Top 20

1. Top 20 Most Common Errors

2. 1. No comma after introductory element • Error: No comma after an opener, introductory phrase, dependent clause, modifier, or transitional phrase. • Student Error: After hours of combing the ocean floor the pirates headed back to the harbor.

3. 1. No comma after introductory element (Mentor Sentences) • If you whisper secrets on a ship, you swim without a tongue. • When the night’s air is thick with blood, sleep comes in restless fits. • Looking back at the years of plundering, it seemed a miracle that I survived. • Clinging to the edge of the plank with wrapped toes, the pirate prince prepared for a deathly voyage with no anchor or harbor.

4. 2. Vague pronoun reference • Error: When a pronoun drifts away from the noun it refers to, the entire meaning gets lost at sea. • Student Error: The gallant ship sailed into the pristine cave; it was the most beautiful he’d ever seen.

5. 2. Vague pronoun reference (more examples) • The wenches have offered up their clothes to raise money for the orphaned children, and they can be purchased below deck for a quarter. • The captain took one last turn with his sword, and if he couldn’t kill the crocodile, they’d be forced to shoot him with the cannon. • A wart appeared on the first mate’s nose, so he had it removed.

6. 2.Vague pronoun reference (Mentor Sentences) The galley… was the center of our lives. To us, it was what a bar is to a drunk, or a church to a Bishop. Without it, there would have been little to live for on that ship. But it had one terrible drawback, this galley. The man that cooked behind the counter was a horror. We hated him and had good reason for doing so. His name was Rat Meat. He was a skinny old man with barbed ears and a rusty anchor of a smile. He never welcomed us when we came to fetch our grub, nor did he exchange any kind of pleasantries. Instead, he met us with quiet grumbling whispers, murmurs of murder and stew.

7. 3. No Comma in a compound sentence • Error: (The Run-on Sentence) Failure to use a comma and a coordinating conjunction or a semi-colon when joining two independent clauses. • Coordinating Conjunctions: (F.A.N.B.O.Y.S.) • Student Error: He used the patch to cover his eye but there was no patch in the world that could cover his heart.

8. 3. No Comma in a compound sentence (Mentor Sentences) • Captain Rogers could recall the currents, eddies, tides and rocky outcroppings of every sea he ever sailed, yet he couldn’t recall the faintest memory of his mother’s loving embrace. • The tides rolled in like the beating drums of war, but the captain looked on in defeated silence. • The mast snapped with a terrible crash; the Jolly Roger groaned a salty farewell.

9. 4. Wrong Word • Error: Using a word with the wrong meaning. Wrong word errors often come from poor use of spell check or overuse of a thesaurus. • Student Error: The pirate suffered from a serious allegory to peanuts. • PG 13 Video Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c03YCBo3z8

10. 4. Common Wrong Word Examples • The shore was a good distance away and Captain Rogers knew the leaking vessel would never make it their. • Weather the captured villagers would be spared, no one could say for sure. • The first mate never aloud strangers get to close to Captain Rogers. • The beautiful singing from the Sirens on the rocky shore had a tremendous effect on the pirates.

11. 5. No Comma in nonrestrictive element • Error: No comma setting off nonessential information. Nonrestrictive elements may also be known as appositives, asides, parentheticals, or adjectives out of order. • When a group of words interrupts the sentence they need a comma on both sides. • Student Error: Captain Rogers a swarthy swashbuckling buccaneer, even sharpened his peg leg for a good stabbing.

12. 5. No Comma in a nonrestrictive element (Mentor Sentences) • The dead pirate slumped over the bow, intestines flapping in the breeze, enjoying the sweet silence of death. • Black Beard had no mind to sit next to Captain Rogers, who picked his teeth with old parrot feathers, at the dinner table. • The filthy crew, hand picked by the captain himself, stood on legs made wobbly by rum and the rolling waves.

13. 6. Wrong/missing inflected endings • Error: Inflections are word endings that carry bits of grammatical information such as tense and number. ELL students or some regional dialects can exacerbate this issue. • Student Error: I asked Captain Rogers, “Where are all of the sailors on that ship?” He give me a look of shear terror, so I knowed not to say anything more.

14. 7. Wrong/Missing Prepositions • Error: Prepositions show the relationship between a noun and other words in a sentence. Incorrect or missing prepositions confuse this relationship. • Student Error: Captian Rogers shuffled in the deck with ease, searching from the sword inside the canopy of the fallen sail. He looked of the horizon and saw a mutinous mob of angry sailors grimacing on the faint glow in the ship’s lanterns.

15. 7. Wrong/Missing Preposition Examples • The pirates met (on) in the deck of the ship (in) atBuc’s Bay. • Captain Rogers compared the storm (to) with an angry mother polar bear. • Who called (off) the voyage yesterday?

16. 8. Comma Splice • Error: Similar to the no comma in a compound sentence error, comma splice is the omission of a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence. A.K.A. using a comma instead of a semi-colon or period with two independent clauses. • Student Error: The scallywag searched through the wreckage of the smoldering ship, he failed to find any remnants of his lovely bride.

17. 8. Comma Splice Examples • The pirate scratched at the deadness behind the worn eye patch, the socket was bound tight with scarred folds of crimson tissue, odd outcroppings of mossy hair, and a crimson slash left by a penetrating arrow head never forgotten in dreams. • The rats aboard the ship were the size of cocker spaniels, they smiled in hidden corners waiting to dine on human flesh.

18. 8. Common Splice (Mentor Sentences) • The captain could be cordial and nice on the surface, but the toothy grin housed a murderous temper. • The parrot shook out the remains of the sailor’s bloody eye from his beak, the rest of the crew suddenly forgot their petty concerns.

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