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Expository Writing Lesson Five Editing for Grammar Dr. M. Connor Process Paper This week I’m assigning you a process paper. What does that mean? Very Simple A) It means how to do something – instructions • this is the type I’ve selfishly assigned! B) It means how one did something – a progress report • teachers and work supervisors will often ask for this type of writing Now More on Grammar Don’t be afraid to seize whatever you have written and cut it to ribbons. It can always be restored to its original condition in the morning. – E.B. White Especially if you have the right software. – Jan Venolia Today’s Lesson Much of today’s lesson will be taken from Jan Venolia’s excellent book Rewrite Right! Your Guide to Perfectly Polished Prose, 2/e, Berkeley: Ten Speed P, 2000. Available through Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail//1580082394/qid=1099687518/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/0029428137-3451236?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 Valuable Tools Your word processing program contains two powerful tools to help your writing: – Spell check – Grammar check Just be aware of their limitations Spell Check A spell checker is a valuable tool for catching misspelled or unintentionally doubled words. BUT… Documents may still include incorrect words. A spell checker assumes a correctly spelled word is the right word. – If you write t-h-i-e-r house, it will catch it – If you write there house, it won’t! Grammar Check Remember, this program is written by computer programmers, not English teachers! They sometimes incorrectly flag text They sometimes miss obvious errors. They have trouble with things like who/whom, that/which, and the proper use of apostrophes. Tracking Revisions I’ve shown you how to use this in peer editing, but it’s a good thing to use in your own editing as well. You can delete your golden prose, but you don’t have to worry about it being permanently gone if you decide that you do like it after all. This removes some of the pain of editing. Getting Started No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft. – H.G. Wells • Ah-ha, this is probably why I teach writing! Unless it’s the resistance to sitting down and editing your own. – Jan Venolia • Amen, says Dr. Connor! Two Level Editing Earlier in the course, I talked about the six step process. Rewriting can also be called “first level editing” Editing can also be called “second level editing”. – Today we’re looking at this level. “Read” More Than Once When editing a paper, your own or someone else’s, it’s always a good idea to read it through once to see what it’s about, but then skim it over several times, each time looking for something different. You can catch the different types of error more easily if you’re specifically looking for them. Second-level Editing: a Checklist Punctuation – Do punctuation marks help readers grasp the meaning? – Is there any surplus punctuation? Grammar – Do subjects and verbs agree? – Do pronouns and antecedents agree? – Are pronouns in their correct case? • who/whom, I/me/myself, etc Checklist, Continued Grammar – Do pronouns refer clearly to their antecedents? – Did you remove dangling and misplaced modifiers? – Are the tense and the mood of the verbs consistent? – Are related parts of sentences parallel in form? – Are there fragments or run-ons? More Checklist Mechanics – Are abbreviations kept to a minimum? Are they used correctly? – Is capitalization correct and consistent? – Are numbers below 10 spelled out? Are numbers above 10 written as figures? – Are words correctly spelled? – If your writing includes quoted materials, have the quotations been presented correctly? Why Worry about Grammar? Grammar, rhetoric, and logic enrich enormously the phenomenon of being alive. – George Santayana Grammar Helps the Reader Good grammar is transparent. Instead of getting in the way, it helps readers understand what is written. Most native speakers use grammatical rules without being aware of it, but even we need to use a good grammar sometimes. Non-native speakers also need to know how to use a grammar! If you don’t have one, get one soon! Agreement Every part of a sentence should agree with every related part. In every day English, that means: – Use singular verbs with singular subjects and plural verbs with plural subjects. – Make a pronoun singular if its antecedent is singular and plural if the antecedent is plural. Make the Subject And Verb Agree in Number The wastepaper basket is a writers best friend. – Isaac Bashevis Singer Basket is singular, is is singular. And Again... We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. – Pogo (an American cartoon) We is plural, are confronted is plural A Word about Numbers I’ve mentioned that we use words for one through 10, then switch to numerals. There are some exceptions. – Of course! Exceptions Use words when a number starts a sentence: – Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong. And if a related number appears in the sentence, write it as a word, too: – Twenty members voted yes; fifteen voted no. – One dollar out of every ten earned goes to health care. And.. Express large numbers in figures or in mixed figure-word form, but be consistent. – $10,000,000 or $10 million – 5.7 billion – 3 1/2 billion Dates Use figures for dates: – July 4, 1776 or 4 July, 1776 – 7/4/76 or 7/4/1776 (in the first we might assume you meant 1976) Because Europe and America write dates differently (in US month is written first, in Europe, day), it is preferable that you use the word for the month. – July 4, 1776