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Supporting Developing Country Researchers in Publishing Their Work
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Supporting Developing Country Researchers in Publishing Their Work
By Barbara Gastel, 21 May 2013
By Bernard Appiah, 13 May 2013
By Barbara Gastel, 13 May 2013
By Barbara Gastel, 12 May 2013
By Bernard Appiah, 07 May 2013
By Barbara Gastel | 20 March 2013
[From Michelle Yeoman and Barbara Gastel:]
Editing Solution: Sentence of the Week #23
As a reminder, below is Sentence of the Week #23:
The custodian swept the floor, and then dusted the cabinets.
We said that 1 small item should be removed from this sentence. The item that should be removed is the comma. Thus, the revised sentence reads as follows:
The custodian swept the floor and then dusted the cabinets.
The wording “swept the floor and then dusted the cabinets” is a compound predicate. Normally, a comma should not separate the parts of a compound predicate.
(A comma should, however, separate the parts of a compound sentence. For example, it is correct to write, “The custodian swept the floor, and the trainee then dusted the cabinets.”)
If a compound predicate is long and confusing, a comma can be inserted to clarify where the first part ends and the second begins. But in these cases, it may be preferable to divide the sentence into 2 sentences.
And now, onward to this week’s sentence.
Sentence of the Week #24
Welcome to the newest installment in this series.
The sentence below has 1 definite error:
The new budget cuts are quiet disturbing.
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.
Posted by Adock Dube at 21 March 2013 07:40 AM
The error in the sentence is the wrong use of the adjective "quiet" in stead of the adverb that could mean fairly or very disturbing. The correct sentence should read as follows:
The new budget cuts are quite disturbing.
Posted by Barbara Gastel at 24 March 2013 02:42 AM
Special thanks to the people who posted the response.
As a reminder, here is Sentence of the Week #24: The new budget cuts are quiet disturbing.
The error in this sentence is the word quiet, which should be the word quite. Thus, the corrected sentence reads as follows: The new budget cuts are quite disturbing.
Most of us probably know the difference between the word quite and the word quiet. However, a spell-checker generally can’t tell when people typed one of these words but meant the other.
To help ensure that such typographical errors are corrected, remember to proofread in addition to using the spell-checker. Doing so can be quiet (oops, we meant quite) helpful.
Sentence of the week #24
Posted by Dr. James Wambua Kaluli at 21 March 2013 06:56 AM
The error with the sentence is the word "quiet". The correct sentence should be, "The new budget cuts are quite disturbing".