Sunday, September 22, 2013

Compound sentences

    I am fairly used to writing; Over the past few years I have written ESSAYS, IMMITATIVE PAPERS, AND SOME FICTION. [series of nouns connected by commas]. Looking through some of my past writing this evening I found a few areas in which I would like to improve over the course of this semester.
   The first issue I have is with semicolons. For some reason no matter how often I learn about how to use them, and when to use them, I can never seem to remember the rules. Since I can never remember the rules for using a semicolon, I tend to just avoid them in my papers altogether.
   Sometimes I use parentheses in places I could use a semicolon instead. For example, when writing about a list of characters I might say: “In the room was Steven (a guitarist), Murphy (a writer), and Ryan (a surfer).” If I took the time to work out how to use semicolons properly I could make that sentence look a lot more professional by writing like this: “In the room was Steven, a guitarist; Murphy, a writer; and Ryan, a surfer.” If I took the time to learn how to correctly use semicolons I could make my papers look neater, and use fewer parentheses. Which brings me to my next issue.
   I OVERUSE PARENTHESES; I HAVE MOST LIKELY UTITILIZED EVERY POSSIBLE USE OF PARENTHESES IN MY ESSAYS OVER the PAST FEW YEARS. (Compound sentence separated by a semicolon). There are two main uses I have for parentheses, though. I use them to avoid using semicolons and as side notes to my main point. By side note, I mean either just a fun extra fact or an aside to the reader. I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN AN EXAMPLE OF USING PARENTHESES TO AVOID SEMICOLONS, SO I'LL JUST SHOW AN EXAMPLE OF USING THEM FOR SIDE NOTES HERE. (Compound sentence with a fanboy). “While Kurt Vonnegut (who is also from Indianapolis) was mainly known for satire, he also was an author of science fiction.”

   While using this every once in a while isn't much of a problem, it is a problem when I use them as much as I do. Looking through some of my past papers I see areas in which I use parentheses every other paragraph. I need to eliminate some of these. This can be done by using semicolons properly, finding other ways to make my side comments, or just cutting the side comments out completely.

   The last issue I want to change is another overuse problem. I think that I overuse commas. Maybe I use them a normal amount, but when looking at one of my past essays, the majority of sentences in that essay have commas in them. If it is not normal to have this many commas then I need to figure out a way to restructure my sentences. FOR NOW, I WILL JUST KEEP WRITING MY SENTENCES THE SAME WAY I HAVE BEEN. (Sentence that begins with fanboys). Even in this blog right now I am using quite a few commas.


   So to recap, the areas I need to work on are SEMICOLONS AND PARENTHESES AND COMMA OVERUSE. [series of nouns connected by and with no commas]. The comma problem I am not too worried about, as long as I fix my problems with semicolons and parentheses I will be happy.

1 comment: