Editing Grammar

Review your essay carefully, very slowly, sentence by sentence for subject/verb agreement, tense sequence, plurals and possessives, sentence fragments and run-on sentences. Once you have checked all of these things, check again; they are very easy to miss.

The following are some particularly important questions to consider with respect to grammar in your essay:

  • Does each subject agree with its verb (e.g., “the girl works”; “the girls work”)?
  • Is the tense of your verbs appropriate and consistent within each paragraph?
  • Can each pronoun (he, she, they, it, etc.) be easily traced back to the person or thing to which it refers?
  • Are all your sentences complete and appropriate in length?
    • Does each sentence have a subject and a verb?
    • If sentences are combined, have you used a conjunction or a semi-colon between them?
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