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Common Application Institutes Word Limit for College Application Essays

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Preview of Common Application Available Now!Common Application Form

Although the Common Application for college applications will not officially be available until August 1, commonapp.org has made a preview available so that on-the-ball upcoming seniors can get a head start on planning their application content.  The Common App Preview, complete with highlighted new or noteworthy information, is available now.

There are several changes to the Common Application form since last year, including the addition of 48 new colleges and universities.  College consultant Nancy Griesemer  has already written about them quite eloquently, so I will not detail all the changes. I invite you to read her article, The Common Application Shares Changes for Next Year.

Implications for the College Admissions Essay

My particular interest is the essay portion of the application, and so it is pertinent to me that although the Common Application essay topic choices have not changed, the suggested length of the essay has.  Students are now requested to write 250-500 words on their chosen topic.

Two hundred fifty to five hundred words?  That’s one short essay!  You may think initially, “Great!  Less to write!” But in actuality, it is harder to write a short essay than a long one.  I have pointed this phenomenon out and provided a few essay-shortening tips in a prior blog article, Cutting Your Writing Down to Size.  I encourage you to read it!

Phrases to Eliminate from your College Application Essay

If you are gearing up to write a 250-500 word college application essay, make sure to get clear about your priorities.  Don’t make the mistake of spending precious words or phrases like the following:

Boring Writing puts man to sleep

Boring writing puts man to sleep

“As I sat down to write this essay…” or

“I will always remember the time when…” or

“I was fortunate to have the opportunity to…”

YAWN!!

Look…  you simply don’t have space to burn with such extraneous material.  Eliminate it, and focus, focus, focus.

To help in the process of planning and writing your essay, read my series on specific essay topics, which you will receive as part of your subscription if you sign up for my College Admissions topic list.  You can sign up HERE.

Note:  Another change to be aware of is that the short answer questions will be limited by characters (1000) instead of words (150).  Again, crafting pointed, clear answers is paramount.

If you want highly personalized assistance with your college application essays, contact The Essay Expert for your FREE 15-minute consultation and to work with one of our Ivy League educated consultants.  We will make sure you have the best possible chance of getting in to the college of your choice.

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Common Grammatical Errors: Passover Readings and the Singular “They”

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God and Grammar

This week I am spending Passover with my family.  Perhaps inspired by the season, I picked up the newsletter that comes from Kolot Chayeinu (“Voices of Our Lives), the synagogue I used to attend in Brooklyn, New York. I read it cover to cover for the first time in months.

It won’t surprise you that a grammatical issue leapt up at me from the pages of the newsletter.  Kathryn Conroy of Kolot Chayeinu writes about the open nature of this progressive congregation:Gender neutral language

“The person who prays because they believe that God will personally make a difference in their daily life is not the least bit threatened by the person standing next to them who does not believe in God at all.”

The Singular “They”

Did you spot the issue in Kathryn’s sentence?  It has become common for writers to refer to a single person, who could be of either gender, as a “they.” This “singular they” construction is grammatically problematic.  Clearly one person does not qualify as a “they,” “their” or “them” (all of which were used in Kathryn’s prose).  Yet we refer, perhaps lazily, or even sloppily, to singles as multiples – because it would be challenging or awkward to be grammatically rigorous.

My uncle once created a neutral pronoun for just this situation:  fub.  It didn’t catch on. So at least for now, we’re still stuck with a lack of a non-gendered singular personal pronoun in the English language.

Given the current state of affairs and my discomfort with the use of the singular “they,” I’ve decided to take on the challenge of improving upon the sentence from Kolot Chayeinu’s newsletter.  How would I write this sentence to avoid grammatical detention?

Rewriting the Sentence

One possibility is:

“The person who prays because he or she believes that God will personally make a difference in his or her daily life is not the least bit threatened by the person standing next to him or her who does not believe in God at all.”

Hmmm…  not so great. Stilted, right? This is exactly the type of sentence Ms. Conroy was avoiding.

Next option:  Gender the language.  Here’s what it looks like:

“The woman who prays because she believes that God will personally make a difference in her daily life is not the least bit threatened by the man standing next to her who does not believe in God at all.”

I was surprised to discover that this sentence is much more powerful than the original – poignant even — in addition to being grammatically sound.  An image is conjured of an actual woman and man standing next to each other praying, rather than of some vague or possible scenario.

Third option:  Make it Plural

“Congregation members who pray because they believe that God will personally make a difference in their daily lives are not the least bit threatened by those standing next to them who do not believe in God at all.”

This sentence is grammatically correct, though in my opinion it doesn’t pack the punch of the gendered option.

The Essay Expert is a Traditionalist

My vote for Kathryn’s sentence is to use a gendered version. And I prefer even the somewhat stilted language of the rigorously neutral option to the grammatically incorrect original. However, I am a traditionalist. The grammar books don’t necessarily agree with me.

Not every situation lends itself to gendered language as well as does Kathryn’s sentence. Sometimes our choice is between the “singular they” and a stilted “he/she” in order to avoid politically incorrect gendered language.  And sometimes making the subject plural does the trick quite gracefully.

My practice in these situations is to pluralized the subject or to use “he or she” rather than “they.” Or, if there are repeated references to a non-gendered “person” or “someone” in a piece of prose, I might alternate between the masculine and feminine pronouns.  When in doubt, I err on the side of feminine pronouns. After all, there are hundreds of years of usage of the traditional “he” to balance things out.

Wikipedia Speaks

Here’s what Wikipedia reports on the acceptability of the singular “they”:

There has been considerable debate as to the acceptability of singular they. Regarding usage, The Chicago Manual of Style notes:

On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he) in reference to no one in particular. On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers.Wikipedia

With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual briefly revised its neutral stance to actually recommend “singular use of they and their“, noting a “revival” of this usage and citing “its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare.” However, regret regarding that printing is expressed at its website; and with the current 15th edition (2003), it has returned to its original neutral position.

The 2011 translation of the New International Version Bible utilizes singular they instead of “he” or “he or she”, refelecting [sic] changes in English usage. The translators commissioned a study of modern English usage and determined that singular “‘they’ (‘them’/'their’) is by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as ‘whoever,anyone,somebody,a person,no one,’ and the like.”

Your Turn

What’s your opinion about how to handle the “singular they”?  Do you have any sample sentences to send me as a challenge?  Do you see any other ways to write Kathryn’s sentence?  And wouldn’t you love to be part of a community where the openness Kathryn describes is a reality?

 

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Common Writing Errors: Parallel Construction, Sentence Fragments

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In November 2010, InternsOver40, a popular job-search site for older job seekers, published an article entitled Bobby’s Rant, Rave & Whatever: “Less is More?” internsover40

The second paragraph begins as follows: “Over the years I have ranted  to many of my close friends ”that in my worst day I have more than 98% of the world.” Those people who live on less than $68 dollars a month(yes month).” [sic]

While I like the sentiment of this article, I am compelled to rant about its writing style.  First, there are small formatting issues like the extra space between “ranted” and “to,” and the lack of a space prior to “(yes month).”  That’s just a tiny little rant.

Did you Understand That Sentence?  Parallel Construction

More notably there’s the sentence, “In my worst day I have more than 98% of the world.”  Do you see the ambiguity here?  Honestly when I first read the sentence I did not understand it.  I thought the author was saying he had in his possession some percentage of the world.  Upon second or third reading, I realized he meant that he had more than does 98% of the world – or that he has more than 98% of the world has.

On a basic level, the problem here is parallel construction.  Lack of parallel construction is an issue that plagues many writers, and that takes the sense out of sentences.  In my article about correlative conjunctions, I addressed the issue of parallel construction when using conjunctions such as “both” and “and” in a sentence.  If you read that article, you learned that the phrases after the correlative conjunctions “both” and “and” must be the same part of speech, e.g. “He likes both running and swimming.”  The same idea applies here.

Take the following sentence.  How would you interpret its meaning?I like coffee more than my husband - parallel construction

I like coffee more than my husband.

Read grammatically, this sentence would imply that given a choice between coffee and her husband, the writer would choose coffee.  And although we might be able to cut corners in our spoken communications, it doesn’t work in writing.

Now read:

I like coffee more than does my husband.

OR

I like coffee more than my husband likes it.

OR

I like coffee more than my husband does.

These versions are looking much better for the husband.

To write an unambiguous sentence, we need to look at the two things being compared to ensure they are really the things we want to compare! “I like coffee more than my husband” has nouns (coffee, husband) as the compared objects, so “coffee” is compared against “my husband.”  “I like coffee more than does my husband” has verbs as the compared objects (like, does) so we are comparing degrees of the verb “like.”  And “I like coffee more than my husband likes it” again compares verbs (like, likes).

Sentence Fragments

You may also have noticed that the last sentence in the InternsOver40 paragraph is not a sentence.  It reads, “Those people who live on less than $68 dollars a month(yes month).”

You can probably spot a sentence fragment when you see one.  Sometimes sentence fragments can be used to stylistic advantage, but I don’t think this particular fragment was effective, especially considering the multitude of other errors in the paragraph.

If you are concerned, as I am, about what a major job seeking resource like InternsOver40 is teaching job seekers about how to write, please share your concern with them.  I personally would like to see InternsOver40 post well-written, well-edited articles that will give candidates tools to shine in their written presentation.

Do you have a question about how to keep your sentence structure parallel?  Or about whether a sentence is a sentence fragment?  I’d love to listen to and answer your questions.  Please share your comments below.

Image courtesy Damian Cugley CC BY-SA 2.0

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How a Car Wash Led to a Grammar Lesson – and a Valentine’s Day Life Lesson

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A Car Washing Adventure

From time to time it is necessary, living in a snowy city, to give my car a respite from the salt that eats away at it for much of the winter.  During my last visit to Octopus Car Wash, as I waited for my car to get spit out the other end of the car wash, I discovered a wall full of greeting cards, many of them by a local Wisconsin greeting card company, Byrne & Schmidt Greetings.

What a great idea!  I love browsing humorous and clever greeting cards and went to work picking out cards to give to my friends and family for upcoming holidays.

Leave it to me to find a grammar issue in one of the birthday cards.

Squirrel Birthday Poem Insure Ensure

Squirrely Grammar Lesson

Squirrely Grammar

On the front of one card, I found a picture of a squirrel holding an oversized acorn under each arm. The title:  A Squirrel Birthday Poem.  The first three lines of the poem:

Happy Birthday to you,

You can bet your sweet butt

To insure you a great birthday

I opened the card to find the last two lines of the poem:

I’d give my left nut.

I laughed.  And I also got inspired to write about the difference between “ensure” and “insure.”  My first reaction was that “insure” had been used incorrectly here and that the correct verb was “ensure.”  As I did my research, I learned that I was only partially right about that assessment.

The Essay Expert Gets a Grammar Lesson:  Assure, Insure, Ensure

Associated Press style does indeed dictate that “ensure” means to make sure something happens and that “insure” means to issue a life insurance policy.  Other authorities, however, state that it is acceptable to use the two interchangeably, though “insure” does more often relate to monetary insurance and “ensure” more often relates to a non-monetary guarantee.

About.com has a great article about these distinctions, and covers the word “assure” as well.  See Assure, Ensure, and Insure:  Commonly Confused Words by Richard Nordquist.

I’m not going to go into detail about the difference between all these words.  I do want to point out that regardless of his or her proper word choice, the greeting card writer took artistic license in omitting the verb in the sentence.  A correct sentence would have read, “To insure that you have a great birthday….”  The way it read, “To insure you a great birthday” doesn’t make sense.  We can insure a car or a house, or insure *that* something happens, but we can’t ensure a person something.

And Now for the Valentine’s Day Life Lesson…

Nevertheless, I am more interested in the fact that I was so sure the word choice in the card was incorrect that I almost wrote a blog article about the difference between insure and ensure without doing my research.  What a great lesson in being willing to be wrong!

I often think I’m right about a lot of things, not just grammatical issues.  Things like how clean a kitchen should be, or what habits are healthy and not, or what is the best way to do just about anything.  Sometimes being right is not the best way to sustain healthy relationships.  And sometimes I’m just plain wrong.  I can assure you of that.

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Is there anything you’re sure you’re right about with your loved ones?  Are you willing to consider the possibility that there’s another right answer out there in the world besides yours?

Please share your thoughts on grammar and on being right.  I’d love to hear your comments!

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The President Makes Grammatical Errors Too! Tenet vs. Tenant and Obama’s Tucson Speech

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I got an email from my friend Seth Nowak on January 13, 2011 reporting, “Obama said ‘tenent’ in his speech last night.  One term president.”

The speech to which Seth was referring is the moving, poignant speech Obama delivered following the shooting rampage in Tucson.  Obviously Seth was joking to me, The Essay Expert, that a small error like mixing up “tenet” with “tenant” would affect (not effect) Obama’s approval rating.Obama Tuscon Arizona Speech Tenant Tenet

Just a few days before, I had corrected Seth when he said “tenent” (or “tenant” — he was speaking not writing, so I can’t be sure) when he meant “tenet.”  Thus he could not help but notice Obama’s slip of tongue.

To clarify, “tenet” means “any opinion, principle, doctrine, dogma, etc., esp. one held as true by members of a profession, group, or movement.” A tenant, on the other hand, is a person, a group of persons, or an entity occupying a space, usually a rental space (my definition).

“Tenent” is not a word in modern English, though in the interests of full disclosure, it is listed on dictionary.com as “Obs.” (Obsolete).  It does not appear anywhere in the dictionary on my shelf, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (copyright 1987, the year I headed to college – and if that’s not obsolete, I don’t know what is).

Obama’s spoken sentence was as follows:

“They were fulfilling a central tenant[sic] of the democracy envisioned by our founders.”

The transcriber was kind to our President.  The text “tenant[sic]” does not appear in the transcription; instead, the official version in The New York Times reads, “They were fulfilling a central tenet….”

Tenet vs Tenant

The day before Obama’s speech, I had put “tenant/tenet” on my list of Top 10 Grammatical Errors of 2011 (scheduled for publication in December 2011).  Why?  Because inside of one week in January, not including Obama’s speech, I heard “tenant” used incorrectly twice: once by Seth as reported above, and once in a draft of a law school application essay.  I won’t quote that essay here for reasons of confidentiality, but here’s an example of a sentence in a draft law school application essay I received a year ago:

“The general tenants of my thesis was that developing a national childcare system would contribute to the economy and better the lives of all Canadians.”

This sentence has two problems:  First, she meant “tenet”; and second, even if “tenants” were correct, the verb “was” is singular whereas “tenants” is plural.  This client was not accepted into any Canadian law schools, despite the fact that her errors were corrected.  She did get accepted in England.

The moral of the story:  If you want to get into law school, or be elected for a second term, get straight about the difference between “tenet” and “tenant.”  I understand that “n” sound just wants to come out somehow, but try to keep it in check.

So what do you think?  One term or two?  Perhaps that’s really the important question here.

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Top 10 Grammar and Spelling Errors from 2010!

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In the past year as The Essay Expert, I’ve seen a lot of grammar and spelling errors. Here are some of the most common. Let’s toast to learning something new in 2011!

10.  Lose vs. Loose. You lose your keys or your mind. Your belt might be loose, or you might let loose on the weekends. Click here for more: Common Spelling Mistakes:  Lose vs. Loose

9.  Lead vs. Led. A common resume mistake is to write “Lead” as a past tense verb. “Led” is the past tense of “lead.” If your position was in the past, start your bullet with “Led” (a great past tense power verb!)

8. Who vs. that. People are “who”; things are “that.” Don’t say, “I know a guy that can fix your car.” Say, “I know a guy who can fix your car.”

7.  I vs. Me. Don’t say “My dad really loves my sister and I.”

You woulTop 10 Grammatical Errors 2010dn’t say “My dad loves I”; you would say “My dad loves me.” So why would you change “me” to “I” just because he loves your sister too? The correct sentence would be “My dad really loves my sister and me.” For more examples, see Common Grammatical Errors:  Between You and Me.

6.  Then vs. Than. “Then” relates to time. When? Then (it rhymes)! “I got up, then made my coffee.” “Than” is a comparison word. “This paper is longer than it’s supposed to be.”

5.  Affect vs. Effect. “Affect” is most often used as a verb:  “How did his words affect you?” “Effect” is most often used as a noun: “What effect did his words have on you?” There are limited exceptions to each of these generalities. “Affect” can mean someone’s countenance or attitude: “His pompous affect repelled us.” And “effect” can be a verb if used to mean “implement”: “His goal was to effect change in the legal system.” If you go with “affect = verb, effect = noun,” you’ll be right 99% of the time.

4. Periods and commas placed outside quotation marks. In the U.S., commas and periods always go INSIDE the quotation marks. In many other countries, they only go inside when they are part of the quotation. I even see people putting periods and commas outside the quotation marks when they are part of the quotation! That last one I don’t understand. Here’s my article on the topic, The Quandary of Quotation Marks.

3.  Comma splices. An example of a comma splice is “Last year I got great grades, I even won an award.” In this sentence, you need to replace the comma with a period or semicolon to correct it, or add an “and” after the comma. For my article on this aspect of using commas and semicolons, click here:  How to Use Commas and Semicolons.

2.  Apostrophes used to make plurals. The plural of brother is brothers. The plural of Smith is Smiths. When making a plural out of a noun or proper noun, there is no need for an apostrophe! Brother’s is the possessive of brother, e.g. “I covet my brother’s car.” Smith’s is the possessive of Smith, e.g., “Mr. Smith’s house is painted purple.” I talk about this issue a bit more in Why It’s Important to Write Right in the Legal Profession.

1. Its vs. It’s.  This one is the hands-down winner! Today I even saw, on a blog, “Would apple sell its’ products for $10?” The rule: It’s means it is and the apostrophe creates a contraction, just as in can’t or don’t. Its is the possessive of it and does NOT take an apostrophe. And its’ is not a word. It’s simple! My article on this topic is located here: Common Spelling and Grammar Errors: It’s vs. Its

My great hope is that this list will be different for 2011. Can you help make it happen?

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Grammar and Writing Tips – Correlative Conjunctions: Can You Both Have Your Cake and Eat it too?

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If you are writing a college essay, resume or cover letter, you will benefit from this grammar tip on structuring sentences using correlative conjunctions.  A correlative conjunction is a conjunction used with another conjunction that is necessary to complete the thought.

“Both/and” is a popular correlative conjunction pair.  (Other common examples are either/or and not only/but also.)  The word “both,” when used as a correlative conjunction, is always paired with the word “and.” For example, “I like both John and his dad.”

Grammar CrackersHere’s the tricky part of correlative conjunctions:  The objects or actions they refer to, i.e., the items that fall both before and after the second conjunction (in this case “and”) MUST be parallel in construction.  They must, for example, be two nouns or two verbs or two of the same SOMETHING.

In the examples above, “John” and “his dad” are both nouns and are thus parallel; “before” and “after” are both prepositions and are thus parallel.  Here are some more correct ways to use “both/and”:

CORRECT:  That day I saw both the sunrise and the sunset. [“the sunrise” is parallel to “the sunset.”]

CORRECT:  That day I saw the sun both rise and set. [“rise” is parallel to “set.”]

What people often do is to insert their conjunctions in the wrong place.

Fix-it Example #1:

INCORRECT:  Why is it so hard to accept that someone can both be a woman and a doctor?

See how the phrase after “both” (“be a woman”) is not parallel to the phrase after “and” (“a doctor”)?  “Be a woman” is a verb phrase, but “a doctor” is a noun phrase.

How can we fix it?  Just move the word “both”:

CORRECT:  Why is it so hard to accept that someone can be both a woman and a doctor? [“a woman” is parallel to “a doctor.”]

Fix-it Example #2:

INCORRECT:  I was interrogated for hours both in Italian and English. [“in Italian” is not parallel to “English.”]

CORRECT:  I was interrogated for countless hours in both Italian and English. [“Italian” is parallel to “English.”]

Fix-it Example #3:

INCORRECT:  I’ve always been committed to progress both in my knowledge and skills. [See the error?]

CORRECT:  I’ve always been committed to progress in both my knowledge and my skills. [“my knowledge is parallel to “my skills.”]

Fix-it Example #4

INCORRECT:  I realized I could use this skill both to help myself and the entire student body.

CORRECT:  I realized I could use this skill to help both myself and the entire student body.

These errors are often hard to catch in your own writing.  They are extremely common!  I recommend doing a search for the word “both” in your document. Did you use your correlative conjunctions correctly?  Let us know what you found!

Need more writing help?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

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Introducing The Essay Expert’s College Application Essay Series. College Essay Tips for Ivy League Bound Seniors

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For each of the next four weeks, I will be writing an article with tips for writing college application essays.  I will cover the popular essay themes of “my grandmother,” “my sport,” “a famous person” and “a fictional character.”

College Admissions Essay TipsThese topics are extremely popular, and if you choose one of them it is paramount that you don’t sound like everyone else!  If you’re applying to Ivy League schools in particular, your essay can make or break your application.  Bore the Yale admissions committee or the Harvard admissions committee and you’re done for.

In my upcoming articles, there will be 7 writing tips for each type of essay so that yours is unique and keeps the admission committee’s attention.

If you’re not a member of my blog already, sign up now to make sure you get every nugget of wisdom I have to offer!

And if there’s another topic you want me to cover, let me know and maybe your pick can be topic #5.

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Writing Tips for Kids: Text More to Be a Better Writer?!

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Many people have requested my commiseration on the issue of texting (text messaging) and the demise of the English language.  Isn’t it horrible, they say, how this new form of writing where “hmwrk” means “homework,” “4wrd” means “forward” and “2mro” passes for “tomorrow” has destroyed the ability of our youth to spell properly?

Well, at least one study of pre-high school students in Great Britain, as reported by the BBC, has shown that using texting lingo and chat abbreviations is not a problem for the future integrity of the English language, and that it might actually help students learn to spell properly.  After all, it takes some actual thought to spell “4wrd” in this creative way and to understand why it can be spelled this way at all.  Rather than blindly copy words letter for letter without thinking, students must understand why they are spelling words the way they are spelling them.

I personally love the abbreviations and language of texting.  It’s a language all 2 itself.  And it’s nearly impossible to make a spelling or grammatical error, so I get a rest from my otherwise constant grammatical vigilance.  Perhaps the best part is that texting makes writing fun!  (NB:  “fun” is a noun, not an adjective, in that sentence.)

I have no difficulty switching from txtng one moment to writing in full English sentences the next.  If as I suggested, txt-speak is its own language, why would young people, who learn languages with so much more ease than do their adult counterparts, have any more difficulty than I do in becoming “bilingual” in text message shorthand and formal English?

I’m pleased that my opinions on this subject are not wholly unsupported.  The aforementioned BBC News article reported “rather than damaging reading and writing, ‘text speak’ is associated with strong literacy skills.”  In fact, the more fluency a student had with informal “text-speak,” the more skills that student was found to develop in formal English writing.

This report was an interim installment and further information will be released in 2011.  4 now, however, I am encouraged and will continue to txt away.  U might want 2 encourage ur kids 2 do it 2.

Want to be sure your writing has the right tone, formal or informal, for what you need? Contact The Essay Expert. We <3 gr8 writing!

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Writing Tips: How to Use Commas and Semicolons Part 2

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Need some writing help with how to use commas and semicolons? Check out Part 1 of this series if you haven’t already, then read on for more punctuation rules and how to fix a comma splice.

Semicolons are the proper punctuation marks to use when you want to connect two strings of words that could stand on their own as full sentences, but that are so closely related that you want to make them part of the same sentence. If you read my article last week, you saw some examples of that.  Here’s how it works:

The following word strings could all stand as sentences on their own:

  • In high school I was certain of my academic strengths.
  • The daughter and younger sister of doctors, I excelled in math and science and dreaded every English course I was ever forced to take.
  • Addison’s Disease is a chronic adrenal insufficiency that leads to liver failure, kidney failure, effusions, and in some cases, death.
  • I was determined that it would not kill my brother.

When you put a comma between two sentences, it is called a “comma splice” and it is an incorrect way to use a comma! The following is an INCORRECT use of a comma:

[INCORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths, I excelled in math and science.

See how each of the two parts of the sentence can stand on its own?

  • In high school I was certain of my academic strengths.
  • I excelled in math and science.

You can fix a comma splice in one of three ways:

1.  Replace the comma with a period:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths. I excelled in math and science.

2. Add a conjunction, such as “or” or “and,” after the comma:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths, and excelled in math and science.

3. If the sentences are closely related, replace the comma with a semi-colon:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths; I excelled in math and science.

Conversely, if you have two parts of your sentence that do NOT stand on their own, it is INCORRECT to connect them with a semicolon. Here are two examples of an INCORRECT use of a semicolon:

[INCORRECT] Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful; spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.

Can you see that while the first part of this sentence is a sentence (“Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful.”), the second part of the sentence is NOT a sentence (“Spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.”).  Therefore  it is INCORRECT to divide them with a semicolon; a comma would have been the correct punctuation mark to insert between them.

Another example:

[INCORRECT] The Justice Action Center would allow me to study and work in anti-discrimination law and criminal law; a few areas for which I have gained a passion.

Again, the second part of this sentence, “a few areas for which I have gained a passion,” does NOT stand on its own as a sentence, so we need a comma.

If you use your ear here, you’ll HEAR the difference.  Read the sentences aloud, and you will hear an upward inflection after the word “useful” in the first example and “law” in the second example. This upward inflection indicates what?  You got it. A comma.

Here are the correctly punctuated sentences:

[CORRECT] Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful, spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.

[CORRECT] The Justice Action Center would allow me to study and work in anti-discrimination law and criminal law, a few areas for which I have gained a passion.

Are you working on an academic paper, cover letter, college application essay, or other writing project? Do you still have questions about whether you’ve used commas and semicolons correctly?  Contact The Essay Expert for professional writing help!

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