Frequently Asked Questions, Part 1

 

Hi there, Roxy Readers! The Stone Writing Center helps lots of students each semester, and I’ve noticed that many of the same questions pop up time and time again. I’ve gathered the top 10 most frequently asked questions that come up when writing an essay to share with you, starting with the first five.

1. What is a thesis statement? A thesis statement is an important part of any essay because it tells the reader what you are talking about. The thesis statement is often the last sentence in your introduction and sets you up to talk about your main idea throughout the rest of your paragraphs. You might think of your thesis statement as your main argument in the essay. Even if you are not writing an argumentative essay, if your thesis statement is your argument, then the rest of your essay is you trying to prove that argument to your reader. This handout has some tips for writing a thesis statement and an example.
2. What is good academic word choice? This is another one that can be easy to catch but just as easy to do by accident. It is always important to use good academic word choice in your writing, but we often write in the same way that we talk, using second-person pronouns or contractions. These words that we use in our everyday speech would not be good academic word choice. Keep an eye out for words like, “you,” “we,” or “our,” and others like, “they’ve,” “it’s,” or “can’t.” While we might use these types of words all the time when we talk, it is important to find other words in our writing. With contractions, it can be as simple as spelling out the two words, but with second-person pronouns, it can be a little trickier. I’ve found that words like, “one,” “people,” or even, “they,” can be good replacements for words like, “you,” in an essay. 
3. What is a sentence fragment? Sentence fragments are sentences that can’t stand on their own, and they can be easy to miss sometimes. Remember that two main things are important for a sentence: a subject (noun) and an action (verb). A helpful tip to identify fragments is to read your writing aloud. If you ever catch a sentence that doesn’t quite make sense on its own, then chances are that it might just be a fragment. Check out this Fragments handout for more information.
4. What is a run-on sentence? On the other end of the spectrum from sentence fragments, we have run-on sentences. Usually, we may think of a run-on as a sentence that is just too long, going on and on. Run-on sentences are a bit more common than that and can even found in shorter sentences. A run-on sentence is a sentence that is missing important punctuation. For example, if you are using two complete thoughts or independent clauses in a sentence, they will usually need a comma and a conjunction to separate them. For example, “Jim is running and he is jumping,” is actually a run-on sentence. We can fix this one up by simply putting a comma before the conjunction, “and.” That will give us a compound sentence instead! You can find more information about run-on sentences here.
5. What is a comma splice? Now this one is very similar to the run-on sentence. With a run-on sentence, a sentence can be missing a comma before the conjunction. Comma splices, on the other hand, are missing the conjunction after the comma. Going back to our example, the sentence, “Jim is running, he is jumping,” is a comma splice. We can fix this sentence in almost the same way that we did before. Here, we would just put a conjunction, like the word, “and,” after our comma to make this into a compound sentence. See this helpful handout on comma splices for more examples.

I hope I’ve been able to answer some of your writing-related questions today, Roxy Readers, and stay tuned for the rest of our frequently-asked questions!

See you next time the sun is up, the breeze is cool, and the waves roll into view. ‘Til then, hang ten!

Roxy