Style & Grammar
Some marks you may see on your papers – decoded!
This should give you some idea of what my marks mean, but if you are unsure about anything, please come talk to me. I am always refining my paper marking methods, so consider this only a partial list. If you see something on your paper that you don’t understand, come talk to me. If the same issue appears multiple times in your paper, I will mark the first few times and leave the rest for you to figure out. If a paper requires much early marking, I may quit reading (or at least quit marking). I don’t want to spend all my time marking papers for small errors, but I do think you should know what technical issues you need to work on. A paper with too many technical issues becomes difficult to read. I may not address all of these issues directly in class as it may not be beneficial to the majority of the class, but I would be happy to work with you individually on any aspect of your writing.
IMPT Important (usually in reference to an idea).
ITG Interesting (ditto).
GD PT Good point.
AWK Awkward (usually in regard to wording).
SS See suggestion for alternative.
RR Run-on sentence. Think of a railroad.
CS Comma splice.
W Wordy.
AI Agreement issues (could be subject/verb – SV – or pronoun – PN).
R Repetition (word or idea redundancy).
BE SP Be specific.
SDT Show, don’t tell.
SP Spelling error.
FF QT Free-floating quote. Please introduce quotes. Don’t leave them floating.
TR Needs transition. GD TR stands for good transition.
P I’m following your ideas. Often used for good point or well put.
! Wow! (Sometimes, Ouch!)
? I’m having trouble following you here or I don’t know what you mean.
Circled items need attention.
—- Get rid of this. May be part of a suggestion.
/ Delete. Or, separate, if it should be two words.
¶ Paragraph. May mean consider breaking this paragraph up.
º Under a letter. Should be changed from lower-case to capital or vice versa.
ÇÈ Over and under a word mean bring it together. Should be one word.
È Move the punctuation, word, or phrase to the indicated place.
_____ Underlined sections usually indicated sections that I think are important.
May also be keyed to a comment in the margin. May just mean
that something should be underlined or italicized.
Other comments you may expect to see in the margins include: Why? How? Explain. Expand. Needs more details (examples, expansion, explanation, etc.). Use the text to support your point. What do you mean? Broad generalization. Avoid use of you/we/us. What do you think? What is your position? How does this relate to your position?
