There are not that many things that can go wrong with writing an essay for a freshman English class, but its possible for everything that can go wrong to in deed go wrong in a paper especially if you make little effort to pay attention to the basic rules of grammar, punctuation, and style or having total disregard for organization or structure. Take for insistence, the problem you create for the reader by using wordy, complex and excessively long sentences. Its not only difficult to read or understand and also runs a huge risk of having been a run on sentence. Improper punctuation leads the reader down a path of confusion or humorous irony. And bad organization makes it difficult to understand. Finally an essay with bad structure is ineffective at getting it’s point across. I am writing this essay to explain the importance to follow those rules for writing good and having coherent papers. It should have an affect on your understanding the skills of writing good. Even the title of this paper has no logical connection to the subject. That is why good structure, organization, content, coherence, grammar and mechanics are concepts that writers must understand to be effective communicators.
It is important. It is VERY important when you have a clue for what “it” is. What is it that it can be? Can it be a he, a she or me? It, without a what just can’t be. Without a what, an undefined it dangles like a web without a spider waiting for a reader to find in the dark.
You should read you know. You should do whatever I say that you should do. As the writer, I can control your thoughts and actions, leaving you without power of choice or judgment. One may read my sage comments and conclude the difference between advice and insult.
Their isn’t a problem more sensitive to knowledgeable readers than seeing writers who don’t know they’re contraction from a possessive. There problems in clear communication quadrupled when combined with improper verb tense.* Webster’s dictionary has nine entries for “there” and defines it as a pronoun, adjective, adverb and verb. The pronoun form is a function word used to introduce a sentence. “Their” is the possessive pronoun and “they’re” is a contraction. If one tries to make cents of the sentence above(*), the reader has choices for the intended meaning. Because it has a verb problem, the reader must insert missing words or change the verb. Otherwise, the sentence is gibberish. Does the sentence refer to the writer’s difficulty? Their problems in clear communication are quadrupled when combined with improper verb tense.
Does it stand alone? There are problems in clear communication which quadruple when combined with improper verb tense. Or does it refer to the writers themselves? They are troubled in clear communication when verb tense is improper.
Can’t get enough words in without shortening them up? Isn’t there a tax on the number we can use? You’ll be hard pressed to explain to you’re mother why the score on an essay is less than her age. Contractions are a writer’s bane. When imagining a sentence, it “gels” in the consciousness in the same form as if it is about to be spoken. When written, it “sounds” as it should. Unfortunately, it only sounds good to the writer, not the reader. It is acceptable to write the first draft of a paper with dozens of contractions. But the smart writer will know that the paper is a draft and is proud to know that the thoughts have been transferred from brain to print. The smart writer then takes another pass and edits the paper as if it was written by somebody else. The apostrophes stand out like big red flags waved by men on a sinking boat. Just as the boat needs to be turned upright, the sentence needs to be rephrased without the contraction or it too will sink.
Not only are there problems in tense or punctuation, but also there are problems in parallel constructs. If a parallelism contains the phrase “not only”, it must contain the mating phrase “but also.” The same requirement is placed on the constructs “either...or” and “neither…nor”. Parallel constructs are great tools for expressing one’s thoughts and they give better style to a paper. The pitfall in using them is the need to maintain the phrasing as truly parallel. The tense, person and form in both sides of the construct must match. In my opening paragraph, the construct violated three rules. It is not only difficult to read or understand and also runs a huge risk of having been a run on sentence. The “not only” construct does not have a matching “but also”, the verb “having been” does not match tense to “is”, and the compound word “run-on” is not hyphenated.
When may I add improper punctuation that can mislead the reader is a source for irony? When, may I add, improper punctuation that can mislead the reader is a source for irony. When, may I add improper punctuation that can mislead, is the reader a source for irony? You should also watch out for a comma splice, a double sentence can stand separately and “sound” as a single sentence.
One may consider an essay to be disorganized and unstructured, yet find that it has made a clear point. The point here is first stated as a conclusion, not a thesis. The structure is inverted in that the opening paragraph is better as a final paragraph. Its order of points is not related to the order of body paragraphs. The first sentence is far too long, cumbersome and very vaguely implies the main topic. There are numerous improper words that are homophones of what is intended. “Take for insistence” can actually make some sense but is wholly out of place. The points in the body are made without smooth transition or the transitions do not exist. While there are not many things that could go wrong, they all went wrong for a purpose. Unfortunately the methodology is ineffective at getting the point across. Showing what not to do does not exemplify what is right to do. Since I did it wrong, I’m a bad boy.
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Bad Boy
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