Sentence of the Week #20

[From Michelle Yeoman and Barbara Gastel:]

Editing Solution: Last Week’s Sentence

Special thanks to those of you who commented on the most recent post. As a reminder, below is Sentence of the Week #18:

When writing a journal article, be sure to site references correctly.

The error in this sentence is the word site, which should be cite. Thus, the corrected sentence reads as follows:

When writing a journal article, be sure to cite references correctly.

Site and cite are homonyms. As mentioned in previous posts, homonyms are words that sound the same but have different meanings. Site relates to location and is generally a noun. (Example: “The building site is near the highway.”) The verb cite, on the other hand, means to quote or reference. (Example: “This research article has been cited many times.”)

To remember the differences between these 2 homonyms, it may be helpful to note that cite is related to the noun citation. In academic settings, a citation is a reference to a scholarly work such as a book or article. 

And now, onward to this week’s sentence.

Sentence of the Week #20

Welcome to the newest installment in this series. 

The sentence below has 1 definite error:

Last week Dr. Green lead the seminar.

Please correct the error, and submit the corrected sentence and any remarks as a comment on this post. We plan to provide and discuss the solution as a comment in about 2 days, as well as including it in the next Sentence of the Week post.

Do you have a sentence that you would like us to consider using as the Sentence of the Week? Please e-mail submissions to Michelle at msyeoman@gmail.com with the subject line “Sentence of the Week”. Submissions should be your own work—don’t nominate a colleague’s writing :). 

Please also feel free to e-mail suggestions relating to this series.