Questions from Students
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Paragraphs?
Here’s a great question on paragraphs from one of my students: Hello Professor Palmer, I am working on editing the final draft for the Short Fiction essay and a question has come up. I have three main points in the paper and three supporting evidences per point. As a result, the paragraphs are long. Should I break up each jumbo paragraph into three smaller ones? (Discussing one evidence per paragraph) My response: This is a great question! I wrote a paper on this topic once upon a time. 😉 Paragraphs are like sentences in a way. There are guidelines for a good paragraph, but how long or how short they are depends…
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Conjunctions!
Normally, when we talk about conjunctions, we learn the seven coordinating conjunctions: and, or, nor, for, so, but, and yet. However, there are different types of conjunctions. (Yes, even an English teacher can make this mistake! ha!) Another type of conjunction is the subordinating conjunction. Unfortunately, there are a lot more than seven of these! You can find a list here: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/subordinating-conjunctions/. The third type of conjunction is the correlating conjunction. Here is a quick list: either… or neither… nor not only… but also both… and whether… or so… as If you’d like to brush up on conjunctions, you can visit http://partofspeech.org/conjunction/.
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What is an Adverb?
I received this question from a student this week: “She is a very smart girl. Very is a/an _____________. The correct answer: adverb. I said: adjective. Would you please explain this to me? I thought that all adverbs ended in -ly?” Here is my response: Many adverbs end in -ly; however, not all of them do. Sometimes words that end in ly are not adverbs at all. The function of an adverb is to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb. An adverb answers the questions how? when? where? why? So, in this sentence, “very” answers the question “How smart?” Therefore, it is modifying the word “smart,” which is an…
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How to cite a work in an anthology…
Here’s another question from a student. “Could you remind me on how to cite a poem from a textbook, or do I just cite the chapter the poem is in for our poetry explication paper?” Usually, composition textbooks include some sort of appendix or a chapter on citation formatting. Here is the citation that our textbook (Exploring Literature) gives in Appendix C. Author Last, First. “Title.” Exploring Literature. Frank Madden, ed. New York: Longman, 2012. 1031-1039. Print. As with some older editions, this example does not include the latest MLA updates. I think that most teachers would accept this version as correct, but if you need the latest information on…