Self-awareness is the key to being able to revise for grammatical errors. Grammatical errors tend to follow patterns, so once you are able to identify the types of errors you most commonly make, you will be able to focus specifically on these.
Strategies to revise for grammar and to identify patterns of error
Issue: Parallel Structure
Date | Example | Revision | Rule |
11/10/15 | The students were unprepared, poorly behaved, and disrupted the class. | The students were unprepared, poorly behaved, and disruptive. | Use the adjective form for all of these items in the list to keep them parallel in structure. |
11/25/15 | I am both excited for the internship and I am nervous. | I am both excited and nervous for the internship. | With the “both…and” structure, the subject of the sentence does not need to be repeated. |
Issue: Incorrect Semicolons
Date | Example | Revision | Rule |
12/3/15 | Because there were so few participants; Jackson (2010) noted that study’s results were inconclusive. | Because there were so few participants, Jackson (2010) noted that study’s results were inconclusive. | Semicolons are used to separate two independent clauses. In this case, there is a dependent clause followed by an independent clause, so a comma is used instead. |