Basic skill for colledge 8 ppsx

LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 1
29
7. Which part, sentence, or paragraph do you think needs more work because it is unclear or confusing or
just doesn’t sound right? Explain.
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8. Do you find errors in written English? ___________________________________________________
Please look for the following and give examples from the writing to help the author in the revision process.
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sentence fragments
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comma splices
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semicolon errors
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subject-verb agreement errors
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pronoun case errors
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CHAPTER 1 • LearningExpress Skill Builders
30
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pronoun-antecedent agreement errors
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double negatives
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homonym errors which cause confusion i.e., are/our, there/their, to/too, its/it’s, etc.
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–BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE–
SELF CHECK REVISION SHEET
As you reread your work, be tough on yourself. Look at it from different perspectives to see if your reader
may be confused by anything you have written. Your goal is to make your writing very, very clear. Before
submitting your work, check the following:
______ 1. Can I easily identify (underline) my thesis statement?
______ 2. Does each paragraph begin with a recognizable topic sentence that introduces a major point to
be developed in the paragraph?
______ 3. Can I identify (underline) transitional phrases in each paragraph?
______ 4. Are my pronoun references clear?
______ 5. Does my conclusion restate my thesis?
______ 6. Is my writing concise and exact?
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Do I use active voice where possible? That is, do I avoid the use of the verb to be, specifically
am, is, are, were, was, be, being, been?

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Can any sentences be combined?
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Am I repetitious?
______ 7. Have I allowed time for peer review and further revisions?
If you have answered no to any of these questions, this is a good time to go back and revise your essay.
LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 2
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SUMMARY
Since grammar is commonly tested on college placement
exams, this chapter takes you through several grammar exer-
cises. When you complete the exercises, you can find the
answers at the end of the chapter.
n Chapter 1, there was a list of the most common grammar errors
typically found in student placement essay exams. Taken individu-
ally, these are the kinds of mistakes you may find on your paper and
need to correct in your writing. Let’s look at them again.

1. sentence fragments
2. comma splices and fused sentences
3. semicolon errors
4. subject-verb agreement errors
5. pronoun-antecedent errors
6. pronoun case errors
7. double negatives
8. homonym errors that cause confusion
BASIC GRAMMAR
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CHAPTER 2 • LearningExpress Skill Builders
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SENTENCE FRAGMENTS
If it starts with a capital and ends with a period and it
looks like a sentence, be careful! It may not be a sen-
tence. It also needs a subject and a verb. The three most
common errors that create a fragment are a missing sub-
ject, a missing verb, or a missing conjunction. For
some samples, look at the sentences that follow. They
begin with a sentence, but what follows is most defi-
nitely a sentence fragment.You’ll find the fragments ital-
icized. They masquerade as complete sentences, but they
are really only parts of the sentences that come before
them.
■
What makes me special is the guitar. Not my
voice or my dancing!

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I’m a good listener. Especially to my friends and
family.
There are only two ways to correct a fragment. If
we were to correct them, they would look like this:
■
Make it a separate and complete sentence. For
example:
What makes me special is the guitar. It is not
my voice or my dancing!
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Connect it to the preceding or following sen-
tence with a conjunction or with proper punc-
tuation. For example:
I’m a good listener, especially to my friends and
family.
Fragments can be hard to recognize because they
are often phrases or subordinate clauses and they sound
and look right. Examine the paragraph below and
und
erline the fragments.
(1) What makes me special is that I have the
ability to care too much about everything. (2) I
am very compassionate. (3) Talking to people,
noticing their reactions, sensing when they are
happy or sad. (4) I love noticing people’s
reactions to words and situations. (5)
Especially when they think I’m not looking. (6)
I have a special ability to be a distant observer.
(7) Off to the side. (8) Where no one is

looking.
If you chose (3), (5), (7), and (8) then you were right
on target.All three are fragments. Now write them cor-
rectly. You may have to do some rewriting to provide
a logical connection for the fragments.
1. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
Check the end of the chapter for suggested
answers.
COMMA SPLICES AND FUSED
SENTENCES
Correcting, even avoiding, sentence fragments could
lead to two other common and major errors in sentence
structure: the run-on sentence, sometimes called a fused
sentence, or the comma splice. These are just fancy ways
–BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE–
LearningExpress Skill Builders • CHAPTER 2
33
to describe writing that ignores the independence of
sentences and runs two or more sentences together

without proper punctuation. You’ve heard the com-
parison between traffic signs and punctuation at least
once in your English classes, but it is a comparison worth
making again.
Imagine you are moving along in traffic and you
ride right past the stop sign.You’d be lucky if there were
no other cars on the road. So, too, if you run the red
light. You might make it, but then again, what if you
don’t? It’s easy to imagine the horror of a traffic acci-
dent that damages your car or even injures you, but it’s
hard to compare such mayhem to a simple piece of writ-
ing. But that piece of writing could mean a great deal
to your success, whether it’s a placement essay that will
save you money and time or a cover letter for a resume
that could land you a job. So, if you run one idea into
the next, and you confuse your reader so much that he
or she gives up, then you have created mayhem. Try
reading the following passage from a student essay on
legalizing marijuana.
Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used
worldwide for centuries. It has been used for
medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and
relaxation, most common today would be
medicinal and relaxation, it is proven that
marijuana aids in headaches, various aches and
pains, anti-nausea, glaucoma, and sleep
deprivation. Although this drug is a cure-all it
does have an intense effect on your body,
unlike alcohol marijuana gives you a calm,
soothing feeling, marijuana does have defects.

Such as lung cancer and various cancer causing
chemicals these chemicals are also used to
make its effects intensified. I believe if the
United States legalized marijuana the outcome
would be more positive than negative.
How many times did you have to stop and reread
to try to decide what the author really meant or was try-
ing to say? That’s your first clue that something is seri-
ously wrong with this piece of writing. But look at what
simply stopping for the red lights and stop signs does
to improve the sense of this paragraph.
(1) Marijuana, just like alcohol, has been used
worldwide for centuries. (2) It has been used
for medicinal purposes, sacred ceremonies, and
relaxation. (3) Most common today would be
using marijuana for medicinal and relaxation
purposes because it is proven that marijuana
aids in relieving headaches, various aches and
pains, nausea, glaucoma, and sleeplessness. (4)
Although this drug is a cure-all, it does have
defects; marijuana has been linked to lung
cancer and it does contain various cancer
causing chemicals to intensify its effects. (5)
However, I believe if the United States legalized
marijuana the outcome would be more positive
than negative.
There are three basic ways to correct sentences that
run together.
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Come to a complete stop. Use a period and cre-

ate two separate sentences. This is what was
done between sentences (2) and (3).
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Slow down and look both ways. By using the
conjunction because, sentences (3) and (4) were
connected logically, and the reader was able to
move with understanding on to the next sen-
tence.
■
Slow down. A semicolon lets you know that the
next sentence is directly related to the one that
precedes it. Look for the connection. By ending
sentence (4) with a semicolon the writer is
telling us that sentence (5) is going to specifi-
–BASIC GRAMMAR–
CHAPTER 2 • LearningExpress Skill Builders
34
cally develop what sentence (4) started already.
In essence, you should see a connection about
the defects. In most cases, the period and the
semicolon are interchangeable and the writer
determines where the emphasis should go. Just
be careful. A semicolon separates two complete
sentences that are closely related to each other.
Closely related is the key phrase here. However,
you cannot use a semicolon to connect a frag-
ment to a sentence. See the section on semi-
colon errors that follows!
You should also notice that in correcting the
obvious sentence errors, transitions were used to cre-

ate bridges to connect the sentences and establish
stronger logic. For example, although and however in
sentences (4) and (6) helped to correct the sentence
errors by creating separate sentences and making the
author’s point more clear. In the next paragraph, und
er-
line
and correct the following student sentence errors,
all found in a piece of writing by an entering commu-
nity college freshman.
(1) Cigarette smoking should be banned from
all public areas, it is a foul and disgusting habit.
(2) It should be banned altogether, cigarettes
are dangerous to both the smokers and the
people near them. (3) Another reason to ban
smoking is because it is disrespectful to others
why would anyone deliberately want to show
such disrespect cause anger and hostility when
trying to enjoy a meal or performance? (4) As
to why smokers smoke, it is still a mystery even
to them. (5) Public areas are where people
come to enjoy themselves; not to be bothered
with cigarette smoke.
On the lines that follow, correct any sentence
fragment errors that you find using proper punctua-
tion or conjunctions.
1. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
2. _____________________________________

_____________________________________
_____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
Check the end of the chapter for suggested
answers.
SEMICOLONS
Because the semicolon is one of the corrections for the
comma splice or the fused sentence,you have to be care-
ful that you are not substituting one mistake for another.
You cannot just insert a semicolon in place of a period
or a comma. The semicolon has only two uses:
1. The semicolon separates closely related sentences.
Notice the words closely related. You cannot sep-
arate any two sentences with the semicolon. A
good rule to follow is to consider using the semi-
colon only if there is a coordinating conjunction
that could be used instead. For example:
–BASIC SKILLS FOR COLLEGE–