CONCEPTS TO REVIEW:
- Redundancy
- Subject-verb Agreement
- Pronoun-antecedent Agreement
- Faulty Parallelism
- Dangling Modifiers
- Punctuation, particularly colons and semicolons
- Comma Splices
- Possessives
- Pronoun Usage (each, every, any)
- Verb Tenses
- Possessives
Faulty Parallelism
- We must either raise revenues or it will be necessary to reduce expenses.
- Stoics deny the importance of such things as wealth, good looks, and having a good reputation.
- In his farewell address to the army, the general praised his soldiers for their unsurpassed courage and gave thanks because of their devotion.
- The crowd that had gathered outside the court was loud and they were angry.
- If you hire a contractor to make home improvements, follow these recommendations:
- Find out if the contractor belongs to a trade association.
- Obtain estimates in writing.
- Ask for references.
- Make sure that the contractor is insured.
- Contractors who ask for cash to dodge paying taxes
Dangling Modifiers
- After walking for hours, the car looked wonderful.
- While watching a classic film, commercials are irritating.
- To please the children, some fireworks were set off early.
- At the age of twelve, my mother entered me in a contest.
- By taking good care of myself, the flu never kept me from work this winter.
- Dropped in the bushes, the child found the missing keys.
- Carrying a heavy pile of books, her foot caught on the step.