Essentials of English Usage
Following are some problems commonly found in college students' writing. Each type of problem is identified by a general abbreviation that your professor may use to indicate the presence of this error in your sentence. This list includes errors (that is, violations of rules of grammar and punctuation) as well as problems of expression.
Choose your area of inexpertise:
| act | active vs. passive voice | poss | possessives |
| agr | agreement | pr | primer style |
| ca | case | p-ref | pronoun reference |
| cite | citation | p | punctuation |
| cs | comma splice | pq | punctuation of quotations |
| cg | congruity | ps | subordinate elements, punctuation of |
| da | dangling element | r | run-on |
| d | diction | semi | semicolon use |
| f | fragment | sxt | sexist language |
| j | jargon | su | subordination |
| mp | misplaced modifier | t | tense |
| m | mood | u | unity |
| pl | parallelism | w | wordiness |
| pv | passive voice |
Contact
Office / Department Name
Nesbitt-Johnston Writing Center
Contact Name
Jennifer Ambrose
Writing Center Director
Office Location
Kirner-Johnson 152
Email
Hours
M
–
10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Tu
–
10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
W
–
10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Th
–
10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Fr
–
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Su
–
1 p.m. - 10 p.m.
