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Adjective/adverb confusion

• The statement means the mechanism that allows you to feel is broken.
• feel, smell, taste — the word following these verbs describes the subject ( a noun or pronoun), not the verb.
• “Badly” here refers to the verb “felt,” which implies that John’s ability to feel is impaired.

Pronoun case

• Mary and me — me is the object of the preposition between; prepositions are followed by the object form of pronouns
• You should be able to take out the words “Mary and” and still be able to read the sentence.
• Cut out the name; would you use I or me?

Subject-verb agreement

• One is singular; are is plural.
• A singular subject (one) should be followed by a singular verb (is, not are)
• Prepositional phrases (of the many students) are not an important part of the sentence when looking at verb agreement; the main idea (S + V) is One is enrolled.

Double negative

• two negatives in a row—can’t hardly
• “Hardly” is already negative—either He can hardly or He can’t.
• The sentence literally (or mathematically) means that Trygve can easily get out of bed; two negatives = a positive

Dangling construction

• It sounds like “the smell of fresh pastries and coffee” is “entering the bakery.”
• As a reader, I am unclear as to what was entering the bakery — a woman or a smell?
• The actor of the sentence must be at the beginning of the independent clause.

Verb tense shift

• Pick a verb tense and stick with it; present tense is the standard for writing about literature.
• Avoid verb tense changes—The woman pays/ The woman sleeps.
• Verb tenses should stay consistent within a sentence.

Sentence fragment

• Although indicates that the segment following should be joined to the main clause.
• Things that sound like afterthoughts or additions are rarely complete sentences.
• These two ideas can be combined to form one complex sentence; otherwise, the second clause is a fragment.

Wrong verb form

• This sentence should read “should have” because “of” is a phonetic way of saying “have” in spoken English.
• Should’ve = should have
• “Of” is a preposition while “should have” is a helping or auxiliary verb.

Comma splice

• A comma doesn’t correctly join two sentences (or two independent clauses).
• You have two complete sentences here; use a semicolon or a period rather than a comma.
• There is no putting two sentences together with just a comma.

Run-on sentence

• A new subject and a new verb after “vacation” — a new sentence
• There are two complete sentences here not separated by punctuation.
• This sentence contains two complete thoughts without the necessary punctuation.

Lack of parallel construction

• If you want to use not only … but also, the word group following each part (phrase or clause) must be parallel in construction.
• Because + Prepositional phrase is grammatically different from because + S + V.
• Match the form of items joined by coordinating conjunctions or phrases.