Format
Persuasion
Organization
Grammar
Documentation

Tell students to check for the following format items:

Appropriate title page with name, date, course
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Appropriate headings for separate sections
       ___ Yes         ___ No

One-inch margins
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Consecutive page #s
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Appropriate use of bullets, list numbering, etc.
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Double-spaced  text, no excessive “white space,” 5-space indented paragraphs
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Headings and/or cut-lines explaining visuals (graphs, photos, etc.)
       ___ Yes         ___ No

12 pt. Times Roman font
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Bibliography on separate “Works Cited” page(s)
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Get students to answer the following questions about their assignments:

• How well have you provided a recognizable introduction, narration, and conclusion in your piece, so readers can understand what issue you have addressed and how you have developed it?
• What is your stance in your piece, and how consistently have you focused upon it?
• How well does your piece accommodate a general reading audience that may or may not be informed about this topic—and what specific kind of reader do you especially hope to persuade?
• How would you describe the way you represent yourself in your piece—and how favorably do you think readers will react to you as a professional writer in this discipline, even if they are not interested in your topic, or even if they disagree with you? I.e., what have you done to appeal to such readers?
• What kinds of research evidence and information have you provided in your piece, and why did you favor these kinds of support over others?
• Describe the style you developed for your piece in terms of word choice, sentence and paragraph structure, emotional tone, level of formality, etc.—and how do you hope this style will affect different readers?
• What kind of piece did you write, in terms of its form and function—and why?
• What kinds of persuasive strategies did you use in your piece, and why did you use these strategies instead of others?
• What specific kinds of revision did you do as you wrote and rewrote your drafts, and what prompted you to make these revisions?

Students can identify, then mark their drafts for:

1. A controlling idea, problem, or thesis
       ___ Yes         ___ No

2. A plan of how the essay will be organized and developed
       ___ Yes         ___ No

3. Paragraphs that show how the research fits the plan of organization and development
       ___ Yes         ___ No

4. Transitions that link paragraphs together
       ___ Yes         ___ No

5. Explanations that relate quoted material to the piece’s argument
       ___ Yes         ___ No

6. Acknowledgement of views that contradict
       ___ Yes         ___ No

7. A conclusion that recommends, asks questions, synthesizes—doesn’t merely  “sum up”
       ___ Yes         ___ No

8. The required minimum page length
       ___ Yes         ___ No

Avoid line-editing! Writers often repeat 3 or 4 common types of errors. Use this list to help students edit their own work. Get them to go through the list, identify their own problems, and make corrections. Or put the number of the problem in the corresponding margins of their drafts. Then require them to find and make corrections:

1. Missing comma after introductory element: Frankly I don’t know. (Frankly, I don’t know.)

2. Vague pronoun reference: If they took both of them, they will be stranded.  (If Jerry and Ann took both of the cars, their parents will be stranded.)

3. Missing comma in a compound sentence: She walked but I rode. (She walked, but I rode.)

4. Wrong words: There costing us a nominal leg. (They’re  costing us an arm and a leg.)

5. Missing commas with nonrestrictive element: Jo who’s the boss quit.  (Jo, who’s the boss, quit.)

6. Wrong/missing verb ending: Yesterday, he walk the dog.  (Yesterday, he walked the dog.)

7. Wrong/missing preposition: Lloyds of London is over at Union Street.  (Lloyds of London is on Union Street.)

8. Comma splice: I came to the bank, the robber had just left.  (When I came to the bank, the robber had just left.)

9. Missing/misplaced possessive apostrophe: Those boys mom asked about this semesters’ report.  (Those boys’ mom asked about this semester’s report.)

10. Unnecessary tense shift: Cary was laughing so hard she slips and falls. (Cary was laughing so hard, she slipped and fell.)
11. Unnecessary pronoun shift: If someone tries, you’ll succeed.  (If someone tries, she will succeed.)

12. Sentence fragment: The boat drifting away. Because he didn’t tie it to the post. (The boat was drifting away because he didn’t tie it to the post.)

13. Wrong tense/verb form: If I saw the police, I would of drove slower.  (If I’d seen the police, I would have driven slower.)

14. Lack of subject-verb agreement: One part of her chores are done.  (One part of her chores is done.)

15. Faulty parallelism: Is the market bullish, bearish or getting volatile? (Is the market getting bullish, bearish, or volatile?)

16. Non-agreement between pronoun/antecedent: Each person prefers their own chair. Each person prefers her own chair.)

17. Unnecessary comma(s) with restrictive element: The play, Othello, moved him.  (The play Othello moved him.)

18. Fused sentence: I liked the book I cried at the end.  (I liked the book. I cried at the end.)

19. Misplaced/dangling modifier: We saw the whales using binoculars.  (We used binoculars to see the whales.)

20. Its/it’s confusion: Its a red car on it’s side. (It’s a red car on its side).

21. Quotation mark confusion: He ordered me to “move it”. I replied, say “Please”. (He ordered me to move it. I replied, “Say ‘Please.’”)

Lunsford & Connors, Everyday Writer

Students can use this checklist on cited sources to see if:

All sources are documented in the preferred format for the course (This URL— http://www.wisc.edu/writetest/Handbook/index.html — provides updated guidelines for all styles)
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All paraphrased or directly cited sources are referenced in the text of a piece; long quotations in “block text” (indented 10 spaces, lines single spaced)
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All book titles or longer works are italicized or underlined; all article titles or short works are in “quotation marks”
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All bibliographical items are in alphabetical order on the “Works Cited” page
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All anonymously authored items are identified by the organization as author, or are listed starting with title
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All items are indented and spaced correctly
       ___ Yes         ___ No
All electronic sources have the correct URL, with date of posting and date they were collected, if appropriate
       ___ Yes         ___ No