The possible grades for an assignment, from best to worst, are: Very Clear Writing Clear Enough Clear . . . Bullshit X (did not hand in) The gap is meaningful. "Very Very Good" is a category invented for something that is even better than I could write, saying things that I did not think of. It amounts to extra points that can be used to offset another lower grade. I grade by clarity and coherence of the argument, not by whether I agree with you. Poor language that gets in the way of understanding your argument detracts from your grade, good organization improves your grade, and poor logic detracts from your grade. Some common markup from me: What is "This"? or UR: unclear referrent. You had a pronoun or relative clause whose referrent I could not determine. The biggest offender is the stand-alone "this", usually as the subject of a sentence. Such a "this" generally refers to a whole idea, not just a noun as do most pronouns. The problem is that there are many many overlapping ideas that "this" could refer to, that of the last phrase of the previous sentence, that of the previous sentence, that of the previous two sentences, ..., that of the whole previous paragraph, etc. Who is "they"?: "The teachers said to the students that they are tired." See also 9 below. NPPM: non-parenthetical parenthesized material. Occasionally, a pair of parentheses is used to introduce an acronym or abbreviation. Apart from this essential use, each other use of a pair of parentheses should be to enclose parenthetical, i.e., non-essential material. The problem is that the typical pair of parentheses surrounds decidedly non-parenthetical material, material that is essential for understanding the containing sentence. Moreover, each use of a pair of parentheses expresses a different relationship between the enclosed material and the containing material. Rewrite the offending text not to use parentheses. AQ: apologetic quotation marks. A pair of quotation marks is used legitimately to enclose a quotation or a phrase used as itself, e.g. as in "The word ``word'' has a ``w'' and three other letters." The typical other use of a pair of quotations is to surround a word that may be slightly misused. However, English is flexible enough that the metaphorical use of a word is legitimate. So if the word your about to enclose in quotation marks is the most descriptive you can find, then use the word proudly and do not apologize for it by enclosing it in quotation marks. "The use of a good word is always good." instead of "The use of a ``good'' word is always ``good''." Other common problems that occurred are listed below. I will talk about more of them each time there is time in class: 0. A plural subject is HOPELESSLY ambiguous, e.g. "All the people in the room lift a table." If there are n people in the room, how many tables are lifted? n, 1, or something else? If you mean "n", then say "Each person in the room lifts a table" If you mean "1", then say "All the people in the room together lift a table." or "The group of people in the room lifts a table." If you mean "k" other than 1 or n, then say "Each person in the room lifts zero or more tables." I personally try to avoid plural entirely. See also 9 below. 1. "which" vs. "that" and which one requires a comma and which one requires no comma. "The boy that is wearing a red sweater waved at you." "The largest dog in the room, which is a terrier, is barking." 2. "data" is plural so that we say "The data indicate that ..." unless we are talking about Commander Data of the USS Enterprise, e.g., "Cmdr. Data indicates that the data indicate ... " 3. when to hyphenate noun phrases and when not to "He is up to date." "This is an up-to-date computer." 4. Capitalize "Web" or "Internet" when you are talking about THE Web or THE Internet, but leave them lower case when you are taling abut A web or AN internet. 5. It's "e-mail", not "email", which is the French word for enamel. 6. Each of "Everybody", "Everyone, "Anyone", and "Each" is singular, and if you have a pronoun referring to it, it must be singular. So "they" cannot refer to it. 7. Most of your "only"s and "also"s are in the wrong places. Each of these 4 has a different meaning: "Only I nap after lunch." "I only nap after lunch." "I nap only after lunch." "I nap after only lunch." Each of these 4 has a different meaning: "Also I nap after lunch." "I also nap after lunch." "I nap also after lunch." "I nap after also lunch." 8. Use simpler sentences, particularly if you are NOT a native English speaker. I know from my experiences living in a place in which English is not spoken, that the non-native speaker just cannot get a complex sentence right. He or she just does not have the ear for it. Stick to simple sentences. 9. In any sentence, stick to singular or plural and do not mix them. One example of what should not be is: "Successful phishing attacks are when a victim mistakenly gives their pl pl sing sing pl personal financial information to a criminal." sing sing This can be rewritten as "A successful phishing attack occurs when a victim mistkenly gives his or her sing sing sing sing sing personal financial information to a criminal." sing sing 10. Be careful of "then" vs "than" "If it is snowing then the temperature is probably below freezing." "He is taller than Joe" 11. Distinguish plural from possessive "Michael's store" not "Michaels store" "1990s" not "1990's" 12. Be careful about possessives of strange singulars and plurals. "PDAs" is the plural of "PDA". "PDA's" is the possessive of "PDA", as in "The PDA's screen glowed in the dark." "Brooks's", although some consider "Brooks'" correct. "people's" "men's" "I brought the dog its food." has a possessive. "I said that it's time to go." has a contraction. 13. Wordy, clumsy comparisons: "Older workers waste less time compared to younger workers." "Older workers waste less time as compared to younger workers." "Older workers waste less time when compared to younger workers." "Older workers waste less time in comparison to younger workers." "Older workers waste less time as opposed to younger workers." "Older workers waste less time in opposition to younger workers." -> "Older workers waste less time than younger workers." 14. Do not use "/". Write out what it means, usually "or", but sometimes "and". "X and/or Y" -> "X or Y" or "X, Y, or both" 15. Avoid synonyms, particularly of technical terms. Use of a synonym makes the reader wonder if there is a difference between the two closely related term that is significant. For example, use only one of "monitoring" and "surveillance" unless there is a distinction between them, and if there is a distinction, explain that distinction. 16. Don't shift subject in the middle of the paper: The subject may be any of: You We People An Individual Stick to that subject. Don't shift, e.g. "We try to avoid... People do.... You should ... " 17. comma before last element of a list. It's less ambiguous and it allows an element of the list to contain its own conjuction. He ate salad, bread and butter, and cake for lunch. 18. "where" is for places, not time, not concepts, etc. E.g., it is incorrect to say "the days where ... ". Say "the days during which ... " 19. "The answer is `Yes'." not "The answer is yes." 20. "He eats food and drinking liquid" is wrong. Write "He eats food and drinks liquids." 21. hyphen, figure dash, en dash, em dash, See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash Use a hyphen to make an adjective that describes a noun out of a noun phrase: "He uses an electronic-mail program.", but "He sends electronic mail." Use an figure dash and not a hyphen to give a range of numbers: "The article is in pages 15--17." Use an en dash and not a hyphen to describe a relationship: "human--computer interface" Use an em dash to insert a phrase in the middle of a sentence: "He saw Dave---the same Dave that he knew for years---and waved to him." 22. Statements about a paper's contents must be in present tense, because at the time the paper is read, such a statement IS true and remains so: "The next section describes the method." "The previous section describes the problem." It may be true that at the time you are writing the paper, the next section WILL describe the method and the previous section DESCRIBED the problem, but from the reader's viewpoint, the paper does not change as he or she is reading it. If the next section does not already describe the method, it never will. While it is true that the previous section described the problem, it continues to do so now. 23. When you say "A. Therefore, B.", "A. Thus, B.", "B since A.", or "Since A, B.", please make sure that B does follow from A and general knowledge. 24. A citation is not part of the text. So "in [15]" or "[15] says" is incorrect. Insted of "in [15]", you can probably say just "[15]" or "by Smith [15]" if the author of item 15 is Smith. Instead of "[15] says", say "Smith [15] says" if the author of item 15 is Smith. 25. A section title is not part of the text. So, instead of beginning a section with: "DVDs and VCRs These are devices for ..." begin it with: "DVDs and VCRs DVDs and VCRs are devices for ..." 26. Unnecessary "we"s should be avoided: e.g. "In Section 1, we introduce..." can be written as "Section 1 introduces..." 27. Each of "Section X", "Figure X", "Table X", etc for some specific X is a proper name and thus should be capitalized, but in "The next section says ..." there is no proper name. Thus not capitalizing "section" is correct. 28. Sometimes the tendency to noun a verb or to verb a noun is too much. The noun "demo" is really "demonstration", and the verbs "to demo" or "to demoize" are really "to demonstrate". Note that there is no need for "to burglarize" because there is already a verb "to burgle". A person who burgles is a burglar! 29. The past tense of "to lead" is "led", not "lead", even though the name of the metal lead sounds like "led". 30. "few" "fewer" "many" "more" are digital and can be used with plural nouns. "little" "less" "much" "more" are analog and can be used with collective nouns. 31. "entitled" does not mean "titled". Many people have read a book titled "War and Peace". Having read "War and Peace" does not entitle you to any prize. :-)