English III Grammar, Mechanics, and Conventions

English III Grammar, Mechanics, and Conventions

Items marked with a P are review material from English II.

Once we have covered any new concept listed below, you are responsible for using it correctly in all formal writing. Multiple errors and repeated errors will seriously affect your grade.

	Know traditional grammar rules for . . .	Bedford Handbook	MLA Handbook
P	Subject-verb agreement	308-322
P	Pronoun-antecedent agreement	323-330
P	Sentence fragment	284-295
P	Comma splice/Run-ons	296-307
P	Commas, periods, colons, semicolons	426-463	2.2.2-2.2.4
	Misplaced modifiers	213-223
	Verb tense consistency	225-227
	Parallelism	194-201; 101-102

	Know how to punctuate . . .
P	With quotation marks and other punctuation	468-476	2.7.2-2.7.7
P	Titles of works (including your own papers)	471; 495-496; 613-614	2.6.1-2.6.5; 3.5
P	Quotations from poems and plays	658-659	2.7.3-2.7.4; 4
P	Parenthetical page/line references	585-591	5 (esp. 5.1-5.3)
P	Possessives	463-467	2.2.7
	Hyphens (-) and Dashes (-- or —)	480	2.2.5-2.2.6
	Brackets and Ellipses	482-484	2.2.9; 2.7.5-2.7.6
	Follow Literary Conventions:
P	Use the literary present tense.	656	2.7
P	In the opening paragraph, cite the author’s full name and the complete title(s)of the work(s) being analyzed. Thereafter use only the author’s last name; for longer titles, use a consistent abbreviation in the body of essay.	660	2.4.1-2.4.2; 2.6.6
P	Include a "Works Cited" entry at the end of the paper to clarify which edition of the text(s) you are using and to give credit to any additional sources. To save paper, you do not need a separate page for the "Works Cited" section.	593-610	4
P	Integrate quotations accurately, grammatically, and gracefully.	573-581	2.7

	Meet Expectations for Format and Quality:
	Word-process all formal out-of-class essays using appropriate font style and size. Use double-spacing and one-inch margins, and include a title.	613-626	3.1-3.5
P	Spell check and carefully proofread your work. Be sure your essay contains no plagiarism.	59-64; 569-573	1.10-1.11; 1.8

Avoid Confusing Easily Confused Words (Refer to "Glossary of Usage" in your Bedford Handbook (773-788):

Accept/Except	Advice/Advise	Affect/Effect	All ready/Already
All together/Altogether	Allusion/Illusion	Choose/Chose P	Cite/Site/Sight P
Conscience/Conscious P	Here/Hear	Incidence/Incidents	Its/It’s P
Lead/Led	Lie/Lay	Loose/Lose P	Maybe/May be
Passed/past	Principal/Principle	Quiet/quite/quit	Their/There/They’re P
Then/Than P	To/Too/Two	Weather/Whether	Were/We’re/Where
Who’s/Whose	Your/You’re