Anker Susan. Real Essays with Readings with 2009 MLA Update

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EDITING ESSAYS

Chapter 36 • Spelling 667

Edit Paragraphs and Your Own Writing

Find and correct any spelling mistakes in the following paragraphs.

EDITING REVIEW 1 (40 errors)

(1) Americans have always been an inventive peeple and, in recent

years, it seems as though there creative inspiration is stronger then it has

ever been. (2) The U.S. Patent Ofﬁ ce is now recieving the highest amount

of patent applications in its histery, with the number of applications top-

ping 400,000 anually. (3) To put this in purspective, in 1986, about

125,000 patent applications were ﬁ ld, and the number of applications

conscious

convenient

cruelty

daughter

deﬁ nite

describe

dictionary

different

disappoint

dollar

eighth

embarrass

environment

especially

exaggerate

excellent

exercise

fascinate

February

ﬁ nally

foreign

friend

government

grief

guidance

harass

height

humorous

illegal

immediately

independent

interest

jewelry

judgment

knowledge

license

lightning

loneliness

marriage

meant

muscle

necessary

ninety

noticeable

occasion

occurrence

perform

physically

prejudice

probably

psychology

receive

recognize

recommend

restaurant

rhythm

roommate

schedule

scissors

secretary

separate

sincerely

sophomore

succeed

successful

surprise

truly

until

usually

vacuum

valuable

vegetable

weight

weird

writing

written

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EDITING ESSAYS

668 Part Six • Word Use

has steadely increased since then. (4) It is not difacult to see why, with the

proliﬁ ration of available electronic gadgets, most of which involve numrous

patent applications to protect their innovateive technology. (5) Many of

the wondrus devices that are incorporatted into the latest cars, televisions,

radioes, personal media plaiers, cell phones, and cameras are waiting for

patent approval. (6) Therein lyes a big problem for the Patent Ofﬁ ce,

which now has a backlog of 700,000 applications and an avrage patent

review time of 31 months.

(7) To get better control of the approval prosess, the Patent Ofﬁ ce is

gradualy tightening its ruleses, requireing inventors to provide more infor-

mation and allowing the public greater acess to reveiw applications. (8) In

addition, the ofﬁ ce is approving a lowwer percentige of the applications it

gets, from approveing 72 percent of applications in 2000 to only about

50 percent approved in 2007. (9) Inventers can improve they’re chances

of haveing a sucessful application by following a few sensable guidlines.

(10) Be sure the invention is truley new and usefull, and describe it clearly

and understandibly. (11) Then, move on to other venturs because the

Patent Ofﬁ ce’s anser will not come speedely.

EDITING REVIEW 2 (35 errors)

(1) Most parents regularly tell their children to sit up strait, but is

siting in a 90-degree posture really necesary? (2) More importent, is sit-

ting up straight good for a purson’s back? (3) Now, the long-held beleif

that people will put a strain on their backs if they sit at anything other then

a 90-degree angle has been prooven wrong. (4) Severel studys have shown

that sitting up straight with the thighs parralel to the ground hieghtens the

stress on the lumbar disks in the lower back. (5) Scientists ﬁ rst recognised

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EDITING ESSAYS

Chapter 36 • Spelling 669

this by measureing the pressure on the backs of volunters as they sat in

varius positions. (6) This reveeled that a reclining position placed the

lest strain on the back and reduced the pressure asociated with back

problems.

(7) Numberous seperate studies subsequently conﬁ rmed this, but

their was no direct vizual evidence of how this worked until scientists

were ﬁ naly able to use magnetic imaging resonance (MRI) machines. (8) In

an MRI study, researchers had volunteers sit in three diffrent positions.

(9) Two of the positions, sitting upright and sitting with the body bent

forwerd, caused the most exagerated spinal disk movment, during which

the inturnal disk material was moved out of alignment. (10) For the therd

position, the subjects sat back at a 135-degree angel with their feet on the

ﬂ or. (11) This position produced the least back strain, indicateing that

leening back while sitting is beter for the back than sitting up straight.

PRACTICE 3 EDITING YOUR OWN WRITING FOR SPELLING

As a ﬁ nal practice, edit a piece of your own writing for spelling, using the tech-

niques described in this chapter. It can be a paper you are working on for this

course, a paper you’ve already ﬁ nished, a paper for another course, a recent

piece of writing from work or everyday life, or your idea journal entry.

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EDITING ESSAYS

Part Seven

Punctuation and

Capitalization

37. Commas 673

38. Apostrophes 688

39. Quotation Marks 696

40. Other Punctuation 705

41. Capitalization 712

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673

Commas

Understand What Commas Do

Commas (,) are punctuation marks that help readers understand a sen-

tence. Read aloud the following three sentences. How does the use of

commas change the meaning?

NO COMMA After you call Jim I’ll leave for the restaurant.

ONE COMMA After you call Jim, I’ll leave for the restaurant.

TWO COMMAS After you call, Jim, I’ll leave for the restaurant.

Commas signal particular meanings to your readers, so it is important

that you understand when and how to use them.

Practice Using Commas Correctly

Commas between Items in a Series

Use commas to separate three or more items in a series. This includes the

last item in the series, which usually has and before it.

item

, and

item

■ IDEA JOURNAL

Write about some

things you enjoy

doing.

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EDITING ESSAYS

674 Part Seven • Punctuation and Capitalization

When you go to the store, please pick up milk, bread, orange juice, and

bananas.

Last semester I took math

, reading, and composition.

Students may take the course as a regular classroom course, as an online

course, or as a distance learning course.

A comma is not always used before the ﬁ nal item in a series. In college

writing, however, it is always best to include it.

Commas between Coordinate Adjectives

Coordinate adjectives are two or more adjectives that independently

modify the same noun and are separated by commas. Coordinate adjec-

tives can be separated by the word and.

We had an entire month of cold, damp, grey weather.

The car is old, battered, and rusty.

Do not use a comma between the ﬁ nal adjective and the noun it modiﬁ es.

INCORRECT It was a long, hard, complicated, test.

CORRECT It was a long, hard, complicated test.

Cumulative adjectives modify the same noun but form a unit and are

not separated by commas. Cumulative adjectives cannot be joined by the

word and.

Our team wants to win the big regional sales trophy.

All of the words in italics are adjectives, but they build on each other.

Moving left from trophy, each adjective becomes part of a larger unit.

1. Sales describes the trophy.

2. The next word to the left, regional, describes not just the trophy but the

sales trophy.

3. The next word to the left, big, describes the regional sales trophy.

The team didn’t want to win just a big trophy or just a regional trophy or

just a sales trophy. The team wanted the big regional sales trophy.

To summarize the rule: Use a comma to separate two or more coor-

dinate adjectives. Do not use commas to separate cumulative adjectives.

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EDITING ESSAYS

Chapter 37 • Commas 675

PRACTICE 1 USING COMMAS IN A SERIES

AND WITH ADJECTIVES

Add commas where they are needed in the following sentences. If the sen-

tence is correct, write “C” next to it.

EXAMPLE: The short, slim conductor stepped up to the elaborate

colorful podium.

1. We had prepared a wholesome ﬂ avorful meal for the children their

parents and their friends.

2. Lucas has painted three large pictures for the unfurnished boring living

room.

3. The huge confusing and annoying airport desperately needed renovating.

4. These young plants might not survive the gusting unpredictable wind.

5. I have several urgent e-mail messages from Mr. Toland Ms. Fry and my

father.

6. Please bake us some of your tasty rich chocolate chip cookies.

7. Our scholarly English professor was once a professional baseball player.

8. She loves to take long slow walks in the rain.

9. Thomas has no phone no food no television and hardly anything else in

his tiny uncomfortable one-room apartment.

10. The early morning edition of the newspaper arrives before I leave for my

exciting new part-time job.

11. Driving on this endless dull unsafe highway can be unpleasant.

12. Jeffrey is a lazy gorgeous and cuddly cat.

13. Plentiful exercise combined with a healthy nutritious diet will have you ﬁ t

fairly quickly.

■ Answers to odd-

numbered practice

items are at the back

of the book.

■ For more practice

using commas, visit

Exercise Central at

bedfordstmartins

.com/realessays.

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EDITING ESSAYS

676 Part Seven • Punctuation and Capitalization

14. The funny animated movie was based on a well-written graphic novel.

15. We always buy rich high-calorie candy bars when we go to the movies.

Commas in Compound Sentences

A compound sentence contains two independent clauses (sentences)

joined by one of these words — and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet. Use a comma

before the joining word to separate the two clauses.

Sentence

and / but / for / nor / or / so / yet

sentence.

Tom missed class yesterday, and he called to ask me what he missed.

I would have been happy to help him, but I was absent too.

I told him I wasn’t there, so he said he would e-mail the professor.

A comma is not needed if the word and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet joins two

sentence elements that are not independent clauses.

Language Note: A comma by itself cannot separate two sentences:

Doing so creates a run-on (see Chapter 24).

PRACTICE 2 USING COMMAS IN COMPOUND SENTENCES

Edit the following compound sentences by adding commas where they are

needed. If a sentence is already correct, put a “C” next to it.

EXAMPLE: The population of the United States is getting older, but

the number of people trained to care for the elderly is declining.

1. Working in a nursing home is a difﬁ cult job for elderly patients can sel-

dom do much for themselves.

2. The labor is physically difﬁ cult and it can also be mentally draining.

■ The words and, but,

for, nor, or, so, and

yet are called coordi-

nating conjunctions.

See Chapter 30 for

more details.

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