REVISION SYMBOLS FOR LITERARY PAPERS



NUMBER SYMBOL ON PAPER

CORRESPONDING ERROR

1

 Weak progression of ideas/weak organization/weak topic sentences
2 Inadequate development of thesis with details, examples, supporting quotations, textual evidence
3 Weak, vague, factual, and/or missing thesis statement
4 Excessive clutter (repetition/wordiness/empty phrases/redundancy/clichés, etc.)
5 Sentence pattern lacks variety (needs coordination/subordination, etc.)
6 Faulty logic: hasty generalizations, false analogies, etc.
7 Lack of unity and/or coherence (weak/missing transitions, etc.)
8 Weak/vague/missing topic sentence/ one that uses quotation as topic sentence
9 Awkward/stringy/vague syntax
10 Ambiguous/unclear meaning
11 Faulty/nonstandard/imprecise level of usage/diction/idiomatic expressions
12 Faulty sentence structure: run-on (fused), comma splice, fragment
13 Faulty modification, misplaced and/or dangling
14 Faulty parallel structure
15 Faulty comparison
16 Faulty predication (In the novel it says . . .; The reason is because . . .; This is when; etc.)
17 Faulty agreement of subject/verb
18 Faulty/vague pronoun/antecedent reference
19 Faulty shift in person or tense
20 Faulty pronoun case (he/him, we/us, etc.)
21 Faulty tense or verb form and/or failure to stay in literary present tense
22 Excessive be forms, expletives, weak intensifiers, and/or passive voice
23 Errors in punctuation and spelling
24 Faulty introduction of excerpted material
25 Excessive summary in place of analysis
26 Failure to support assertion(s) with textual or other evidence
27 Faulty parenthetical/bibliographic form; MLA style required
28 Failure to document source(s) of excerpted material
29 Failure to follow format guidelines (see Mechanics Page in syllabus)
30 Please see me for clarification
31 Writing Center consultations recommended

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