Improving Writing Skills: Grammar, Style, and Author Presentation Tips

Grammar/Style Issues Punctuating quotation marks Introducing Authors Formatting Titles Faulty Pronoun References Passive Voice

Punctuating Quotation Marks Commas and periods go inside the quotation marks. Ex. According to the article, all people would sleep forever if it weren t for McDonalds s coffee, but I myself prefer the coffee at Dunkin Donuts. Semicolons and colons go outside the quotation marks. Ex. The following are what she called hard sports : basketball, football, rugby, and soccer. Question marks and exclamation marks go inside the quotation marks IF the question is inside the quotation. Ex. She looked confused and asked, What time is it? Question marks and exclamation marks go outside the quotation if the question is part of the sentence and not the quoted material. Ex. Did she really say , boom boom ?

Formatting Titles You Should Present All Titles in Capital Letters. With the exception of the first word in the title, you do not need to capitalize articles and prepositions. Works that are whole in and unto themselves should be underlined or presented in italics. Examples include: Books, movies, newspapers, journals, music albums, or television series. Works that appear as part of a larger whole should be presented in quotation marks. Examples typically include: Poems, articles in a newspaper or a journal, a song from an album, or an episode from a television series.

Introducing Authors When you first mention an author or scholar, you should use their full name (no titles). Ex. According to Robert Penn Warren the agricultural way of life in the south needed to be safe guarded from industrialism. In subsequent mentions of the author s name, you may refer to them using only the last name (unless you are talking about two authors who have the same last name, in which case you can continue to use the full name or make a designation between the two). Ex. For Warren industrialism is a fraught way of life that the south is not prepared to handle.

Faulty Pronoun References Pronouns with more than one antecedent. Pronouns with hidden antecedents. Pronouns with no antecedents. Pronouns referring to a whole set of ideas as opposed to a single, clear noun antecedent. ex. This shows we can go home. http://www.towson.edu/ows/proref.htm

Passive Voice Typically, in passive clauses, what would otherwise be expressed by the object (or sometimes another argument) of the verb comes to be expressed by the subject, while what would otherwise be expressed by the subject is either not expressed at all, or is indicated by some adjunct of the clause. Thus transforming an active verb into a passive verb is a valence-decreasing process ("detransitivizing process"), because it transforms transitive verbs into intransitive verbs.[2] --according to Wikipedia

Passive Voice When you get rid of the subject by either leaving it out or tacking it on as a kind of qualifying phrase. The object then becomes the center focus of the sentence. The verb (without an agent to enact it) ceases to be active and has to be conjugated (usually using To Be Verb + past participle) into a passive form

Passive Voice The money was given to the charity. The car was damaged in the accident. People are carried elsewhere. Active The rich man gave money to the charity. The truck damaged the car in the accident. The boats carried people elsewhere.