AN INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING COMMENTS SCRIBBLED ON YOUR ESSAYS.

 

¦ = paragraph

v. = very

rep. = repetitive or a repetition; note also red. (redundant)

sp = spelling (i.e. word misspelled)

W.C. = word choice (i.e. "wrong word" or "choose a different (better?) word")

C.S. = comma splice

R.O. = run-on

parallel. = parallel structure needed

frag. = sentence fragment

awk. = awkward (either syntactically or stylistically or I just plain didnÕt like the structure of your sentence); sometimes noted as confusing (conf.), wordy or rephrase

b/w = between

w/ = with

int. = interesting

tense = wrong tense, tense shift, "what's up with this verb tense?" or "Professor Russell is anxious"

agree. = agreement, either subject-verb or pronoun(-antecedent); but not necessarily that I agree with you (although I might)

 

Further,

  1. Titles of movies, books, and television series must be either underlined or italicized.
  2. 'Good' is not a good word; replace this word with an adjective that does not express a value judgment and that is more descriptive; ditto for 'bad', which is not good (ha!).
  3. 'Do' is a not an effective verb: replace with specific action; ditto 'make'.
  4. 'Thing' is a stupid word: be specific, unless you mean to be unspecific.
  5. 'Big' -- use the more formal 'large'.
  6. Who vs. that -- use who (and its related forms, whose and whom) to refer to people, with that or which only for non-human things: "a woman who lived nearby" (not that or which); "a concert that set attendance records" (not who).
  7. Than vs. then -- Than is a conjunction or preposition used in unequal comparisons; then is (usually) an adverb indicating time or consequence. Be careful not to confuse them: something is bigger than something else; something happens then something else happens.
  8. Avoid unnecessary words, including "so", "very", "thing", "ended up", "talked about", "basically", "truly", "the reason is...because", "good", "bad", "it"
  9. Always third person
  10. Whenever possible, active, present verb tense
  11. Numbers: write out numbers. Not ÒI had 2 hours of homework last nightÓ but ÒI had two hours of homework last nightÓ. Also: third not 3rd.
  12. Note the difference in usage and appearance of a hyphen (-) and a dash (--).