Errors in Exercise Two

1. Errors in Exercise Two CRTW 201 Dr. Fike

2. The Biggest Problem • The assignment was to discuss the background story that informs your position on capital (not corporal) punishment. • The assignment did NOT ask you to argue about the two articles or to summarize them.

3. MLA Format • Signal phrases • Parenthetical citations • List of works cited

4. Clarification • The following examples are quotations from your exercises, but I have not used double quotation marks. • Thus they appear exactly as they did in your papers.

5. Examples • As Polite[s] says in her article, “personal involvement with the horrible crime renders the academic arguments for or against capital punishment meaningless” (“Constantine’s Murderer”). • In Anna Quindlen’s editorial she points out, “The question isn’t whether executions can be made painless: it’s whether they’re wrong (Quindlen para.14).”

6. How #1 Should Appear • As Polites says in her article, “personal involvement with the horrible crime renders the academic arguments for or against capital punishment meaningless.” • Do you know why?

7. How #2 Should Appear • As Anna Quindlen’s editorial points out, “The question isn’t whether executions can be made painless: it’s whether they’re wrong” (par. 14). • Do you know why?

8. I will have a conversation if you to this: • “Justice John Paul Stevens is right: there are serious flaws in how we apply capital punishment (Polites).”

9. Question • Does a URL belong in a citation?

10. Answer No!

11. How Your Works Cited List Should Appear Works Cited Polites, Olga. “I Want Constantine’s Murderer to Die.” Newsweek 23 Jan. 2006. 5 Sept. 2006 <http://msnbc.msn.com>. Quindlen, Anna. “The Failed Experiment.” Newsweek 26 June 2006. 5 Sept. 2006 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com>. See Prentice Hall, page 418, Section 58d.

12. Clarification • The following examples are quotations from your papers, and I have used quotation marks this time.

13. Stop Feeling! • “I feel that it is our job as humans to try to prevent and reduce crime.” • “I do feel that my background is an impediment.” • “Though I feel have [sic] mixed emotions on the death penalty[,] I feel that the best answer is not the death penalty.”

14. The Omnipresent Comma Splice • “She feels that the idea of capital punishment overall should be abolished, however, she says that an execution should have taken place in the murder of her cousin.”

15. Correct Version • “She [believes] that the idea of capital punishment overall should be abolished; however, she says that an execution should have taken place in the murder of her cousin.”

16. Tense Problem • “If Polites would have come up with a justifiable reason why she agreed with capital punishment in this one situation, then I would not have taken the idea into more consideration, but she did not do this.”

17. Sequence of Tenses Distant past Past Present Past Perfect Simple Past I had gone I went I go • “If Polites HAD come up with a justifiable reason why she agreed with capital punishment in this one situation, then I would not have taken [past conditional tense] the idea into more consideration, but she did not do this.”

18. Passive Constructions • “Capital punishment is viewed differently by everyone, but everyone has their particular stance for a reason.” • Better: “Everyone views capital punishment differently.” • Make the subject the subject. • And remember that “everyone” is singular, so you may not use “their” to refer to it.

19. Dangling Modifier • “After reading this heinous article, my views have not changed.” • “When reading the two articles about capital punishment one of the articles really seemed to match my point of view on the subject.” • Note well: Articles cannot read. Nor is an article itself heinous. The crime it describes is heinous.

20. Many People • “Many people feel very strongly for it or very strongly against it….” • See “Forbidden.”

21. In regards to • “In regards to capital punishment I agree with Polites[‘s] view as opposed to Quindlen’s.” • In regard to, as regards, or regarding: all three are acceptable. • But do not say “in regards to.”

22. That vs. Which • “For the most part, however, it [is] due to the basic sense of logic which most people tend to ignore.” • See Prentice Hall, pages 155-57, Sections 25a and 25b. • Rule: Essential clausethat Nonessential clausewhich with commas

23. Can not vs. Cannot • Which is correct?

24. That vs. who • “I see so many teenagers that act so bad[ly]….” • “The kind of sick person that would do that needs to receive the death penalty.” • “Olga Polites was one person that was against capital punishment….”

25. Like vs. as if/though • “It seems like a murderer can kill someone without having a second thought….” • “I will always feel like what my religion has taught me is right….” • Likenoun • As if/as thoughnoun + verb

26. It’s vs its • First of all, do not use contractions. • “It’s” = ??? • And “its” is ???

27. How do you form the possessive of a name that ends in –s? • Olga Polites • Olga Polites’s

28. Hopefully • “Hopefully, as in my case, we are taught a framework to allow us to think rather than a strict set of ideas and absolutes.” • “Hopefully that will never happen.” • See Prentice Hall, page 545: “This adverb means ‘in a hopeful way.’ Many people consider the meaning ‘it is to be hoped’ unacceptable.” • I am one of those people.

29. Semicolon Again • “Also, it gives one a chance to feel remorse; a chance to regret his or her wrongdoing.”