Sentence of the Week #3

[From Michelle Yeoman:]

Editing Solution: Last Week’s Sentence

Welcome to the third installment in this series. Below, as a reminder, is Sentence of the Week #2:

These researchers challenged the traditionally idea that women cannot do such work.

The problem is that an adverb (“traditionally”) was used to modify a noun (“idea”). Adverbs modify (describe) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs—but not nouns.

The solution here is to use an adjective, because adjectives modify nouns. In the current instance, the proper adjective to use is “traditional”. Thus, the corrected sentence reads as follows:

These researchers challenged the traditional idea that women cannot do such work.

A tip: Many adverbs, but few adjectives, end in –ly. If a word ending in –ly precedes a noun, check whether an adverb was mistakenly used instead of an adjective.

Thanks again to the AuthorAID members who posted comments last week. Keep it up!

Sentence of the Week #3

The sentence below has 1 definite error:

Our results compliment those of earlier studies.

Please correct the error, and submit the corrected sentence and any remarks as a comment on this post. I plan to post and discuss the solution next week.

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.