your thesis, followed by 4 body paragraphs, a counterargument paragraph, and a conclusion.
Sample Thesis That Challenges Bell Hooks
While Bell Hooks' essay is a sympathetic portrait of a young woman climbing the social ladder in the face of prejudice and economic disadvantage and while McMahon did a good job of championing Bell Hooks' themes, both Hooks and McMahon are guilty of misleading us into a rabbit hole of emotions over facts. Hooks' problem is that her claim that working class students are compelled to "sell out" in order to gain "cultural capital" is a gross distraction--rich in emotion but low on facts--that steers us away from the real causes of economic injustice. Let us stop whining and sobbing over the natural growing pains of leaving one economic class to another one. Let us instead focus on the facts about economic injustice: The high cost of housing, healthcare, and education that excludes 80% of Americans.
Contrary to what McMahon and Hooks would have us believe, conforming to some pretentious middle class persona and selling out one's working class roots is not the issue. The real issue is being excluded from the opportunity to join the middle class in the first place. Middle class language and fashion, the so-called "cultural capital" that McMahon and Hooks are obsessed with, don't talk. Money does.
Hey, McMahon, quit misleading us by saying we're victimized by "informal social barriers," "cultural capital," and fancy language. The real victimization is structural inequality: lacking the resources to move up the ladder in the first place. That Bell Hooks took advantage of scholarships to catapult her to the middle class should be no cause of guilt. Hooks should save her whining and her depression for the 80% of Americans who don't get to enjoy the same advantages she does. Let us not, therefore, look at "selling out" as the issue in college. Let us instead look at structural inequality.
Essay Option Based on Bell Hooks' Assertion About Social Class
Support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family.
Six. What does Hooks conclude about the manner in which students must adapt to college?
Hooks writes: "Slowly, I began to understand fully that there was no place in academe for folks from working-class backgrounds who did not wish to leave the past behind. That was the price of the ticket. Poor students would be welcome at the best institutions of higher learning only if they were willing to surrender memory, to forget the past and claim the assimilated present as the only worthwhile and meaningful reality."
In other words to assimilate into the privileged, educated class, we have to embrace their language, attitude, demeanor, characteristics, body language; in other words, we have to die to our former self, disavow our past, and become a new person born in a world of privilege.
This new privilege becomes evident in the way we speak, write, and affect our body language. We develop a certain superciliousness and hauteur (uppity, proud, self-regarding expression that says, "I'm all that").
Hooks is tormented by the above fact not only because it's true, with all of its questionable moral implications, but because Hooks went through the process herself even as she questioned it. She became an "upper class intellectual."
At best when we transform from working class to privileged educated class, she writes, someone like her will suffer contradictions, having a remnant of her past identity and a new identity based on privilege.
Support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family.
Sample Outline
Paragraph 1: Write about someone you know who succeeded or failed to ascend one social class to another with the help of higher education. 250 words.
Paragraph 2: Summarize bell hooks' essay. 250 words
Paragraph 3: Thesis: Support or refute the idea that educational and social ascent requires a sort of betrayal of one's working-class roots and give 4 reasons to support your thesis. 150 words. 650 words for subtotal.
Paragraphs 4-7: 150 each for 600 words. 1,250 subtotal.
Paragraph 8: Counterargument-rebuttal. 150 words. 1,400 subtotal.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion 100 words. 1,500 total.
"Everything You've Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong" 252
"Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing"
John Oliver video
Essay Option about Standardized Testing
In the context of one or more essays we’ve read about standardized testing, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that standardized testing is a money-making canard sodden with incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy, and therefore must be abolished.
Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Summarize John Oliver video or the essay "Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing." 250 words.
Paragraph 2: Thesis: Defend or refute the above assertion. 150 words.
Paragraphs: 3-7 Supporting paragraphs, 150 each, 750 and 400 is 1,150 subtotal.
Paragraph 8: Counterargument-rebuttal. 150 for 1,300 subtotal.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion 100-200 words for 1,400-1,500 total.
“Everything You’ve Heard about Failing Schools Is Wrong” by Kristina Rizga (252)
One. How is Maria denigrated at school?
Classmates call her derogatory names and stigmatize her because of her lack of English skills.
I have a Turkish friend who complained that Americans thought he was stupid because of his accent, as if an accent, or not, is a sign of intelligence.
The real issue isn't intelligence. An accent presses the buttons of the close-minded tribalist who's afraid of Los Otros.
Therefore, a lack of English speaking and writing makes student in the essay an outsider, La Otra. She's not a member of the tribe. The tribalists (people who only accept their "own kind") won't accept her because her lack of English skills suggest she's not a member of the privileged club.
Her math teacher addresses Maria and the other students as dummies.
Nothing like having a teacher who has contempt for her students. This creates a stigma or a permanent dark cloud over the person.
We could argue it is criminal for a math teacher to stigmatize Maria and others because lowered expectations have harmful (deleterious) effects on students.
Patronization
In the administrative office a middle-aged woman who thinks she’s being sympathetic tells Maria that she shouldn’t worry about struggling in high school since “Latinas usually don’t finish high school. . . . They go to work or raise kids.”
Nothing like having a counselor or an administrative official rely on stereotypes for an "analysis" of the student.
We have lowered expectations and racism ushering a girl into the lower economic and social classes, and this degradation is reinforced by standardized tests that cater to the upper classes.
Two. What is the source of Maria’s academic frustration?
She begins to do well in high school; however, her state exams for going to college are too low. These are standardized tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
NCLB was based on good intentions: to raise expectations for all students, especially disadvantaged ones, but it actually punishes them.
Each state spends over a billion dollars on standardized testing, which comes to about $65 a student. This is a huge money grab for companies who want to be part of the test.
NCLB was supposed to be the savior, offering concrete metrics to measure student performance in the face of wishy-washy bureaucrats, and it was championed in a movie Waiting for Superman. Many have dismissed this film as propaganda for charter schools as we read in The Washington Post.
Three. What is Rizga’s thesis?
Rizga’s thesis or purpose is to criticize NCLB by showing the many ways it has changed instruction for the worse.
Students might know bullet points for NCLB but be ignorant of everything else; in other words, NCLB is too narrow in its instruction objectives.
The overemphasis on test performance has resulted in cheating.
There is class bias in the standardized tests so that the tests are more understood by middle and upper classes than lower classes.
There is a tendency to make the standardized test the be all and end all of education. We’ve turned it into a panacea or a cure-all when in fact its godfather Robert Glaser warns that it’s incomplete and imperfect (260).
In a school where English is the second language, NCLB scores will be lower and this will give an inaccurate metric of the school’s quality.
"Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing" in The Atlantic
A former supporter of LNCB is now a critic as heard on NPR.
The top education system in the world is in Finland. They don't use standardized testing.
We should also consider the profit motive of standardized testing.
Eight Strikes Against Standardized Tests
No Profit Left Behind in Politico
Here is a defense of NCLB from NYT.
"Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing"
Today's Essay Prompt:
In the context of one or more essays we’ve read about standardized testing, support, refute, or complicate the assertion that standardized testing is a money-making canard sodden with incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy, and therefore must be abolished.
Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Summarize John Oliver video or the essay "Why Poor Schools Can't Win at Standardized Testing." 250 words.
Paragraph 2: Thesis: Defend or refute the above assertion. 150 words.
Paragraphs: 3-7 Supporting paragraphs, 150 each, 750 and 400 is 1,150 subtotal.
Paragraph 8: Counterargument-rebuttal. 150 for 1,300 subtotal.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion 100-200 words for 1,400-1,500 total.
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.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Comma Rules (based in part by Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
Comma Rule 6: Use commas to set off interrupters or interjections between sentences.
Keith Manderlin, a close friend of mine, went on the buttermilk fried chicken diet and lost 45 pounds.
I looked down at my thumb, a flat grape in the aftermath of me hitting it with a hammer, and realized I had better have my wife drive me to the emergency room.
Green tea, which is believed to be rich in anti-oxidants, varies in quality depending on your supplier.
I sat down and wrote a song on the piano, a lugubrious homage to my angst-ridden adolescent years, which became my all-time selling hit single.
Peanut butter, known to contain significant amounts of rat and cockroach parts, continues to be a brisk seller in spite of its reputation for containing impurities.
Commas and Other Punctuation for MLA Citations
The following needs commas:
When Zombies Became a Worldwide Pestilence, Circa 2012
I’ve been teaching college composition and critical thinking for thirty years. If I had to pick a year that defined a radical change in my students I’d have to point to 2012. That was the year things started to go downhill. It was the year when smartphone users in the United States topped 100 million. It was the year a growing number of Americans and people worldwide began to see the smartphone as a necessity more important than having a toothbrush or wearing underwear. The smartphone became an external organ an external amygdala with Wi-Fi.
More than a human appendage, the smartphone became an opium-drip machine that you carried around with you 24/7. You could enjoy validation and dopamine all day long, until your brain dulled and short-circuited rendering you a mindless zombie falling down a rabbit hole of anxiety and depression.
Depression made people turn to their little opium gadgets with even greater intensity as if the very source of their mental disease might save them and put them into states of euphoria the gadget had once provided them.
I talk about the smartphone-induced zombie state with my students all the time. I talk about how this zombie state will make them “bottom feeders” in the new economy. Their time and energy wasted on their opium machine will make them lose their competitive edge to those who have the strength of mind to keep their smartphones in their proper place.
Having a competitive edge has never been more urgent in this age of merciless economic stratification where everything is tiered including our educational caste system. I remind the class that 8000 students walk through the Humanities Building every week and of those students only 3% will pass our college’s Critical Thinking courses which puts my students in the 97 percentile. A staggering 90% of the remedial students won’t even make it to freshman composition.
It’s one thing to struggle at the bottom of the educational ladder with the odds set against you. But it’s a far worse thing to voluntarily keep a smartphone attached to you constantly because now you’re aiding and abetting in your own demise by allowing this insidious contraption to turn you into a dysfunctional zombie.
I tell my students that this zombie state was prophesied in the 1999 film The Matrix in which we see we have a choice to take the Red Pill of knowledge or the Blue Pill of ignorance. Most people in the film’s future dystopia choose ignorance. The Blue Pill prophecy was fulfilled I tell my students in 2012 when everyone in the world believed erroneously they not only did they need a smartphone; they needed to constantly address the smartphone’s voracious appetites.
All of my students have horror stories of friends and family members whose lives have been ruined by smartphone addiction. They’ve traded ambition and caring for being numbed and depressed by their little dopamine device. They talk of older brothers and sisters unemployed college dropouts who malnourished and corpse-like languish in dank, dimly-lit basements where they are shackled to their smartphones day and night.
My students speak of their own battles with social media-induced anxiety and depression. Listening to my vitriolic rants against social media many of them have deleted their Facebook accounts. They all feel better for it. I’ve had students announce to the class that they deleted their Facebook account and it was followed by applause as if they were announcing their many days of sobriety at an A.A. meeting.
I confess to my students that while I rarely use my five-year-old smartphone a dinosaur by today’s standards I have wasted tens of thousands of hours mindlessly relaxing in front of the Internet since the late 1990s when I was deluded like millions of others into believing surfing the Net gave me infinite possibilities and a giddy sense of omnipotence. But thousands of hours wasted on skimming news articles, consuming entertainment, and conducting product research was time I could have spent practicing writing and playing piano. Rather than honing those skills I’ve remained a dilettante.
I too am in need of an intervention I confess to my students. I too am a casualty of the false utopian promises of technology. Looking at twenty years and tens of thousands of hours wasted wallowing in the malaise of the Internet's mind-numbing seductions I must now redeem myself before it's too late.
I make an announcement to my class. I am going to write a book about critical thinking as the antidote to the zombie state, which became a worldwide pestilence in 2012. The process must be reversed. The Red Pill must replace the Blue Pill. I will call my book Critical Thinking for the Zombie Apocalypse.
This sound like futility.
This sounds like a fool’s errand.
This sounds like the desperate play of a washed-up nonentity straining for relevance.
But my quest to save the students in my critical thinking class is like religion when you think about it. Religion tells you the world is a place of darkness and that to surrender to the world results in death—you navigate the Earth like a mindless zombie unaware that you slog across the planet in darkness.
I can shrug my shoulders and say the hell with it. Why fight the current? Why fight this tsunami of social media and smartphone addiction that is eviscerating our brains? Because complete surrender is nihilism the belief that nothing matters.
I cannot be a Priest of Despair and Hedonism.
I cannot tell my twin daughters now in the first grade that life is a meaningless joke.
If George Carlin is right that when you’re born you’re given a free front-row ticket to the freak show then you should know why it’s a freak show. And you should learn to tell the difference between a freak show and a non-freak show.
Knowing the difference means a lot to me.
But George Carlin was only half right.
The world is a freak show to be sure but only part of the world is. A freak show by definition means something deformed, grotesque, askew, out of whack. But these conditions are degraded versions of something better.
An informed opinion is a rare thing and it is a good thing to have.
An uninformed opinion one that is held out of habit and reflex more than anything else is a degraded version of the informed opinion. Mobs of people with uniformed opinions wreak hell and havoc on the world.
If they win then let the freak show begin.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Mixed Structure
Mixed construction is when the sentence parts do not fit in terms of grammar or logic.
Once you establish a grammatical unit or pattern, you have to be consistent.
Example 1: The prepositional phrase followed by a verb
Faulty
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness double their risk of unemployment and living below the poverty line.
Corrected
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness, they find they will be twice as likely to face unemployment and poverty.
Faulty
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection renders the effects of learned helplessness.
Corrected
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection, we see the effects of learned helplessness.
Faulty
Depending on our method of travel and our destination determines how many suitcases we are allowed to pack.
Corrected
The number of suitcases we can pack is determined by our method of travel and our destination.
Mixed Structure 2: Using a verb after a dependent clause
Faulty
When Jeff Henderson is promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting.
Corrected
Being promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting for Jeff Henderson.
Mixed Structure 3: Mixing a subordinate conjunction with a coordinating conjunction
Faulty
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, but he misused his talents.
Corrected
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, he misused his talents.
Faulty
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, yet she could not write it.
Corrected
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, she could not write it.
Mixed Structure 4: The construction is so confusing you must to throw it away and start all over
Faulty
In the prison no-snitch code Jeff Henderson learns to recognize variations of the code rather than by its real application in which he learns to arrive at a more realistic view of the snitch code’s true nature.
Corrected
In prison Jeff Henderson discovered that the no-snitch code doesn’t really exist.
Faulty
Recurring bouts of depression among the avalanche survivors set a record for number patients admitted into mental hospitals.
Corrected
Recurring bouts of depression among avalanche survivors resulted in a large number of them being admitted into mental hospitals.
Mixed Structure 5: Faulty Predication: The subject and the predicate should make sense together.
Faulty
We decided that Jeff Henderson’s best interests would not be well served staying in prison.
Corrected
We decided that Jeff Henderson would not be well served staying in prison.
Faulty
Using a gas mask is a precaution now worn by firemen.
Corrected
Firemen wear gas masks as a precaution against smoke inhalation.
Faulty
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is often curable.
Corrected
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is essential for successful treatment.
Mixed Structure 6: Faulty Apposition: The appositive and the noun to which it refers should be logically equivalent
Faulty
The gourmet chef, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Corrected
Gourmet cooking, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Mixed Structure 7: Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
College instructors discourage “is when,” “is where,” and most commonly “is because” constructions because they violate logic.
Faulty
Bipolar disorder is when people suffer dangerous mood swings.
Corrected
Bipolar disorder is often recognized by dangerous mood swings.
Faulty
A torn rotator cuff is where you feel this intense pain in your shoulder that won’t go away.
Corrected
A torn rotator cuff will cause chronic pain in your shoulder.
Faulty
The reason I write so many comma splices is because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Corrected
I write so many comma splices because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Faulty
The reason I ate the whole pizza is because my family was a half hour late from coming home to the park and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Corrected
I ate the entire pizza because I’m a glutton.
In-class exercise: Write a sample of the seven mixed structure types and show a corrected version of it:
One. Verb after a prepositional phrase
Two. Verb after a dependent clause
Three. Mixing a subordinating conjunction (Whenever, when, although, though, to name some) with a coordinate conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
Four. The sentence is so confusing you have to start over.
Five. Faulty predication
Six: Faulty apposition
Seven. Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
General Punctuation Rules Including Comma, Semicolon, and Colon
Semicolon Rules
Use semicolon for two related sentences:
Dark chocolate is my second favorite dessert; my first favorite is Costco-purchased Ghirardelli Triple-Chocolate Brownies.
When I was five years old, my parents moved us into the Royal Lanai Apartments of San Jose, California; by the time I was seven we had advanced to a large house in the nearby suburbs.
I used the Jack Crazy Man Ripped Abs Training Program for six months; it proved worthless: I'm as fat as ever.
Use semicolon for two related sentences separated by a conjunctive adverb:
I didn't get the pesto pizza; instead, I chose the zesty feta cheese with Greek olives.
I won't loan you a thousand dollars; however, I'll pay you $50 to wash my car.
Torrance is a good place to live a sedate, stagnant existence as you grow old in your elastic waistband Dockers; in contrast, Santa Monica is more snappy and urbane for aspiring hipsters.
I won't break up with you for cheating on me; nevertheless, you must now live with the guilt of knowing that I will forever feel like a rusty claw just ripped into my chest and tore out my heart.
Use semicolon to clarify a list:
Planet Earth was saved by Superman, the Man of Steel; Aquaman, the Creature of the Deep; Batman, the Caped Crusader; Captain America, Fighter for Justice; Wonder Woman, the Goddess of Crime Stoppers, and Thor, the Hero of Fury.
Without the semicolons, you would think the world was saved by 12 heroes when in fact it was saved by only 6.
Colon Rules
Use a colon to introduce a list:
My favorite desserts are the following: triple-chocolate brownies, cherry pie ladled with Italian vanilla gelato, fresh apple jelly donuts doused with powdered sugar, German chocolate cake, and cinnamon butter pecan coffee cake.
I decided to hire you for several reasons: One, you are reliable. Two, you pay attention to details. Three, you appear to be someone of conscience. Four, you appear to have a hard work ethic. And five, I'm hoping you can set me up with your sister. And perhaps throw in a few good words for me.
Use a colon to emphasize further explanation:
I feel like an old, beat-up dollar bill: Just as an old dollar bill is never accepted in the Coke machine, I'm never accepted by mainstream society.
I remember the first thought I had when my first girlfriend told me she loved me: Oh my God, I need to find a way to get out of this.
Use a colon to precede a quotation, a summary, or a paraphrase:
Paul Fussell explains that X People supremely discard middle-class values and mores: For X People, Fussell explains, the good life is experiencing the Now in all its richness, not groveling for some pathetic social status.
In the masterpiece memoir Muscle, author Samuel Wilson Fussell contemplates his growing paranoia and pent-up emotions: "The threat wasn't just from without; it also came from within. The fright I'd felt on the streets of New York I also felt deep within myself. Who was this man who cried not just at graduations and weddings but during beer and credit-card commercials? Who was this man terrified of his own rage, his own anger, his own greed, his own bitterness? Who was this man who never head a compliment without hearing a subtextual insult, who never said 'I love you' without resenting the other fact: 'I need you.' I couldn't deny it was me, or could I?"
Pronoun Errors
Vague Pronoun Reference
Possible reference to more than one word
Transmitting radio signals by satellite is a way of overcoming the problem of scarce airwaves and limiting how they are used.
In the original sentence, they could refer to the signals or to the airwaves.
Reference implied but not stated
The company prohibited smoking, which many employees resented.
What does which refer to? The editing clarifies what employees resented.
A pronoun should refer clearly to the word or words it replaces (called the antecedent) elsewhere in the sentence or in a previous sentence. If more than one word could be the antecedent, or if no specific antecedent is present, edit to make the meaning clear.
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.
Incorrect pronoun case
Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.
Incorrect:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.
Correct:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.
Incorrect:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.
Correct:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [do] to judicial reinterpretation.
Rewrite each sentence below so that you’ve corrected the pronoun errors.
One. Between you and I, there are too many all-you-can-eat buffets mushrooming over southern California because a person thinks they’re getting a good deal when we can eat endless plates food for a mere ten dollars.
Two. When children grow up eating at buffets, they expand their bellies and sometimes you find you cannot get “full” no matter how much we eat.
Three. As thousands of children gorged on pastrami at HomeTown Buffet, you could tell we would have to address the needs of a lot of sick children.
Four. Although I like the idea of eating all I want, you can sense that there is danger in this unlimited eating mentality that can escort us down the path of gluttony and predispose you to diabetes.
Five. When a customer feels he’s getting all the food they want, you know we can increase your business.
Six. If a student studies the correct MLA format, you can expect academic success.
Seven. It’s not easy for instructors to keep their students’ attention for a three-hour lecture. He or she must mix up the class-time with lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises.
Eight. It is good for a student to read the assigned text at least three times. When they do, they develop better reading comprehension.
Nine. The instructor gave the essays back to Bob and I.
Ten. We must find meaning to overcome the existential vacuum. Otherwise, you will descend into a rabbit hold of despair and they will find themselves behaving in all manners of self-destruction.
Pronoun Errors
Vague Pronoun Reference
Possible reference to more than one word
Transmitting radio signals by satellite is a way of overcoming the problem of scarce airwaves and limiting how they are used.
In the original sentence, they could refer to the signals or to the airwaves.
Reference implied but not stated
The company prohibited smoking, which many employees resented.
What does which refer to? The editing clarifies what employees resented.
A pronoun should refer clearly to the word or words it replaces (called the antecedent) elsewhere in the sentence or in a previous sentence. If more than one word could be the antecedent, or if no specific antecedent is present, edit to make the meaning clear.
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.
Incorrect pronoun case
Determine whether the pronoun is being used as a subject, or an object, or a possessive in the sentence, and select the pronoun form to match.
Incorrect:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between he and President Kennedy.
Correct:
Castro's communist principles inevitably led to an ideological conflict between him and President Kennedy.
Incorrect:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than them to judicial reinterpretation.
Correct:
Because strict constructionists recommend fidelity to the Constitution as written, no one objects more than they [do] to judicial reinterpretation.
Rewrite each sentence below so that you’ve corrected the pronoun errors.
One. Between you and I, there are too many all-you-can-eat buffets mushrooming over southern California because a person thinks they’re getting a good deal when we can eat endless plates food for a mere ten dollars.
Two. When children grow up eating at buffets, they expand their bellies and sometimes you find you cannot get “full” no matter how much we eat.
Three. As thousands of children gorged on pastrami at HomeTown Buffet, you could tell we would have to address the needs of a lot of sick children.
Four. Although I like the idea of eating all I want, you can sense that there is danger in this unlimited eating mentality that can escort us down the path of gluttony and predispose you to diabetes.
Five. When a customer feels he’s getting all the food they want, you know we can increase your business.
Six. If a student studies the correct MLA format, you can expect academic success.
Seven. It’s not easy for instructors to keep their students’ attention for a three-hour lecture. He or she must mix up the class-time with lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises.
Eight. It is good for a student to read the assigned text at least three times. When they do, they develop better reading comprehension.
Nine. The instructor gave the essays back to Bob and I.
Ten. We must find meaning to overcome the existential vacuum. Otherwise, you will descend into a rabbit hold of despair and they will find themselves behaving in all manners of self-destruction.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Mixed Structure
Mixed construction is when the sentence parts do not fit in terms of grammar or logic.
Once you establish a grammatical unit or pattern, you have to be consistent.
Example 1: The prepositional phrase followed by a verb
Faulty
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness double their risk of unemployment and living below the poverty line.
Corrected
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness, they find they will be twice as likely to face unemployment and poverty.
Faulty
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection renders the effects of learned helplessness.
Corrected
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection, we see the effects of learned helplessness.
Faulty
Depending on our method of travel and our destination determines how many suitcases we are allowed to pack.
Corrected
The number of suitcases we can pack is determined by our method of travel and our destination.
Mixed Structure 2: Using a verb after a dependent clause
Faulty
When Jeff Henderson is promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting.
Corrected
Being promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting for Jeff Henderson.
Mixed Structure 3: Mixing a subordinate conjunction with a coordinating conjunction
Faulty
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, but he misused his talents.
Corrected
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, he misused his talents.
Faulty
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, yet she could not write it.
Corrected
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, she could not write it.
Mixed Structure 4: The construction is so confusing you must to throw it away and start all over
Faulty
In the prison no-snitch code Jeff Henderson learns to recognize variations of the code rather than by its real application in which he learns to arrive at a more realistic view of the snitch code’s true nature.
Corrected
In prison Jeff Henderson discovered that the no-snitch code doesn’t really exist.
Faulty
Recurring bouts of depression among the avalanche survivors set a record for number patients admitted into mental hospitals.
Corrected
Recurring bouts of depression among avalanche survivors resulted in a large number of them being admitted into mental hospitals.
Mixed Structure 5: Faulty Predication: The subject and the predicate should make sense together.
Faulty
We decided that Jeff Henderson’s best interests would not be well served staying in prison.
Corrected
We decided that Jeff Henderson would not be well served staying in prison.
Faulty
Using a gas mask is a precaution now worn by firemen.
Corrected
Firemen wear gas masks as a precaution against smoke inhalation.
Faulty
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is often curable.
Corrected
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is essential for successful treatment.
Mixed Structure 6: Faulty Apposition: The appositive and the noun to which it refers should be logically equivalent
Faulty
The gourmet chef, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Corrected
Gourmet cooking, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Mixed Structure 7: Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
College instructors discourage “is when,” “is where,” and most commonly “is because” constructions because they violate logic.
Faulty
Bipolar disorder is when people suffer dangerous mood swings.
Corrected
Bipolar disorder is often recognized by dangerous mood swings.
Faulty
A torn rotator cuff is where you feel this intense pain in your shoulder that won’t go away.
Corrected
A torn rotator cuff will cause chronic pain in your shoulder.
Faulty
The reason I write so many comma splices is because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Corrected
I write so many comma splices because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Faulty
The reason I ate the whole pizza is because my family was a half hour late from coming home to the park and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Corrected
I ate the entire pizza because I’m a glutton.
In-class exercise: Write a sample of the seven mixed structure types and show a corrected version of it:
One. Verb after a prepositional phrase
Two. Verb after a dependent clause
Three. Mixing a subordinating conjunction (Whenever, when, although, though, to name some) with a coordinate conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
Four. The sentence is so confusing you have to start over.
Five. Faulty predication
Six: Faulty apposition
Seven. Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
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