Issues
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 utilized every possible use of
parentheses in my essays over the past few years. 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. “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. 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 PARENTHESE 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.