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What is the purpose of this page? We're here to help you become a better writer. So if you're dangling your participle, let us help you undangle it. Think of this page as a WWWeb-loving, poor man's STRUNK and WHITE's.
Why are we here? Our origins come from a few concerned educators who witnessed the struggle students had with academic writing. We know that with a little guidance, most SDSU students write papers on par with any other student in the country.
When can you use us? We are always here, 24/7; bookmark this page, and we're a keystroke away.
Is there a charge for this? No! We're here as a free service.
Will I need to set up an appointment? No again. We have no offices on campus. We are a web-based writing site.
What we do. We assist the writer with focus, organization, style, and grammar.
Our vision: We believe that with care, guidance, and effort , anyone's writing can improve.
Links for Writers
Feeling trapped? Are you not sure where to turn?
We offer here a few portals to help you find your way around the academic maze of writing. What you'll find here are a mess 'o links to almost anything you can dream of--that has to do with writing, of course.
Grammar
The following section is dedicated to some fairly common grammar misgivings. There are plenty of quagmires in grammar, such as the infamous "comma splice" and its big brother the "run-on sentence," but many of the following lesser known little dibbuks are just as troublesome and seem to pop up when least wanted. Phrase:
A group of related words without a subject and verb together. A phrase is not a sentence.[Watching the bean sprouts] was a full time job for Molly.
*Here, the phrase acts as the subject of the sentence.Use a comma or commas to set off a phrase not important to the meaning of a sentence. The sentence should make sense without the phrase.
Even in his car, Derrida ponders the elusiveness of French toast.
*We don't need the phrase "Even in his car" to know that Derrida is in awe of French toast.While washing her hair, Jesse could not stop thinking about Godzilla.
Professor Cuisinier, the cooking coach, wore one of those big white muumuus.
*Here, the phrase is embedded.
He constructed a vast labyrinthine of periods, made impassable by the piling-up of clauses upon clauses--clauses in which oversight and bad grammar seemed manifestations of disdain.-- Jorge Luis Borges
A clause is a group of related words that has both a subject and a predicate. A clause can be a complete sentence or a part of a sentence.
Remember: a predicate is the verb and its related words. The scrod swam chop-chop up the Gulf of Mexico. The predicate tells what the subject does or what the subject is (as in this sentence or the scrod sentence above, the predicate is italicized).
2 types of clauses:
1)Independent
2)DependentAn independent clause forms a complete thought:
Danny O'Day named his dog Farfel.
Independent clause = a sentence.
A dependent clause needs the rest of the sentence to make sense. Dependent clauses cannot stand alone. Even if they have a subject and a predicate, they do not form complete sentences.
[Although the Martians tried,] they couldn't capture the falafel stand.
Brittany sees her pet Drosophila melanogaster twice a day [because she loves him].
Coordinating Conjunctions:
Join words, phrases, clauses of the same grammatical structure in a sentence. They are the Tapanzee Bridges of the grammar world.And, but, for, nor, or, so, yet.
I cannot find my whippoorwill or my wombat. (two nouns)
Charo swung her hips but fell off the stage. (two verbs)
If the Ruby throated hummingbird and the squirrel dance the tango until morning, they'll sleep all day long. (two dependent clauses)
Mary loofahed daily, yet she still showed signs of detritus. (two independent clauses)
Subordinate Conjunctions:
Subordinate conjunctions carry you into a dependent clause.If the subordinate clause comes first, use a comma between the the dependent clause and the independent clause. No comma is needed if the subordinate clause comes at the end.
Some common subordinate conjunctions:
After, though, unless, that, as if, whereas, in order that, unless, since, until, because, before, although, so that, while, even though, where.
When a sentence starts with a dependent clause (like this one), the subordinate conjunction comes first. It states the circumstances / condition of the independent clause.
When Ralph walked in the room, the chickens stopped clucking.
The chickens stopped clucking when Ralph walked in the room.
Comma Splices and Run-Ons:
The Comma Splice:
When one independent clause (a complete sentence) is followed by another independent clause never use a comma between them, use a period or a semicolon.Not this:
Yosef has diverse taste in magazines, he reads All About Beer, Chevy Truck World, and Redbook.
But this:
Yosef has diverse taste in magazines; he reads All About Beer, Chevy Truck World, and Redbook.Or this:
Yosef has diverse taste in magazines. He reads All About Beer, Chevy Truck World, and Redbook.Of course, you can join two independent clauses with a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction (see the section above on coordinating conjunctions).
Yosef has diverse taste in magazines, for he reads All About Beer, Chevy Truck World, and Redbook.
But, if the second clause is preceded by an adverb, such as however, moreover, therefore, or thus, a semicolon should be used.
Yosef has diverse taste in magazines; therefore, he reads All About Beer, Chevy Truck World, and Redbook.
Important style point: If the clauses are short, a comma can be used:
Yosef reads magazines, magazines read Yosef.
Participle:
First, let's explain a verbal: a verbal is a verb that acts like an adjective, a noun, or an adverb.A participle is a verbal that acts like an adjective (describes nouns). Present participles are verbs that end with -ing; past participles are verbs that end with -ed or -d or -en, but can take on other forms such as burned/ burnt.
Laughing, laughed; surfing, surfed; burning, burned (burnt)
We combine a participle with other words to create a participle phrase. A participle phrase is an entire phrase that acts like an adjective.
Filled with angst. Cooking the canapé.
Dangling Participle:
Always watch for the words that end with -ing or -ed at the beginning of a sentence. Make sure that these words address the right word latter in the sentence.Doing the Hucklebuck, the minnow followed Annie.
*Get it? Who is "doing" that famous dance, the Hucklebuck? Annie or the minnow?Doing the Hucklebuck, Annie was followed by the minnow.
Charred to a crisp, Mom threw out the tofu.
*Was it Mom or the tofu that was charred to a crisp?
Charred to a crisp, the tofu was thrown out by Mom.
Pronoun Reference:
After Jimmy spilled liquid nitrogen on Charlie, he told his teacher. Who told the teacher? Jimmy or Charlie?After Jimmy spilled liquid nitrogen on Charlie, Charlie told the teacher.
Quotation Marks:
Always place commas and periods inside the quotation marks.
Always place colons and semicolons outside the quotation marks.
Question marks and exclamation points can either go inside or outside quotation marks.Most times, question marks and exclamation points will go inside the quotation marks.
On being told that Roland Barthes just died, Ralph asked, "How could they tell?"
Guillermo screamed incredulously: "Why do you always stir your milkshakes with your finger?!"In the above, the punctuation refers to what is quoted.
But the question mark or exclamation point go outside the quotation marks if not part of the quotation.
Did you know that in da Vinci's notes, they found a reference to "Perry Mason"?
She had the nerve to tell me, "Money talks, nobody walks"!In the above, the punctuation refers to the whole sentence.
Articles
These little guys cause big problems, especially for those for whom English is a second language.
There are only three articles: a, an, the. That’s it. Memorize those three tiny words, and you will know all the articles in the English language.
Articles are like little adjectives that do not describe but point to nouns.
There are two types of articles: definite and indefinite
The is definite.
A is indefinite.When we use the definite article, we point to a definite noun. When I ask for the T.V. dinner, I want a particular T.V. dinner, such as the braised tempeh with brown rice and wilted field greens. But when we use the indefinite article, we point to an indefinite noun. If I ask for a T.V. dinner, I’m feeling like any T.V. dinner, the braised tofu, or perhaps, the Hungry Man Side ‘o Beef. Follow?
Think of a this way:
A/an goes before singular unspecified nouns.
The goes before specified nouns.To show generality of plural nouns you need no article:
I fear mice that drive.
I gobble salami sandwiches.Use a/an in front of singular nouns that can be counted.
Frank drank martini. Wrong.
Frank drank a martini. Ah, that’s better.Roy brought wildebeest to school. Nope.
Roy brought a wildebeest to school. Now you're talking.Do not use a or an in front of singular nouns that cannot be counted.
May I have a rice? No way, Jose.
May I have the rice? Yes, you may.Do not use the with singular proper nouns (except for huge places like the ocean or the solar system or the East)
Do not use the with plural non-count nouns:
(the) Bugs are found in every bed. No need for the here.
In South Jersey, (the) chicken is preferred over fish. Use the word chicken without the.
On Writing:
What makes a good writer? Is it proper grammar? Is it creative ideas? Rhetoricians argue that we write for an audience. Literati argue that we write for ourselves.
Maybe writing isn’t as one dimensional as the literati and rhetoricians would have us believe. Personally, as someone who cares about writing, I believe we always write for ourselves, that if we satisfy ourselves, someone else out there who reads our writing will be satisfied as well. Read the works of Henry David Thoreau or Alice Walker or Ernest Hemingway or Sandra Cisneros, and you’ll find examples of writers who write for themselves.
But let’s face it: you’re in school, and you’re trying to get by. And that means there are times you must write for an audience--maybe it’s for your philosophy professor; maybe it’s for your computer science professor; or maybe it’s for your landlord. My advice is this: even if you must write for an audience, remember, there’s a man or woman behind your words, you! Lose yourself and you lose a unique voice, a voice that will never pass this way again. Let's see what you can do to keep your unique voice yet still write that argumentative essay.
How to Show the World Who You Are yet Still Speak to Your Audience:
In his book, On Writing Well, William Zinnser posits that the average reader has a twenty to thirty second attention span. He therefore asks that our writing be concise. Concision, Zinnser argues, holds the reader’s attention. To back up his argument, Zinnser shows us William Strunk JR and EB White’s principle of “Omit Needless Words”:
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. . . .Every word [must] tell."
Here’s the best way to make your words “tell”: write with strong nouns and colorful verbs. Let’s look at an example.
Jethro is eating his sandwich.
Not a bad sentence, yet it’s generic. It tells us little. It describes a scene, but it doesn’t paint a picture. Now, let's look at what happens when we add some strong nouns and colorful verbs to this sentence:
Jethro gobbles his hoagie.
Get it? Can you see the difference? The above example goes overboard to make a point: we replaced the passive sounding, "is eating," with the colorful verb "gobbles," and the all-encompassing noun"sandwich" with the strong, specific noun "hoagie."With English, you have lots of choices. That's the beauty of English and the difficulty of writing. Which words should you choose? As the writer, that's where your unique voice comes in. If, in the above example, you dislike the word "gobbles," use, "munches," "chews," or get rid of the linking verb "is" and just use "eats."
Notice also, that if you use strong nouns and colorful verbs, you don’t have to use adjectives and adverbs. Your writing becomes more “concise,” more personal, more you. Get rid of as many adjectives and adverbs as possible and replace them with nouns and verbs that paint pictures in the reader's mind.
Practice this for your next paper: look for all those passive"to be" verbs (was, were, been, am, are, being, is, be), and see if you can replace each one with a colorful verb. Also, look for dead, all-encompassing nouns, like "car" or "dog," and replace them with words that tell, like Ford and Dachshund.
Active and Passive Voice:
Another important point to help you find your voice is to write in the active voice.
Active: Carlton plays the lute. (Here, Carlton, the subject does the playing)
Passive: The lute is played by Carlton. (Here, the lute becomes the subject)
Can you feel how much more direct, lively, and bold the first sentence is? We’re talking about Carlton here, not the lute. Read it again. Feel it?Write with the active voice, and your words will float above the paper and take on a life of their own. Now, there are plenty of times that the passive voice is the voice of choice, especially in technical writing. But if you keep in mind that most times a sentence paints a word picture about a subject doing something, a living breathing subject, your sentences will magically come to life, like miniature Frankensteins, they'll wreak beautiful mayhem in the readers mind.
Remember, a sentence is a fragile, little creature. You, as a writer, can inject your sentences with life, make them breath and sing, or you can beat the life out of them and make them as boring as a math equation.
The Academic Essay:Though there are many essays forms, we are going to discuss the five-paragraph essay. The five-paragraph essay is also known as the argumentative essay. This essay can be used in many academic situations, and with additions or subtractions , it can be extended, if need be, longer than five paragraphs or reduced to less than five paragraphs.
But we will stick to the standard five paragraphs here. Get this down, and you can base many of your longer or shorter essays on these principles.
Each paragraph in the argumentative essay should be a page long, one big-block paragraph. Why a page long? Why a difficult-to-read block of words? Because academe, like any other animal group, marks its territory. The average person usually doesn’t encounter this form of writing, these page-long paragraphs. Most people outside the ivory tower read writing constructed of paragraphs with lots of white space, paragraphs that breath. But the academic paper has little to no white space; it requires concentration and focus. In a way, this tradition cuts out the “civilian” population, says to the world outside of academe that this style of writing, this huge rectangle of black squiggles, takes focus and concentration and intelligence to read, and it belongs to us; this writing style identifies who we are. We maintain the tradition.
The essay consists of three parts: one, the argument or thesis; two, that argument’s three points of support; and three, the summary, tying it all together, synthesizing the work and offering your opinion.
Three Parts:
1) Opening: the three points that you will use in the body of your paper and your thesis.
2) Body: the 3 points or ideas mentioned in the first paragraph that promote your thesis. You will offer a one- page paragraph per point.
3) Ending: tying your argument together with an ending that includes your opinion (synthesis).
A Few Thoughts on Your Opening:
Your opening will be your first paragraph, one page long. In this paragraph, you will offer your thesis statement. The thesis tells the reader what your paper will be about.
Do not write your thesis as a question. Write your thesis as a statement. This statement will be converted into a question in your mind as you write your essay. You will then answer your thesis in the paragraphs that follow.
Example: Let’s say you choose the thesis, “Ozzy Ozbourne is more musically significant than Beethoven.” The argument question lurking behind this thesis statement is this: “Does Ozzy have more musical significance than Beethoven?”
To prove and organize your thesis think about one or more of these key questions: “who,” “how,” “why,” and “what.” You can even toss in “when” and “where” if you want, and if you have the space.
In our example, “who” is answered already, Ozzy and Beethoven, but now you have “what” (modern rock music; music that is accepted by the masses etc.) “why” (many young adults do not listen to classical) and “how,” (more radio stations for rock music than classical music stations; cd sections in most music stores are larger than cd sections for classical music). You can work with any of these to answer your argument.
What Your Essay Will Look Like:
Title:
Short and sweet. No underline. No Quotes. Your title should summarize your essay.Paragraph one--one page long.
The essays outline. You will state your thesis in this first paragraph. The three topic ideas, or supporting arguments, will also be found in this paragraph. You want to grab and hold the reader’s attention here. You want them to want to read more. You can offer a story, a metaphor (a comparison, saying someone like Ozzy is a musical angel for example), a straight statement, or even an overstatement.Paragraph two, three, and four: each a page long (3 page-long paragraphs).
Here you put forth your supporting arguments. You offered these three in your intro paragraph, and you will discuss these in the order you offered them in paragraph one. Each paragraph ends with a transition. You review what you wrote and you look ahead to your discussion in the next paragraph. Make sure you stay focused and connect to your introduction and your thesis.Paragraph five--Conclusion/ synthesis: one half to one page long.
This is your summary, your synthesis, your final argument where you put it all together. You will bring up your thesis, highlight your three points, and finally, offer your opinion. Stay on the thesis here. This last paragraph will link back to your title.
Mechanics:
Sentence to sentence:
Imagine each of your sentences as links of a chain. The last link of one sentence should connect with the first link of your next sentence. Connecting your sentences in this way gives your writing flow and holds the reader’s attention. (look at how I connected the previous three sentences.) You must therefore try to place what you believe to be the emphatic point of a sentence at the end of the sentence, and connect that emphasis with the beginning of the next sentence. It’s as if you are connecting a long chain of ideas. And these ideas are like links connected to the one before and the one after.Because of her vocal range, Laura the parrot is a tenor.
Laura the parrot is a tenor because of her vocal range.
Do you see how the same info can take you to different places, depending on where you place your emphasis? So remember, the part of the sentence that you want to most emphasize should be at the end.
Keep related words together:
Lalani saw Tommy Tune walking down Broadway while in a cab.
*Confused? Who was walking and who was in a cab?While in a cab, Lalani saw Tommy Tune walking down Broadway.
*Here, we've removed the ambiguity by keeping the related words together.
Use the active voice (a second reminder):
Passive: My first rotisserie chicken will always remembered by me.Active: I will always remember my first rotisserie chicken.
The second sentence is more direct. It lets us know that there is a human being, an “I,” a living, breathing creature behind these words.
Use positive form:
She is not on time.
*The word "not" is weak and paints a negative picture in the reader's mind.
She is late.
*Here, you've committed; you're definite.Paragraph to paragraph connection:
The beginning of each paragraph should be connected to the theme of the previous paragraph. Lead with a strong opening sentence, and lead the reader into the theme of your new paragraph. Do not be afraid to open your paragraph with the word “but."
But use the word sparingly. Too much of a good thing will bore a reader to sleep.
This page designed and edited by Leon Lanzbom with the dutiful and generous labor of memogr@phics designcasa lanzbom.org inc. ©2005