"Don't touch me!"
Error (Pet Peeve) #1: Poor Sentence Structure and Variety
The errors listed here are your instructor's primary pet peeves; however, the list is not exhaustive.
POOR SENTENCE STRUCTURE
The first common error that results in poor writing is poor sentence structure and variety.
Before we can understand how to avoid poor sentence structure, we need to understand good sentence structure. A basic simple sentence has a subject and a verb that expresses a complete thought (Does this sound familiar? It is probably a concept you learned in elementary school and reviewed in you Introductory English class in college).
Simple Sentence = Subject + Verb.
Sentence structure errors occur when a sentence does not have a subject or a verb or when a sentence contains too many without proper punctuation. These two sentence structure errors are called fragments and run-on sentences, respectively.
Check Your Understanding Activity
How could you correct the two example fragments and make them complete sentences?
A handsome man with dimples ______.
Impressing her parents Susan crawled across the floor for the first time.
How could you correct the one example of a run-on sentence and make it a complete sentence?
