Essay Tips 2014

© Professor Radha Jhappan: Essay Tips of 14

© Professor Radha Jhappan

Department of Political Science Carleton University, Ottawa

The notes below have been compiled to address common errors found in student essays. Read them carefully and you will discover how to: (a) avoid plagiarism (b) find sources for your research essays (c) take notes from research sources effectively (d) provide proper footnotes and bibliographies (e) improve your writing by observing basic stylistic and grammatical rules. Writing is an essential skill. You may have brilliant ideas, but if you cannot express them in a clear, concise, and accessible way, you are the only one who will know. Writing is about communication. Good writing involves an understanding of the subtleties of language, vocabulary, grammar, style, and structure. The notes that follow cannot capture all of these subtleties. They can, however, help you to avoid errors which spoil the flow of your writing, and which commonly irritate your professors. These notes should in no way be considered definitive. You are strongly advised to use a style guide, such as Diana Hacker’s A Canadian Writer’s Reference (published by Nelson, available at the Bookstore). In the event of a conflict between these notes and a published guide, the latter should prevail. You should purchase three invaluable tools as an investment in your academic career: (1) a dictionary (e.g. Oxford English Dictionary) - useful when you have the word but not the meaning (or the spelling) (2) a thesaurus (e.g. Roget’s Thesaurus) - useful when you have the meaning but not the word (3) a writer’s style guide Used together, they should improve your vocabulary and enrich your writing.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is defined as the passing off of someone else’s work as one’s own. According to Carleton’s policy, you are guilty of plagiarism if you:

(a) directly copy more than one or two sentences of another person’s written work without acknowledgment; (b) closely paraphrase the equivalent of a short paragraph or more without acknowledgment;


(c) borrow, without acknowledgment, any ideas in a clear and recognizable form in such a way as to present them as your own thought, where if such ideas were your own, they would contribute to the merit of your paper.

For greater certainty, to these you should add:

(d) copying without citation any clearly recognizable phrase (of two or more words) which another author has coined or used to import a unique meaning (e) copying someone else’s essay, either in total or in part, regardless of whether they have given you permission to use their work (f) buying, borrowing or otherwise procuring someone else’s work, whether for financial consideration or not, and submitting it as your own (g) submitting an essay for one course which you have submitted or intend to submit for another course.

Plagiarism constitutes serious academic misconduct. Instructors who suspect plagiarism are required to refer the paper and supporting documentation to the Departmental Chair, who must then refer it to the Dean. Plagiarism can result in your expulsion from the University. You must decide whether it is worth risking your academic (and possibly later) career for a grade or two. Even if you are not caught, cheating means getting a degree by fraud, and you thereby deny yourself the sense of accomplishment on your own merit.

RESEARCH SOURCES A research essay is an opportunity for students to conduct their own research into a topic, beyond the course texts and lectures. You should begin with the required and reserved readings on your topic (if there are any on your course outline), but you should use at least four other major scholarly secondary and/ or primary sources where appropriate. Magazine and newspaper articles do not count as scholarly secondary sources, though they may be used as supplements. If you do not know where to start your research, try looking up: 1. the footnotes and bibliographies provided in the required and reserved texts 2. key words and subject searches in the Library catalogue, including e-journals – try the CPI

(Canadian Periodical Index), PAIS (Public Affairs) or SOCIOFILE databases. 3. journal indexes such as the Canadian Periodical Index, International Political Science Abstracts,

Social Sciences Citation Index, Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature 4. academic journals such as Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Public Policy, Policy

Options, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Journal of Canadian Studies, International Journal of Canadian Studies, Canadian Journal of Criminology, Canadian Journal of Women's Studies

5. law journals such as Ottawa Law Review, Osgoode Hall Law Journal etc. (all the major

universities in Canada have law journals which you can look up by university name - e.g. U.B.C. Law Review) and you can search Canadian law journals through www.canlii.org


6. news indexes such as Canadian News Index, Canadian News Facts, Facts on File, Ottawa Letter,

Public Affairs Information Service, Canadian Magazine Index 7. bibliographies such as Abortion Bibliography, Pornography and Censorship, Families and AIDS:

an annotated bibliography: just look up the key word of your topic in the library catalogue and see if there is a bibliography for it.

8. government documents such as Microlog: Canadian Research Index, Canadian Statistics Index,

Statistics Canada Index, Keesing's Contemporary Archives 9. general reference books such as Encyclopedia of Philosophy, International Encyclopedia of the

Social Sciences, Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 10. web sites such as the Canadian Political Science Association’s listing of Electronic Resources at

http://www.uottawa.ca/associations/cpsa-acsp/hyper.html:; Canada’s Digital Collections at http://collections.ic.gc.ca/E/index_e.asp:; Supreme Court of Canada decisions at www.scc-csc.gc.ca/

No t e -Ta k i n g Te ch n i q u e s

Good note-taking techniques can help you to avoid inadvertent plagiarism as well as to organize your material in a more flexible way. You probably take notes from research sources in a linear fashion on pages that look rather like this one. The disadvantage of this technique is that when you come to write, it is very tempting to follow a particular author’s logic. As you are looking at your notes from a particular source, you think you might as well use all the points or quotations from that source in sequence. Hence, you end up with a string of “Ibids” in your footnotes, which makes it look as if you have simply reproduced (in shorter form) someone else’s work. With this technique you are not in control of your material. Alternatively, it means flipping backwards and forwards between pages of notes on different sources. It is easy to get confused. The file-card technique eliminates this problem. It puts you in control of your material. You can purchase 100 file-cards for a dollar or so. The idea is to take notes from your readings more sparingly and effectively. When you are reading a book, article or other document, write notes on cards: 1. Each card should contain only one main idea, quotation, or point. 2. Write the author’s name, title of the article or book, publisher, date and page number at the top of the card. If you do this, you will never lose the page number for citation purposes. 3. Use key words to identify discrete themes and write the theme code word at the top of each card - e.g. “interest group theory/ critiques”, “Cabinet Ministers/ functions”, “Cabinet Ministers/ regional representation”, “Cab. Mins./ proportion of women”, etc. 4. If you wish to use a direct quotation, copy the passage out on to the card “in quotation marks” so that you know it is a quotation. See the section below on Quotations for tips on when to quote directly.


5. If you do not wish to quote the author directly, but to use an idea or a point, PARAPHRASE IT ONTO THE CARD IN YOUR OWN WORDS. In this way, you will never accidentally use the author’s phrasing and hence be guilty of plagiarism. As usual, make sure you have the author, title, publisher, date of publication and page number at the top of the card. You may vary the technique to suit your own needs, but a typical card will look like this: The advantages of the file card system are as follows: (i) It frees you from another author’s train of thought. When you have finished reading and making file card notes you can throw away cards that duplicate points or information repeated in different sources. Then you can physically reorder the remaining cards by theme, rather than by author. A good essay will be structured logically around a sequence of points you wish to make, rather than a series of summaries of author A, author B, and so on. (ii) You can make a one-page essay plan based on the themes you have sorted out from the literature, give a brief outline of the plan you are going to follow in your introduction, then follow it, filling in the details in the body of your paper. (iii) You will never lose page numbers etc. for the purposes of footnotes and bibliographic citations. (iv) You don’t have to flip through pages and pages of notes to find a particular point or quotation.

FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES There are two generally acceptable citation styles for social science papers, either of which you may use, as long as you are consistent:

Author, title, (city, publisher, date), p. 19 Argues that: “The card system frees you from another author’s train of thought. You can discard cards that contain points duplicated in other sources or that are no longer important to you. You can shuffle the remaining cards to organize points and supporting quotations to suit your own purposes. It puts you in control of your material”.


(A) MLA style (bracketed citations in the text, supported by an alphabetized bibliography at the end of the paper, giving the full citation for each author/ source used) - the standard format is as follows: (author's surname, year of publication: page number) - this produces, for example: (Ryan, 2003: 27) - if you have more than one article by the same author published in the same year, you may assign the earliest one as ‘a’, later ones as ‘b’, ‘c’, and so on, to produce: (Ryan, 2003a: 27)

(B) Chicago Style (footnotes or endnotes: i.e. superscript number in the text after a quotation, paraphrase or other reference to an item, with a footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end of the text providing the full citation) [i] BOOK: 1. Walter Wallcarpeting, Rug Rats, (MacMillan, Toronto, 2003), p. 2. Bibliographic entry (in alphabetical order) is slightly different - as follows: Wallcarpeting, Walter. Rug Rats. Toronto: MacMillan, 2003. [ii] CHAPTER IN EDITED VOLUME: 1. D. Verminelli, “ Rugs: the Underlaying Story”, in Walter Wallcarpeting, Ed., Rug Rats, second edition, (McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 2002), p. 10. Bibliographic entry includes page numbers from beginning to end of article: Verminelli D., “Rugs: the Underlaying Story”. In Rug Rats. Second Edition. Edited by Walter Wallcarpeting. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2002: 10-25. [iii] JOURNAL OR MAGAZINE ARTICLE: 1. Walter Wallcarpeting, "Interior Decorating", Journal of Decadent Living, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 2003: 46 (or 46-47) Bibliographic entry includes page numbers from beginning to end of article: Wallcarpeting, Walter. "Interior Decorating". Journal of Decadent Living, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 2003: 46-60. [iv] GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT:


1. Report of the Special Joint Committee on Floor Coverings, (Tile Committee), (Supply and Services, Ottawa, July 2003), p. 14. Bibliographic entry:

Canada. Report of the Special Joint Committee on Floor Coverings. Ottawa: Supply and Services, July 2003.

[v] LEGAL CASE: 1. Wallcarpeting v. the Queen, 3 S.C.R. [2003], at p.15. Bibliographic entry gives the first and last page numbers: Wallcarpeting v. the Queen, 3 S.C.R. [2003]: 15-65. When to use "Ibid" and "Op. cit." (1) Use "Ibid." when you are citing the same source as in the immediately preceding footnote - e.g.: 1. Walter Wallcarpeting, Rug Rats, (MacMillan, Toronto, 2003), p.2. 2. Ibid., p.3. (2) Use "op. cit." (which means opus or work previously cited) when you have already given the full citation for a source, but have cited other sources in the meantime - like this: 1. Walter Wallcarpeting, Rug Rats, (MacMillan, Toronto, 2003), p.2. 2. Ibid., p.3.

3. Report of the Special Joint Committee on Floor Coverings, (Tile Committee), (Supply and Services, Ottawa, July 2003), p. 14.

4. Wallcarpeting, op. cit., pp. 15-16. Citing Internet Sources The following examples were found at: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html#1 You may use these formats for either MLA or Chicago styles – for the former, cite the author and date in brackets in your text, supported by a full bibliographic entry at the end of your paper. For Chicago style, use a superscript number appropriately in the text, supported by the full citation in a numbered footnote or endnote. You must record the date of retrieval of the source. Personal site Pellegrino, Joseph. Home page. Retrieved September 7, 2003. < http://www.english.eku.edu /pellegrino/personal.htm>.


Professional site The William Faulkner Society Home Page. Ed. Mortimer, Gail. 16 Sept. 2003. William Faulkner Soc. <http://www.acad.swarthmore.edu/faulkner>. NAIC Online. 29 Sept. 1999. National Association of Inventors Corporation. 1 Oct. 2003 <http://www.better-investing.org/>. U. S. Department of Education (ED) Home Page. 1 Oct. 2003. US Dept. of Education. <http://www.ed.gov/index.html>. William Faulkner on the Web 7 July 1999. U of Mississippi. 20 Sept. 2003 <http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/ faulkner.html>. Book An online book may be the electronic text of part or all of a printed book, or a book-length document available only on the Internet (e.g., a work of hyperfiction). Bird, Isabella L. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. New York, 1881. Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett. 27 May 2003. Indiana U. 4 Oct. 2003 < http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/ bird/rocky.html>. Bryant, Peter J. "The Age of Mammals." Biodiversity and Conservation. 28 Aug. 2003. <http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/ ~sustain/bio65/lec02/b65lec02.htm>. Harnack, Andrew, and Eugene Kleppinger. Preface. Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 5 Oct. 2000. <http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/ online>. Article in an electronic journal (ejournal) Joyce, Michael. "On the Birthday of the Stranger (in Memory of John Hawkes)." Evergreen Review 5 Mar. 2003. 12 May 2003 <http://www.evergreenreview.com/102/evexcite/joyce/nojoyce.html>. Wysocki, Anne Frances. "Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teach the Rules of Design." Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments 3.2 (1998). 21 Oct. 2003 <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.2/features/wysocki/mOrder0.html>. Article in an electronic magazine (ezine) Adler, Jerry. "Ghost of Everest." Newsweek 17 May 2003. 19 May 2003<http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/20_99a/printed/int/socu/ so0120_1.htm>. Newspaper article Wren, Christopher. "A Body on Mt. Everest, a Mystery Half-Solved." New York Times on the Web 5 May 2003. 13 Aug. 2003. <http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+ site+87604+0+wAAA+%22a%7Ebody%7Eon%7Emt.%7Eeverest%22>.


Review 1. Michael Parfit, review of The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest, by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt, New York Times on the Web 7 Dec. 2001. <http://search. nytimes.com/ books/97/12/07/reviews/971207.07parfitt.html>. Editorial "Public Should Try Revised Student Achievement Test." Editorial. Lexington Herald-Leader 13 Apr. 1999. 4 Oct. 2003 <http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/041399/ editorialdocs/413test-1.htm>. Letter to the editor Gray, Jeremy. Letter. Lexington Herald-Leader. 7 May 2003. 7 May 2003 <http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/ 050799/lettersdocs/507letters.htm>. Scholarly project or information database Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Ed. Laura E. Hunt and William Barek. May 1998. U of Toronto. 11 May 2003 <http://CITD.SCAR.UTORONTO.CA/crrs/index.html>. The Internet Movie Database. May 1999. Internet Movie Database Ltd. 11 May 2003 <http://us.imdb.com>. Short text within a larger project or database Whitman, Walt. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" Project Bartleby Archive. Ed. Steven Van Leeuwen. May 1998. Columbia U. 11 May 2003 <http://www.bartleby.com/142/112.html>. Other Web sources When documenting other Web sources—for example, an audio or film clip, a map, or a painting—provide a descriptive phrase (e.g., map) if needed. di Bondone, Giotto. The Morning of Christ. 1305. WebMuseum, Paris. 1 June 2003. <http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/ giotto/mourning-christ/mourning-christ.jpg>. "Methuen, Massachusetts." Map. U.S. Gazeteer. US Census Bureau. 4 Oct. 2003. <http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer>. Government publication United States. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Children, Violence, and the Media: A Report for Parents and Policy Makers. By Orrin G. Hatch. 18 Feb. 2003. <http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/mediavio.htm>.


N.B. You will be penalized for using incorrect citation and bibliographic styles, so read these examples carefully.

BASIC STYLE AND GRAMMAR

1. Your essay should be designed to answer a specific question. A question will suggest an organizational framework and a rough guide as to content. Do not simply call your essay “Regionalism”. You need to narrow down a broad topic and the way to do that is to have an explicit focus in the form of a question. Identify the purpose and the plan of the essay in the introduction. The essay should answer your question.

2. You MUST number pages. 3. Oddly enough, the use of large margins has the effect of making your paper appear even shorter

than it actually is. 4. Make sure you have an ink-cartridge that still produces readable print. Faint print is both

difficult on the eyes and annoying. 5. If it is alright with you to hand in sloppy work, it will be alright with your instructor to reward it

with a poor grade. N.B. The following sections contain examples of how to do certain things correctly. There are also examples of how you should not do things. These examples are highlighted by an asterix (*). They show you the error in question by committing it. The point is to give you an example of the mistake in action. N.B. Some of the enumerated points below are taken from a document I saw many years ago that was, alas, unattributed. I have since added many points of my own, as well as reorganized and expanded the information significantly. To the anonymous author who designed this method of teaching grammar, I thank you and also apologize for altering many of your clever ideas to suit my own needs. I would be delighted to give you full credit by name if only I knew it. Nouns and Pronouns Nouns are subjects or objects that designate persons (e.g. the professor, Ms. Grumpfuttock), places (e.g. Ottawa, bathroom), things (e.g. computers, eggs), states (e.g. happiness, insomnia), or qualities (e.g. square, convenience). Pronouns are used as replacements or substitutes for nouns (such as I, you, he, she, it, one, they, this, that, what, who). There are also possessive pronouns (mine, your/s, her/s, his, its, their/s).


6. One should never mix one and he or she in the same sentence, otherwise one will annoy his or her professor.

7. * Pronouns should be placed as close as possible, particularly if you have long sentences with

subordinate clauses, of, for example, a dozen or more words, or if you have more than one sentence that refers to the same noun, to their antecedents.

8. * Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

9. It’s means it is, as in it’s raining. Its is the possessive of it, and its use is often confused with the

contraction it’s. 10. Avoid unnecessary use of gender-specific language or the ‘generic masculine’ pronoun. For

example, humanity, human beings, or people are obvious substitutes for Man or mankind. Similarly, one can usually be substituted for he, unless you are referring explicitly to a male subject.

Verbs 11. Verbs are being or doing words. In academic (as opposed to creative) writing, every sentence

must have an active verb. Not like this. Or this. 12. * Make sure verbs agrees with their subject. 13. * If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. 14. * Refrain from using incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck into the language. 15. * Make sure to never split infinitives. 16. * The use of a noun as a verb (for example, accessing) impacts negatively on readers. Adjectives Adjectives modify (describe) nouns, as in wise person, sound argument, perfect solution, lovely day, good essay, filthy hands etc. 17. * It is an irritating, annoying, silly, pretentious, sloppy, foolish, ill-advised, counter-productive,

and infuriating habit to use multiple adjectives when one or two will do. Adverbs Adverbs modify verbs or adjectives. They generally express how something is or was done, as well as time, place, manner, degree etc. (e.g. immediately, quickly, sluggishly, very, well, badly, acutely, rudely, stupidly, brilliantly, etc.) 18. * Write all adverbally forms correct. 19. * The adverb should always follow the properly verb.s


Prepositions 20. Prepositions are words that modify verbs, nouns, or adjectives that express a spatial, temporal or other relationship (e.g. at, upon, on, in, of, from, by, to, over, under, through, with, about). As the name suggests, they should come before the verb, noun, or adjective they are modifying. Do not say, for example, the conclusion she came to, but the conclusion to which she came, or the rules about which I am writing, the Act under which it was illegal, the inheritance over which they squabbled, the maxim by which she lived, the skill with which he played, etc. 21. With regard to compound prepositions, in regards to is incorrect. Punctuation 22.* Spare your readers run-on sentences they are difficult to follow you need to use some punctuation such as commas semi-colons colons or full stops. 23.* If a dependent clause precedes an independent clause put a comma after the dependent clause. 24. * Do not use commas, that are not necessary. 25. * Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it is not. 26. * Do not overuse 'quotation "marks" ' ". 27. * Do not overuse exclamation marks!!! 28. Use hyphens in two-word phrases where the linked words have a distinct meaning. 29. * Hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. 30. Use the apostrophe (’) to denote possession, not plurals. You would refer to the professor’s instructions. If the noun is plural (and ends with s), the apostrophe comes after the s, as in three professors’ recommendations. Sentences and Paragraphs Every paragraph should have a theme or point of its own, though it should be related logically to those that come before and after it. You should construct paragraphs in the order in which you wish your reader to understand things, so you build paragraphs from topic sentences. The first sentence of the paragraph should introduce the general idea you wish to communicate, with subsequent sentences fleshing out the details or making closely related points. 31. In addition, NEVER begin a sentence with As well. That phrase can only be placed at the end of a clause. You can begin sentences with Moreover, and Also, as well. 32. * And do not start a sentence with a conjunction (a linking word). 33. * No sentence fragments.


34. A paragraph requires more than one sentence, and frequently more than two if the sentences are short. For example, this sentence would not do as a paragraph. Quotations 35. Quotations should be used: to support a point you want to make, using the authority of another author; to provide a point of view you wish to dispute; to illustrate a point that is particularly well-expressed (beautiful, elegant, witty, controversial, or unusual), where your own words would not have the same force. In general, you should quote only the pithiest points directly. Paraphrase (put into your own words) points of information or ideas, which are not expressed in some unique and interesting way. Of course, both direct quotations and paraphrases must be properly footnoted. 36. Quote is a verb. Do not refer to the following quote, but to the following quotation. 37. Long quotations (i.e. more than one sentence) should be indented and single-spaced. Your set-up sentence should end with a colon:

... and if you are beginning the quotation in mid-sentence, begin with a few periods, as in this example. Your preceding sentence should use appropriate grammar so that the quotation finishes your sentence. A footnote or endnote mark should appear at

the end of the quotation, like this. 1 38. A one-sentence quotation within your text should always be introduced with a clause of your own, “otherwise it looks as if you are just stringing quotations together without your own analysis,

and of course, you need a footnote reference mark at the end”. 2

Commonly Confused Words 39. Different meanings are attached to their, there, and they’re. Their is the possessive of they, as in their books or it is theirs. There refers to any place which is not here, as in over there, or we went there. Alternatively, there introduces forms of the verbs to be or to exist, as in there were many errors in that essay, or such errors as there were presented few problems. They’re is a contraction meaning they are, as in they’re coming. You will not need this in an essay, since you’re to avoid contractions like this. 40. Whether you believe it or not, weather refers to climatic conditions. 41. We’re often confused as to what we should wear when selling our wares, depending on where we are. At least, we were confused until we read this tip. 42. You’re mistaken if you use your to mean ‘you are’. As your is possessive, and the apostrophe stands in for a missing letter in a contraction, if in doubt, try ‘you are’ and see if it fits your meaning. 43. If you are confused about then and than, read this tip then you will be clearer than you were before. Then is an adverb meaning ‘at that time’ (like when) - or a conditional (“if you think you are taller than

1 Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page while endnotes appear at the end of the essay. 2 You may also use footnotes to explain points you have made in your main text, to add further information that is too detailed for the body of the essay, or to refer the reader to other literature. Footnotes should not be so full, however, that they have the effect of making your essay considerably longer.


me, then let us look in the mirror”); than is a conjunction used for comparisons (“alas, you are not taller than me”). 44. With respect to quantities, use number when you are referring to things/people that are divisible into singular units – e.g. a large number of people/penguins/ideas; use amount when you are referring to quantities of things that are not normally divided into singular entities – e.g. a small amount of chocolate/tea/snow/discomfort/pleasure. 45. Similarly, fewer people today seem to be aware of the correct use of fewer/less, perhaps because there is less emphasis on learning grammar. Use fewer when referring to divisible (singular) entities - e.g. fewer pigs/bullies/jobs. Use less when referring to quantities of things that are not normally divided into singular entities – e.g. less pork/bullying/employment. 46. A woman should remember that women refers to more than one woman. So should a man! 47. It is one of the fundamental tenets of good writing to remember that tenants are renters. Editing 48. * At the risk of being repetitive or redundant, I should point out that if you reread your work in order to edit it, you will find, on rereading, that a great deal of repetition and redundancy, or extra words also, can be avoided by rereading and editing them out of your work. 49. * Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. 50. * Allways chek yor speling. 51. * A writer must not shift your point of view. 52. Regardless of common usage, irregardless is not a word. 53. * In English grammar, two negatives make a positive, so don’t use no double negatives. 54. * Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. 55. * It is incumbent upon us to avoid archaisms and outdated phrases. 56. * Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. 57. * Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. 58. * If I have told you once, I have told you a million times, avoid all hyperbole. You have been told a billion trillion pentaquillion times not to exaggerate!!! 59. * Also, avoid awkward and affected alliteration. 60. * Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.


61. * One will not have needed to use the future perfect tense in one's entire life. 62. * Unqualified superlatives are absolutely the worst of all. 63. * De-access jargon. 64. * Avoid colloquial stuff. 65. * It is not resultful to transform one part of speech into another by prefixing, suffixing, or other alterings. 66. You may use either/or for either this or that, but you must use neither/nor for neither this nor that. 67. In R. v. Dopey [2001], the Supreme Court held that the Offences Against the English Language Act (1892) requires that Acts of Parliament and legal cases be italicized or underlined. 68. * Don’t use contractions like this in an essay. 69. However should ALWAYS be followed by a comma. If it appears at the end of the sentence or clause, a comma should precede it, however. 70. Only list in your bibliography sources you have actually read and to which you have referred in your text (with appropriate footnotes). If you have not read the original source, cite the book or article in which you came across it. DO NOT PAD BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 71. The use of will likely is likely to infuriate your professor. Instead, use is likely to, or better still, will probably. 72. It is a very good idea to read your essay aloud. If it sounds awkward, rewrite it. 73. * Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. 74. * Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague. They make you sound like a bull in a china shop.

Essay Tips 2014

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