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Fix Red Alerts: Common Mistakes in Academic Writing

Discover and rectify common mistakes in academic writing like capitalization errors, title formatting, sentence fragments, possessives, author names, run-on sentences, and redundancy.

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Fix Red Alerts: Common Mistakes in Academic Writing

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  1. Part 1: Red Alerts

  2. These are mistakes that need to be fixed yesterday.

  3. 1. Capitalization • Number of assignments that contained frequent (more than 3) capitalization errors: 16 (that’s nearly 20% of them)

  4. 1. Capitalization • Number of assignments that contained frequent (more than 3) capitalization errors: 16 (that’s nearly 20% of them) • That is 16 too many.

  5. 1. Capitalization • Number of assignments that contained frequent (more than 3) capitalization errors: 16 (that’s nearly 20% of them) • That is 16 too many. • Three most common mistakes: • Names – proudfood, gilmore, canadians, twitter • The letter ‘i’ • Capitalizing words unnecessarily

  6. 2. Title format • Do you use italics, underline or quotation marks?

  7. 2. Title format • Do you use italics, underline or quotation marks? • Any of them is fine but be consistent

  8. 2. Title format • Do you use italics, underline or quotation marks? • Any of them is fine but be consistent The downright abomination of stunt marriage proposals The downright abomination of stunt marriage proposals “The downright abomination of stunt marriage proposals”

  9. 3. Sentence Fragments Sentence fragments are groups of words that look like sentences, but aren't. To be a sentence, groups of words need to have at least one independent clause. An independent clause is any group of words that contain both a subject and a verb and can stand on its own. Fragments are common in informal writing and speech which is why they are often overlooked by students in academic writing.

  10. In most cases, it putting periods where commas should go. • Mr. Patterson has lots of excellent attributes. Such as his winning smile, charming personality and dignified beard • Owen ate all the pie. Leaving none for the rest of the class. • Sophie killed a man with her bare hands. Because the man made fun of her haircut. • Kittens are the cutest animals in the world. Which is why they should be on the back of the 25 cent coin.

  11. Just because a verb and noun are in a sentence does not mean the sentence is not a fragment. Example: The sandwich Bob picked out. <- Fragment (no action in sentence) Bob picked out a sandwich. <-Not a Fragment

  12. 4. Possessives Its -> possessive It’s -> contraction of ‘it is’

  13. 5. Author Names

  14. 5. Author Names There guys are not your friends

  15. 5. Author Names There guys are not your friends Use their last names or full names You may only use first names if you can prove you are buddies in real life

  16. I would be allowed because we’re buddies

  17. 6. Run-on Sentence • There is nothing wrong with a long sentence. Long sentences are fine and, oftentimes, useful. A run-on sentence is not a sentence that has too many words. A run-on sentence is one that has too many ideas, so many that it obscures meaning. • An easy way to identify a run-on sentence is the overuse of conjunctions. Conjunctions are words that connect parts of a sentence. Some common conjunctions are: and, yet, or, but, so, for and nor • There is nothing wrong with the use of conjunctions but too many in one sentence means you are overloading you sentence with ideas.

  18. 7. Redundancy Often students will use more words than required but don’t end up saying anything in addition.

  19. 6. Redundancy Often students will use more words than required but don’t end up saying anything in addition. Jerome was left feeling mad and angry Miles is a cool and hip dude from the city -These simply offer synonyms

  20. 6. Redundancy Often students will use more words than required but don’t end up saying anything in addition. Jerome was left feeling mad and angry Miles is a cool and hip dude from the city -These simply offer synonyms Larry was admittedly shocked and surprised. There was nobody more sad and depressed that day than Miguel. -These offer one general word and one specific. Just use the specific one.

  21. Common Redundancies ATM Machine Free Gift Revert Back Added Bonus Plan Ahead Unexpected Surprise Past History Absolute Certainty

  22. And finally… In my own personal opinion I think… This is terrible because: • It contains 45 million redundancies • Never use personal opinion unless it is in contrast to a different type of opinion (ex. Professional opinion)

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