When you make a list in any kind of writing, whether it is a resume, an essay, or an article to be published, there are a few specific rules to follow.

Begin a list with a statement introducing the list. The statement ends with a colon. Here are some examples.

I have extensive editing skills:

-Three years volunteering with student newspaper;

-Two years in a professional consulting firm;

-Twenty years freelance editing.

Editing tasks that I undertake when reviewing a paper include:

-Proofreading all copy for misspelled words;

-Reviewing all sentences for run-ons or sentence fragments;

-Checking logic for consistency and flow;

-Checking paragraph transitions for logic and flow.

Each item in the list must be in the same grammatical form. In the first example above the list items were all things. There were no list items in verb form with -ing. In the second list all items were in the verb form, and did include the -ing form. It is also important that all verbs be in the same form, so if you use the -ing form, they should all be -ing form. If not the -ing form, then all should be present tense or past tense. Just make sure they are the same.

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That this is a key point in the novel is clear by the fact that no fewer than sixteen searches directed for this quote have arrived at my website in the last month alone.  Amazingly, To Kill A Mockingbird remains one of the most taught novels in high school after almost fifty years in print. And no wonder, it is a great novel containing social change, metaphor and powerful images of growing up in a time where innocence was still possible.

One of the aspects that is useful to look at is the image of the mockingbird. The title of the novel comes from the admonition by Atticus to Scout and Jem when Jem receives an air rifle for Christmas that he should not shoot at mockingbirds. “Shoot at all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (p 90) Immediately after that, Miss Maudie explains why it’s a sin. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing, but make music for us to enjoy.” Throughout the novel, various characters are symbolized by the mockingbird because they are not harming anyone, yet they are treated badly.

Certainly Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are the most obvious mockingbirds in the novel, but it can also be shown that Mayella is also a symbolic mockinbird. Mayella does try to make life better for those around her. She plants geraniums in front of the Ewell home (p. 170). Additionally, Scout’s narrative makes reference to how Mayella looked as if she bathed regularly, unlike the rest of  her clan (p 179.) Scout’s narrative emphasizes Mayella’s pathetic situation when she describes her  as “the loneliest person in the world.” (p 193) Scout even compares her to Boo Radley, another mockingbird.

Other characters who might be described as mockingbirds include Dolphus Raymond who only wanted to live with the woman he loved, but had to feign drunkeness in order to keep the town off his back. Of course the key to the novel is to recognize that the way America treated its black citizens after freeing them from slavery was like killing mockingbirds; after they contributed their blood, sweat and toil to building a country out of the wilderness, they were kept from enjoying the wealth that they created.

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The health care reform has been the source of avid discussions and controversies among all the stakeholders of the Health Care Industry. President Obama finally got a vote from the legislative branch. This action stems from President George W. Bush who introduced in 2004 an initiative to promote the development of a nationwide system of health information technology. He appointed Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary to spearhead the mission impossible of providing all American citizens the access to an electronic medical record by 2014. This means the industry must adopt a technology infrastructure for the health care system at large by bringing together various stakeholders with different needs and agendas.
It is important to keep reminding the stakeholders about the goal of CMR. It is short change to attribute the success to only transferring data from paper to electronic format. It is instead to transform the sector of healthcare into a system of healthcare where all stakeholders, primarily consumers, can obtain information about the quality and the cost related to their health care.

The opening sentence is fine, except we don’t need to capitalize “Health Care Industry.” People often capitalize important words in error. We only capitalize proper nouns: names or titles. This is a stylist issue, so you might see differences from one publication to another, but in general, we avoid capitals. As I was once taught: CapiTals jAr the EYe. Ask yourself: “Is this a name?” If the answer is “yes,” then, by all means, use capitals. So we would capitalize “Health Care Reform Council” since it’s the name of an organization, but health care industry is simply a general concept in which to group some businesses.

Next we have some jumps in logic. The paragraph mentions the recent vote in Congress on the reform package promoted by President Obama. Then it jumps way back to President Bush. The whole thing could read better if there was some discussion about the recent vote, then introducing the Bush measures as background. Additionally, I think the logic is weak to equate the changes Obama promoted, which extended health care to millions of Americans who were without health insurance with changes to record-keeping promoted by Bush. I’d really want more information to be able to link the two.

In the beginning of the second paragraph the writer refers to CMR. I’m not in the health care industry, so I don’t know what this means. It’s standard, when using an acronym like that to follow the first mention with the full name in parentheses. “…the goal of CMR (Cosmic Mindful Rejuvenation).”  The phrase “It is short change…” seems wrong. Clearly the logic is that it is not enough. But “short change” means someone is being cheated and we have to do some pretty fancy writing to retain the phrase while fixing the logic. So let’s just change it to say: “It is not enough to attribute the success…” Then we change the following sentence to “The process is a transformation of the sector of healthcare into a system where…” I eliminated the repetition of the word “healthcare” here as it was not necessary.

Overall, it’s not a bad introduction to an essay. It started with a general statement, then moved into an item of current interest and then toward the meat of the discussion, the changes of medical information. All that it needs is a little more work to link the logic. If we revise it, with a few additional grammar changes it becomes:

The health care reform has been the source of avid discussions and controversies among all the stakeholders of the Health Care Industry. President Obama recently got a vote from the legislative branch on a reform package to extend coverage to millions of Americans. Previous presidents have also sought reform on aspects of healthcare policy. President George W. Bush introduced, in 2004, an initiative to promote the development of a nationwide system of health information technology. Bush appointed Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary, to spearhead the mission impossible of providing all American citizens the access to an electronic medical record by 2014. This means the industry must adopt a technology infrastructure for the health care system at large by bringing together various stakeholders with different needs and agendas.
It is important to keep reminding the stakeholders about the goal of CMR (C– M– R–). It is not enough to attribute the success of CMR to only transferring data from paper to electronic format. The process is a transfomation of the sector of healthcare into a system of healthcare where all stakeholders, primarily consumers, can obtain information about the quality and the cost related to their health care.

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The first step to writing an outline is to state your thesis. Since the thesis is the idea you are trying to prove in your essay, every sentence should relate to the thesis. The thesis is the biggest idea; each paragraph after the introduction supports the thesis. Therefore the second step to writing an outline is to write the topic sentence for each paragraph that will support your thesis.

So, if your thesis is that To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel which is symbolic of America coming  to terms with its racist past, you’d write that as the first poing in your outline. Your body paragraphs would prove each of these points: it’s about growing up; it’s about racism; the point of view of racism changes during the novel.

1. To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel which is symbolic of America coming to terms with its racist past.
   1. The narrator is a young girl who is growing up.
   2. The key plot element is racism of the society.
   3. The narrator’s point of view shifts during the course of the novel.

With this outline, you could easily write a 5 paragraph essay. In your introductory paragraph, you would write some general statements about racism in the past in America. You could use any number of observations, historical facts or general plot summaries from the novel to introduce the thesis. In the next paragraph you would introduce the narrator, Scout, establish her age and cite details from the novel which establish her naive point of view. The third paragraph would summarize the events leading to Tom Robinson’s charge of rape including how black people are generally treated in Maycomb. If you were writing a longer essay, there are many plot elements to discuss such that you could write several paragraphs, or even pages about the way racism is depicted in the novel.

For the final body paragraph, you would cite evidence from the later pages about how Scout comes to see the truth about how people treat black people. The derogatory statements said about Tom when he is killed on a desperate attempt to escape custody are one example of the town’s racist beliefs. That black people have ordinary lives and families is revealed in the chapter where Scout and Jem visit Calpurnia’s church. To show how this is revealed symbolically, you could show the parallel of how Scout discovers that Boo Radley is not the evil monster everyone had believed. As Scout’s point of view toward Boo changes, so does the understanding that black people are not different from white people. There is a lot of material here, as well, and this could be several paragraphs or pages.

Finally, following the outline, you could write a concluding paragraph that sums up the evidence presented and presents the conclusion.

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In Shakespeare’s time fate has played an important role in peoples lifes. Shakespeare shows this in his play “Romeo and Juliet”, fate starts the play and is relied on till the end of the play. The element of fate starts from the first time Romeo see’s juliet to Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths. Shakespeare relies on this element of fate in his play “Romeo and Juliet”.

Suggested changes are below in red.

Many art works are based on the idea that fate has played an important role in peoples lives. Shakespeare shows this in his play “Romeo and Juliet”: fate starts the play and is relied on till the end of the play. The element of fate starts from the first time Romeo sees Juliet to Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths. Shakespeare relies on the element of fate throughout his play “Romeo and Juliet”.

Editor’s notes: I changes the first sentence because the idea of fate is not just around in Shakespeare’s times. If we make this a more general statement it is a good way to begin the essay on fate.

I changed the comma to a colon in the second sentence to fix a run on sentence.

You put an apostrophe in “sees”. Ugh! Verbs never take apostrophes. Read the section on apostrophes on my website. You’ve used them correctly in “Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths.”

You are really clear about tying the introduction to the thesis of fate (maybe even a little repetitive). You could back off a little, and summarize the plot before tying the summary to the idea of fate.

Good work!

Essay Question: The Automobile
Starting from the 1700′s, creative thinkers began to wonder about ways to travel to places without using horses which would tire. All types of motors were tested by the mid 1800′s including steam, combustion, and electric. It was unclear which motor was best fit to handle an automobile’s job, which included carrying people and things safely to a certain place. Every motor was tested and all them had certain problems, the electric cars were tough to operate, and expensive. The steam motor was more accessible but no one wanted to risk a boiler explosion. The light seemed to be shining on the combustion engine, which were reliable and the safest compared with the other motors. The production started on the commercial scale in France on 1890, and ten years later, American pioneers started to build cars in factories. One of the few negative sides about the automobile was that it was expensive and only the wealthy could afford one. Moreover, the productions of cars were very slow, and people had to wait forever, in order to purchase a car. That huge problem was fixed by Henry Ford, who sped up production by using a new method, the assembly line. He produced the Model-T as a car for the average American citizen. By 1920, he sold more than a million of his cars; the automobile became a national need. People worked hard to get a car; they would be freed to live anywhere they liked, and they could explore the wonderful work of nature. Of all the inventions during the 1920′s, the invention of the automobile was the most important, it affected America economically, socially and geographically.

Lots more text after this…deleted.

Suggested changes are below in red.Starting from the 1700s, creative thinkers began to wonder about ways to travel to places without using horses which would tire. All types of motors were tested by the mid 1800s including steam, combustion, and electric. It was unclear which motor was best fit to handle an automobile’s job, which included carrying people and things safely to a certain place. Every motor was tested and all them had certain problems: the electric cars were tough to operate, and expensive. The steam motor was more accessible but no one wanted to risk a boiler explosion. The light seemed to be shining on the combustion engine, which was the most reliable and the safest compared to the other motors. Production started on a commercial scale in France on 1890, and ten years later, American pioneers started to build cars in factories. One of the few negative sides to the automobile was that it was expensive and only the wealthy could afford one. Moreover, the production of cars were very slow, and people had to wait forever in order to purchase a car. That huge problem was fixed by Henry Ford, who sped up production by using a new method: the assembly line. He produced the Model-T as a car for the average American citizen. By 1920, he had sold more than a million of his cars; the automobile became a national need. People worked hard to get a car; they would be freed to live anywhere they liked, and they could explore the wonderful world of nature. Of all the inventions during the 1920s, the invention of the automobile was the most important, it affected America economically, socially and geographically.Editor’s notes: I deleted the apostrophe in the years because we do not use an apostrophe in simple plurals; numbers are no different. It is common to use an apostrophe in this context; however, it is still wrong. I replaced a comma with a colon in two places: “…certain problems: the electric cars … and “…using a new method: the assembly…” Additionally, although the phrase “work of nature” is not wrong grammatically, it seemed more natural to write “world of nature.” The other changes should be self-evident.

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The first point is that you have used the pronoun “they” for an unspecified person. I know this avoids the gender question of he or she, but to a grammatical purist it’s wrong because “they” is for a plural subject. Some people would insist on using “he” regardless of the sexist implication. I think the best solution is to alternate using “he” and “she” in the balance of the essay. These two paragraphs lack focus. I can see that you are struggling with the topic of the purpose of life, but you don’t have a clear direction. In the first paragraph you say the purpose is “whom we are living for” but then in the next paragraph you dance around the idea without going anywhere.

Here are some ideas: the purpose of life is to be of service. This means to contribute to society. Some forms of contribution include citizenship: participating in elections, volunteering, community activism, or just engaging in a positive way with one’s neighbours. Service can also mean being a good family member: spouse, child, parent. Being of service to the community can also mean being an environmental leader. This includes making lifestyle choices that reduce the general impact on the environment. People who choose to use public transit when driving a car is more convenient are being of service to us all.

Everyone at some point in their life wants to know that if they have a purpose in life. But what exactly are we living for? Why are we living? Some say that we are living to be happy and to have fun in our live while others say that we are living to make money or to get ahead in the time we have, I say that we are living for someone else, someone who really is important to you in everyway. It’s not a matter of why were born or why we are alive. It’s a matter of “whom we are living for.” Some of us don’t really want to be the most important things to everyone but we at least want to know that we are wanted or needed by one person or another.
Most people reach a point of pure selfishness where we seek love or friendship for the feeling that we are being appreciated, however, during this process, there are others who can’t fulfill the needs of others. You cannot always be there for everyone because people these days are having enough trouble trying to be there for one person that they truly love. Everyone cannot be superman and help people but the ones you do help does make a difference. Some people don’t want to be famous or well-known to everyone, but they want to be known as something special to someone that they really care about.
It’s basically saying that it’s nearly impossible to be meaningful and important to everyone even though that is an admirable aspiration. It’s just not realistic. If you do attain that level of significance, it’s an amazing accomplishment; however, it is not a necessary achievement to be great or important.

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Grammar Question: Young women today may be told to appreciate the world they live in because it is filled with possibilities and endless dreams that were not allowed to women living a century ago. Women are now able to work in a factory and not get weaker pay or discriminated against. Women may have received the right to their vote, but male-chauvinists still exist. Seeing a female on the side of the road is rare because it is a stereotypical scene. Mechanics are one of many male-oriented hobbies that inhabit self-abusing lifestyles.

Below are some suggested changes in red:

Young women today may be told to appreciate the world they live in because it is filled with possibilities and endless dreams that were not allowed to women living a century ago. Women are now able to work in a factory and not get lower pay or be discriminated against. Women may have received the right to their vote, but male-chauvinists still exist. Seeing a female on the side of the road is rare because it is a stereotypical scene. Mechanics are one of many male-oriented hobbies that inhabit self-abusing lifestyles.

I highlighted the entire last sentence because I not only don’t know what it has to do with the rest of the paragraph; I don’t know what it means! “…inhabit self-abusing lifestyles…” ??? Here’s a wild guess: Mechanics are one of the male-oriented lifestyles that women can also enjoy. Or are you really trying to say something about the relationship of mechanics and male chauvinism? Then  perhaps: Mechanics are one of the many male-oriented hobbies that are often the domain of chauvinists.

I guess what I would want to clarify is what is the paragraph about? Is it principally about how women have many more choices today despite the fact that some old attitudes still persist? Or was the introduction about choices leading us to an essay that tells us that many negative factors still exist to challenge women? In any case the phrase “self-abusing lifestyles” seems to be meaningless and demeaning, which should not be a part of an essay.

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Mary Shelly is a very influential author, but there a lot more to her writing, which was deeply affected by all her personal issues. This is reflected in her novel Frankenstein. You can see her pain all through the book. Mary Shelly was inspired by her parents, her era, and mainly her dead children.

Editor’s notes: this is a good introduction, it tells us what is to come. I deleted some repetitive bits and joined the first two sentence to make one smoother sentence.

Mary Shelly was influenced by her parents to be a writer and this influence shaped her career. Mary’s father, Mr. William Godwin, was a famous philosopher and anarchist. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist, was writer of the Vindication of the Rights of Women. Her mother and father both change their era greatly. Mary Shelly never met her mother; she died of birth complications 10 days after she gave birth to Mary due to puerial fever. Mary’s father re-married to Mary Jane Clairmont. Mary Shelly did not like her. According to Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, she “construed Mrs. Godwin as the opposite of everything that she had learn to worship in her own dead mother.” Because Mary Shelly’s father was a very famous philosopher, from an early age Mary  was surrounded by famous writers, philosophers and poets. (About.com) This was an influence that pushed her to be a very successful author.

Editor’s notes: Sentence 1: the use of “somewhat” makes the sentence weak. In your essay you should be focusing on things that did or didn’t happen, but don’t bother with weak words like “somewhat.” I set off “Mr. William Godwin” in commas because that makes it a restrictive clause. A restrictive clause provides an explanation for something. Then I added a verb, “was,” to make the sentence complete. In the next sentence, you use the verb “was” which makes it a correct sentence, but I added commas around the name as before. I also took the parenthetical expression and moved it into the sentence as a restrictive clause. You used curly brackets (perhaps it was a computer error and the curly brackets were put in by the email program) but we don’t normally use those in writing. Additionally, I changed the reference slightly from “the first known feminist” to “an early feminist” because expressions like ”the first” and ”best” are hard to prove. I think it’s quite likely someone could come up with an earlier woman who could be considered a feminist. Then there’s a bunch of stuff that looks like you made some editing mistakes. We didn’t need to repeat the reference to the name of Mary’s father, so I tightened things up here to get to the important point that the visitors to the home that influenced Mary. I also changed the reference from About.com to one that is in the text, just because it shows another way to make a reference in APA style. I took the last sentence of this paragraph and moved it to the beginning of the next paragraph because it seems more apropriate as an introductory sentence.

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The exercises and training that I would do for the “Iron Man” contest in Hawaii is really simple. I would want to start doing this plan that you are about to read months before the “Iron Man” contest. First thing in the morning, I would wake up and make some really healthy breakfast and some protein shakes. After I eat the healthy breakfast, I would go jogging around the neighborhood. When I complete my jogging, since I my body and heart is pumping, I would rest for a few minutes. I don’t want to over work myself and end up in bad shape. Then soon after my break I would go to the fitness center. The type of exercise I would want to do to be getting ready for this contest is some sit-ups, jumping jacks, ride the exercising bikes, steppers, and lots of more stuff to keep me in the shape that I need to be in for this huge contest. When I finish working out at the fitness center, I would go home and make an healthy lunch and drink a protein shake. Then I would go to my treadmill and walk on there for about an half hour to an hour. After that I know I am going to get tired. So I would go take a two hour nap. Like I said I don’t want to over work my body. After I get my rest in, I would want to go to the swimming pool, so I can swim so laps. Swimming is such good exercise. After I am done lapping the pool, I would only rest about fifteen minutes. Then I would start jogging again around the neighborhood. Then I would make a healthy dinner and drink another protein shake. But the day isn’t quite over with yet. I would start to doing yoga, to relax my body from doing all of the work and training I did. Then I would go take a nice warm shower. Then go to bed, just to wake up and start the retain over again.

Let’s look at this one sentence at a time:

The exercises and training that I would do for the “Iron Man” contest in Hawaii is really simple.

In the first sentence we have a problem of agreement. “Exercises and training” is plural; therefore, the verb should be “are.”

I would want to start doing this plan that you are about to read months before the “Iron Man” contest.

This sentence is not too bad, but should have commas to set off the restrictive clause “that you are about to read about.” I’d actually recommend removing this clause all together because it is not necessary. In any case, it is misplaced, it appears to modify when we are reading the plan. How about: I would want to start doing this plan months before the “Iron Man” contest.

First thing in the morning, I would wake up and make some really healthy breakfast and some protein shakes.

Nice sentence.

After I eat the healthy breakfast, I would go jogging around the neighborhood.

Nice sentence.

When I complete my jogging, since I my body and heart is pumping, I would rest for a few minutes.

I don’t want to over work myself and end up in bad shape.

Then soon after my break I would go to the fitness center.

These are all great.

The type of exercise I would want to do to be getting ready for this contest is some sit-ups, jumping jacks, ride the exercising bikes, steppers, and lots of more stuff to keep me in the shape that I need to be in for this huge contest.

It’s important in lists to keep the grammatical form of the list items identical. We can fix this sentence first by introducing it as a list with the items following a colon. “I would do the following forms of exercise: sit-ups, jumping jacks, exercise bike riding, stair climbing and more to keep me in the shape that I need to be in for this huge contest.”

 When I finish working out at the fitness center, I would go home and make an healthy lunch and drink a protein shake.

 Then I would go to my treadmill and walk on it for about an half hour to an hour.

After that I know I am going to get tired.

So I would go take a two hour nap.

Like I said I don’t want to over work my body.

These three sentences should be combined: After that I know I am going to get tired, so I would go and take a two hour nap because I don’t want to overwork my body.

After I get my rest in, I would want to go to the swimming pool, so I can swim so laps.

Swimming is such good exercise.

After I am done lapping the pool, I would only rest about fifteen minutes.

Then I would start jogging again around the neighborhood.

Then I would make a healthy dinner and drink another protein shake.

But the day isn’t quite over with yet.

I would start to doing yoga, to relax my body from doing all of the work and training I did.

Then I would go take a nice warm shower.

All of these are good sentences, I have one final suggestion for the ending sentence. She’s used the word “then” quite a few times and it’s best to try to avoide repetition.

Finally, I would go to bed, just to wake up and start the retain over again.

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