InQuizitive for Writers: Editing the Errors That Matter (A Comprehensive Activity)
A presidential candidate will usually focus more of his attention on swing states (states where no one political party is assumed to win) in order to come out ahead. A candidate usually dedicates his time and budget to these states.
"more of his attention" "a candidate usually dedicates his" Using "his" here would be sexist because it would imply that only men can be presidential candidates.
The Indian Removal Act the Compromise of 1850 and the Mexican-American War represent three dark moments in America's history.
Act, 1850,
______ to urge reporters to ask women about their ideas and achievements instead of their appearance.
Celebrities started the #AskHerMore campaign
In the sentence below, it is unclear what the pronoun "they" refers to. Drag each of the altered versions of the sentence into the appropriate box based on whether each new sentence is clear or unclear. In Norway, they unwrap presents on Christmas Eve instead of on Christmas Day.
Clear -In Norway, presents are unwrapped on Christmas Eve instead of on Christmas Day. -In Norway, children unwrap presents on Christmas Eve instead of on Christmas Day. Unclear -They unwrap presents on Christmas Eve instead of on Christmas Day in Norway.
In the sentence below, it is unclear what the pronoun "it" refers to. Drag each of the altered versions of the sentence into the appropriate box based on whether each new sentence is clear or unclear. Since the car hit the mailbox. it has not looked the same.
Clear -Since the car hit the mailbox, the car has not looked the same. -Since the car hit the mailbox, the mailbox has not looked the same. -The car, since it hit the mailbox, has not looked the same. Unclear It hasn't looked the same since the car hit the mailbox.
The statement below is a mixed construction. Drag each of the altered versions of the statement into the appropriate box based on whether the altered version is correct or is another mixed construction. Cradle cap, a baby's head develops a scaly rash, is harmless.
Correct Sentence -Cradle cap, which is a kind of scaly rash on a baby's head, is harmless. -Cradle cap, a kind of scaly rash on a baby's head, is harmless. Mixed Construction -Cradle cap is where a kind of scaly rash develops on a baby's head; the condition is harmless.
Valentine's Day celebrated on February 14 was originally a celebration of an early Christian martyr named Valentinus; however over the years it has become a commercialized holiday centered around romance and gifts such as flowers cards and chocolates.
Day, 14th, however, flowers, cards,
Consider the following passage from a book: "Talking with children, parents, partners, siblings, and other relatives about how everyone envisions their life in later years—and their death—cannot start early enough. Discussions about aging and death need to become simply part of the fabric of family life." —Ai-jen Poo, The Age of Dignity, page 128 Drag each of the following sentences into the appropriate box to identify whether or not the quoted material fits smoothly into the rest of the sentence.
Fits Smoothly -In The Age of Dignity, Ai-jen Poo cautions, "Talking with children, parents, partners, siblings, and other relatives about how everyone envisions their life in later years—and their death—cannot start early enough" (128). -Ai-jen Poo states in The Age of Dignity that individuals need to "[talk] with children, parents, partners, siblings, and other relatives about how everyone envisions their life in later years—and their death" (128). Doesn't Fit Smoothly -"Talking with . . . relatives about how everyone envisions their life in later years—and their death—cannot start early enough" discussing death and dying can sometimes be uncomfortable (128).
____ for celebrities to use social media platforms, such as Twitter or Instagram, to communicate directly with their fans.
It is common
Bottled water is popular in the United States, but, Americans still use far less bottled water than tap water.
It would be incorrect to use a comma after a coordinating conjunction such as but.
Drag each of the sentences below into the appropriate box based on whether the modifiers are well placed or poorly placed.
Modifiers Well Placed -Published in 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is often credited with beginning second-wave feminism in the United States. -Writing in 1963, Betty Friedan shed light on the general unhappiness of housewives in the United States in her book titled The Feminine Mystique. Modifiers Poorly Placed -Writing in 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique shed light on the general unhappiness of housewives in the United States.
In "Twitter (Sort of, Sometimes) Expands the 140-Character Limit," Robinson Meyer explains why a tweet is limited to 140 characters. Meyer reports, "Twitter began as a one-to-many SMS broadcast service, so it imposed technical limits on how long a tweet could be." At the time, according to Meyer, there was a "160-character SMS text limit."
NO ERRORS
Musicians at the local high school spent weeks preparing for their winter concert. The soprano soloist and the accompanist worked together to improve their performance, and choir members rehearsed their parts both individually and as a group. In the end, the concert was beautiful, and everyone who attended enjoyed it.
No Errors
Consider the following passage from an online article with no page numbers: "Human activity has turned the living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic atmospheric gas."—Debbie Barker and Michael Pollan, "A secret weapon to fight climate change: dirt" Paying attention to punctuation and capitalization, drag each of the following sentences into the appropriate box based on whether or not it correctly quotes from the article.
Quotes Correctily According to Barker and Pollan, we have changed "the living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic atmospheric gas." Quotes Incorrectly -According to Barker and Pollan, "human activity has turned the living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic atmospheric gas." -According to Barker and Pollan, "Human activity has turned the living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic atmospheric gas".
In an effort to stop bullying, New Jersey instituted the Anti-Bullying Bill of _____ students to report bullying.
Rights, which requires
Snapchat is where users send friends a picture or video that is viewable for only a few seconds. The app was created in 2011 and has become a popular way for people to communicate. According to the makers of the app, the purpose of Snapchat was invented to allow people to communicate "with no texting and all the emotion."
Snapchat lets users send friends a picture or video that is viewable for only a few seconds. According to the makers of the app, Snapchat was invented to allow people to communicate "with no texting and all the emotion."
In their book $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer examine poverty in America. Edin and Shaefer make the argument "the number of extremely low-income renters has grown dramatically" since the Great Recession began (75). At the same time, however, the authors claim that "the supply of affordable rentals has remained flat" (75).
The quoted material is not incorporated smoothly into the sentence. One way to edit this sentence is to add the word that before the quoted material so that the quoted material fits more smoothly into the rest of the sentence.
Sopranos can protect ______ voices by doing vocal warm-ups before performing.
Their
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes "Researchers have found that people (and animals) presented with large portions will eat up to 30 percent more than they would otherwise." This finding illustrates, as Pollan says, that our appetites are "surprisingly elastic," which makes sense given the way we have evolved. In the past, he says, it made sense for "our hunter-gatherer ancestors to feast whenever the opportunity presented itself, allowing them to build up reserves of fat against future famine." (106)
This sentence contains an error in punctuation. The quoted material is a complete sentence and is preceded by the signal phrase Michael Pollan writes, so there should be a comma directly before the quoted material. This sentence contains an error in punctuation. This sentence ends with quoted material followed by parenthetical documentation, (106), so the period should go after the parentheses, not inside the closing quotation mark.
For a long time, there was no such thing as a beekeeper. As Kim Flottum states in The Backyard Beekeeper, "For eons people simply took the bees' honey" (13). Flottum explains that "these people found bees in caves and robbed them of their bounty" (13).
This sentence should be edited to indicate that the author's original words have been modified. The quoted material fits smoothly into the sentence, but an ellipsis should be added to show that content from the original has been omitted. As Kim Flottum states in The Backyard Beekeeper, "For eons people . . . simply took the bees' honey" (13).
Quarterback Tim Tebow, who went from the University of Florida to the National Football League,attracted attention for praying on the football field.
add comma after Tebow add comma after League
Many of Shakespeare's plays ___ studied in high school.
are not
The boss at the local co-op is the only one of the company's managers who ____ that customers should be charged if they do not bring in their own reusable shopping bags.
believes
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay lived as a young woman in New York City, where she found freedom to voice her opinions, set her own rules, and _____ on her writing career.
concentrate
Wortham observes that although Facebook is known for ____ for many people "it can have the opposite effect of making them feel more, not less,______.
creating "closer ties among friends and colleagues," alienated."
People who are deaf or hard of hearing can choose to have devices surgically implanted in their inner _____ implants do not allow people to hear sounds naturally.
ears; however, the
Gawande explains that the debate surrounding _____ what mistakes we fear most—the mistake of prolonging suffering or the mistake of shortening valued _____.
euthanasia "is about life" (244).
In-N-Out Burger, a chain primarily found along the West Coast with a few Texas locations, _______ famous for its Double-Double burger.
is the missing verb should be singular (is) because the subject, in-n-out burger, is a singular
In the video game Angry Birds, the mission is straightforward: its up to each player to wipe out pigs by launching birds directly at them and at structures that collapse on and kill the pigs.
it's
Norway is known for ___ unique landscape; visitors can hike, boat, or bike to see the fjords—narrow ocean inlets bordered by dramatically steep cliffs.
its
The college faculty emphasizes writing instruction in ____ curriculum-building guide, a useful handbook for new instructors. The college faculty in each department regularly send out surveys to learn what issues are important to ____ students.
its curriculum their students
In 1845, a potato blight caused the worst European famine of the nineteenth century. Ireland lost over one-third of ___ population during this period. During the mid-1800s, it wasn't uncommon for an Irish family to leave ____ home in a hurry, sometimes with only the clothes they were wearing, to escape poor living conditions and famine.
its population their home
Both ____ work with machines; the former fix machines while the latter build them.
mechanics and machinists
According to the United Nations, in 2012 the ____ of people in the world reached seven billion. Environmentalists are concerned about how our planet can sustain the growing human population with a limited ___ of land and water. In order to help prevent human overpopulation, scientist Benjamin Zuckerman favors using tax breaks to encourage families to limit the ____ of children they have.
number of people amount of land number of children
The growth of independent news programs allows people to hear alternative perspectives many groups still choose mainstream media.
perspectives, but many To fix the fused sentence, you can join the two independent clauses by adding a comma and the coordinating conjunction but.
Revising is often the most challenging part of the writing ____is also perhaps the most rewarding.
process, but it
A human disease from almost seven hundred years ago made headlines again recently, in 2011, scientists reported reconstructing the DNA of the bacterium responsible for the Black Death of 1347-51.
recently. In 2011, scientists To fix the comma splice, you can rewrite the statement as two separate sentences.
Bonnie and Clyde, the Depression-era crime duo, have always been interesting in part because of the rareness of a young and attractive female criminal such as Bonnie. However, it is now thought that Clyde killed far more people than ____ ; in fact, it is not clear that she committed any murders at all.
she
Some people worry about the amount of homework assigned to ____ has been shown to correlate with student success in a number of studies.
students. However, homework
Depression and anxiety are two of the most common health problems affecting college students, however, eating disorders are also on the rise.
students; however, eating To fix the comma splice, you can join the two independent clauses with a semicolon.
Writer Katherine Anne Porter enjoyed reporting for a newspaper and _____ at several colleges in addition to writing novels and short stories.
teaching
Within a hotel, a concierge and a porter have different responsibilities, but both ______services ensure that guests enjoy their stay.
the concierge's and the porter's
An author and an editor can spend weeks, even months, reviewing a manuscript and exchanging comments before giving _____ approval for publication.
their
To avoid feeling nervous during a performance, singers should practice ____solos as often as possible before the show.
their
On opening night, the audience showed ___ desire for the show to begin by making a lot of noise while the orchestra warmed up; some were cheering, some were whistling, and some were stamping their feet. The actors were not expecting a standing ovation, but the audience rose and clapped ____ hands loudly as the cast took a bow, congratulating the actors on a good perfomance and congratulating themselves on choosing such a good play.
their The word audience can be singular or plural, depending on context. In this sentence, audience is a plural word because it refers to the multiple individual members of the audience, not to the audience as a single unit (note that the audience members congratulated themselves on choosing such a good play). So the missing pronoun should also be plural (their).
In 2014, the United States Court ruled bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, this decision forced states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples who apply.
unconstitutional; this
Evolutionary biologists agree that ___ humans are most closely related to the great apes—chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas. Nearly 98 percent of human DNA matches chimpanzee DNA; therefore, these apes are as closely related to ____ humans as zebras are to horses.
we humans (first sentence) us humans (second sentence)
The team captain performed ___ during the championship game; as a result, she earned the most valuable player award. Even though he didn't win the race, the marathon runner should feel ____ about his performance because he achieved a new personal best. Unfortunately, one of our best players wasn't able to play in the tournament because he didn't feel _____
well during good about feel well
Richard Linklater, ____ directs films about complicated personal relationships, faced a unique challenge in casting the actors and actresses for his film Boyhood. Because the film was to be shot over twelve years, Linklater could cast only people to ____the project was meaningful enough that they were willing to see it through. Although Boyhood is primarily the coming-of-age story of Mason, its main character, it is also a story that will move anyone ____ has experienced adolescence or parenting.
who directs whom the project who has
Some scholars argue that if a Serbian nationalist had not assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, World War I ____ place.
would not have taken
The syllabus included this instruction for students enrolled in the course: "Check ___ email at least once a week for important messages related to upcoming assignments." The teacher's rule is strict: if ___ caught looking at your cell phone in class, you must leave ____ phone on the front table until class is over.
your email you're caught your phone
