The possible grades for an assignment, from best to worst, are: 10 9 8 7 . . 1 0 (did not hand in) The gap is meaningful. So far no one got lower than a 6. You got a "10" if you wrote something that is better than I could write, saying things that I did not think of. 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. The biggest cause of a loss of a point is lack of citations to sources. When you say something that needs support, you need to cite a source. ===================================== ** UR: unclear referent: It is common to have a pronoun or relative clause whose referent the reader cannot determine, e.g., "George saw Irving. He said, ``Hi!''" Is "He" George or Irving. Some grammar books say that a pronoun refers to the closest previous sentence subject, i.e., "George". Other grammar books say that a pronoun refers to the closest previous noun, i.e., "Irving". To avoid the problem write: "George saw Irving. George said, ``Hi!''" ** Who is "they"?: In the following sentence, who is "they"? "The teachers said to the students that they are tired." There's no way to tell for sure. ** What is "This"?: The biggest offender among unclear referents 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. e.g., after a long discussion about several aspects of an algorithm, "This is a good approach" It is not clear what part of the discussion "This" refers to. If "This" refers to the whole algorithm, then the sentence should be "This algorithm is a good approach". Bottom Line: Don't use a standalone "This". In all of the above examples, the writer knows what he or she means. The reader is left guessing. ** 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. ** AQMs: 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." Quotation marks can be used to set off an ironic use of a phrase, e.g., "John McCain is a ``liberal''." A common use these days for quotation marks is to surround vague terms that cannot be defined precisely, e.g., "The system is ``user friendly''. to apologize for a poorly defined term. Instead of apologizing, just define it as well as you can and then use it with no apology, e.g., "Software is regarded as user friendly if .... The system is user friendly." Another typical use of a pair of quotations is to surround a word that may be slightly misused. "The database has ``integrity''." 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 word ``good'' has a ``g'' and is good." means that whatever ``good'' means, the word ``good'' is good, but the apologetic version, "The word ``good'' has a ``g'' and is ``good''." ends up being a logical tautology, X is X, or the ironic version, that "The word ``good'' has a ``g'' and is bad." Bottom line: use quotation marks to enclose ONLY a quotation, a phrase used as itself, or an ironic use of a phrase. ** AP (Ambiguating Polysemy): When the same term is used for more than one of its related meanings you have ambiguating polysemy. For example, I have seen "open source" or "OS" used to mean 1. the concept of open source software 2. open source programming 3. open source paradigm 4. open source software 5. open source organization In other words, "open source" is an adjective, and it was being used as a noun in place of 5 different noun phrases that contain "open source" as an adjective. A lecture about the economic impact of OS software was impossible to understand as a result of its over use of just "OS". Each use of "OS" needed to be followed by another word to indicate the noun that was modified by the use of "OS" Note that here too, the writer of any AP knows what he or she means in each case, but the reader is left wondering. I have even seen a lecture in which an open source operating system was referred to as "an OS OS" :-( ** US (Unnecessary Synonymy) We are told in writing classes to vary our words, to use synonyms, to keep the writing interesting. However in technical writing, use of a synonym makes the reader wonder if there is a difference between the two closely related terms that is significant to the discourse. For example, "monitoring" and "surveillance" are synonyms. If in your discourse, there is no real distinction, pick only one term and use only that. If there IS a distinction, e.g., "monitoring" is for low-threat situations while "surveillance" is for high-threat situations, then define the terms and maintain the distinction throughout the discourse. ======================================= Other common problems that occurred are listed below. I will talk about more of them each time there is time in class: 1. 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. 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 account numbers to a criminal." pl sing A problem with this sentence is that it looks like one victim and one criminial are involoved in ALL phishing attacks. Also, we don't know how many account numbers there are for each victim, because we do not know if "numbers" is plural because each victim has more than one account or because the "their" turned the sentence to plural. This sentence can be rewritten as "A successful phishing attack occurs when a victim mistkenly gives his or her sing sing sing sing sing personal financial account number to a criminal." sing sing Another example of switching is "Organizations have their own individual privacy policies." The fact that the writer had to say "own individual" is begging for the sentence to be in singular. "Each organization has its own privacy policy." The sentence's being singular obviates the need for "individual" Note that if we want to convey that each organization may have more than one privacy policy, we can say so: "Each organization has its own privacy policies." This fine tuning is not expressible in the plural sentence. If it not correct that EACH or EVERY organization has a privacy policy, then we can write: "Any organization has its own privacy policy." Note that it is INCORRECT to say "Any organization has their own privacy policy." since "organization" is singular and inanimate. Bottom line: stick to singular. Each of "Everybody", "Everyone, "Anyone", and "Each" is singular, and if you have a pronoun referring to it, it must be singular, e.g., "he", "she", or "he or she". So "they" cannot refer to it. I have heard the claims that we use "they" as a gender-non-specific pronoun for a gender-non-specific noun. This is nonsense. I remember that we were saying the same thing 50 and 40 years ago, LONG before gender independence became politically correct. It was a mistake then and it still is. We were using "they" for "Everybody", "Everyone, "Anyone", and "Each" because each is SEMANTICALLY plural even though each is syntactically singular. If you are willing to say "they is", then I guess using "they" as a gender-non-specific pronoun is OK. One alternative is to use "E", "em", and "er" in place of "he or she", "him or her", and "his or her", respectively 2. "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." "That" is used when what follows "that" is needed to identify WHICH instance of the noun preceding "that" is meant. "Which" is used when what follows "which" is NOT needed to identify WHICH instance of the noun preceding "which" is meant; what follows the "which" gives only additional information". 3. "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 ... " 4. when to hyphenate noun phrases and when not to "He is up to date." "This is an up-to-date computer." 5. 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. 6. It's "e-mail", not "email", which is the French word for enamel. 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. Be careful of "then" vs "than" pronoun "If it is snowing then the temperature is probably below freezing." "He is taller than Joe" 10. Distinguish plural from possessive "Michael's store" not "Michaels store" "1990s" not "1990's" 11. 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. 12. 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." 13. 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" 14. Don't shift subject in the middle of the paper: In a typical sentence for a typical argument, the subject may be any of: "You", "We", "People", and "An Individual". Stick to that subject. Don't shift, e.g. "We try to avoid... People do.... You should ... " 15. Use a comma before the 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. 16. "where" is for places, not time, not concepts, etc. E.g., it is incorrect to say "the days where ... ". Say "the days during which ... " 18. "The answer is `Yes'." not "The answer is yes." 19. "He eats food and drinking liquid" is wrong. Write "He eats food and drinks liquids." 20. 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." 21. 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. 22. 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. 23. A citation is not part of the text. So "in [15]" or "[15] says" is incorrect. Assuming that the author of item 15 is Smith, instead of "in [15]", you can probably say just "[15]" or "by Smith [15]". Instead of "[15] says", say "Smith [15] says". Also, make sure that a citation is inside the sentence that it is about. I have seen citations like: "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx. [15] yyyyy yyyyy" in which the citation physically belongs to the sentence with "yyyyy yyyyy", but logically it belongs to the sentence with "xxxxxxxx". It should be punctuated "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx [15]. yyyyy yyyyy" 24. 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 ..." 25. Unnecessary "we"s should be avoided: e.g. "In Section 1, we introduce..." can be written as "Section 1 introduces..." 26. 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. 27. 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! 28. The past tense of "to lead" is "led", not "lead", even though the name of the metal lead sounds like "led". 29. "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. 30. "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. :-)