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.
"for now" is just a prepositional phrase...
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