Thinksheet 4 - Conventions

My Favorite Sport

Now that you have finished your rough draft, it’s time to do some editing and look at your writing for Conventions.

A. Look at your draft and look for places where two short sentences could be combined to make them smoother and less choppy. One way is by using an appositive which describes the word that comes right before it and is set off or separated from the rest of the sentence with commas.

Example: I played with John. He is my best friend. I played with John, my best friend.

Underline any sentences in your draft, which you think could be combined and write your new sentences here.

1. ______________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________

4. ______________________________________________________________________

B. Another way to expand short simple sentences and make them more elaborate is to add prepositional phrases or clauses that answer the questions where, when, how, and why?

Example: The girl/ saw the ball. Yesterday/on the way to school/the girl/heard the playful shouting of several kids/saw a boy/trying to climb/over a fence/ to get the ball that had rolled under a car.

Underline any sentences in your draft, which you think could be expanded and write your new sentences here.

1. ______________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________

4. ______________________________________________________________________

C. Now read your draft aloud to identify left-out words and other errors that you might have missed while reading silently. Write them down here.

1. ______________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________

4. ______________________________________________________________________

D. Now try this to help you catch spelling errors. Read your draft backwards. Mark the words you think are misspelled and write them here. Write down 3 possible ways to spell each word and choose the one spelling that looks right. Verify the spelling of the identified words that you have corrected with a dictionary or other reference resource.

1. _________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

2. _________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

3. _________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

4. _________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

5. _________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

E. Now you need to check for your draft for inconsistent verb tense because different verb tenses change the meaning of the sentence and may confuse the reader. Find the verbs in your draft and write them all here. Check that the verb tenses are consistent.

_________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

_________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

_________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

_________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

_________________ ________________ ________________ _______________

F. Now it’s time to find and correct run-on sentences and divide them into shorter complete sentences. Again, read your draft aloud and notice any sentences that seem particularly long with no pauses and may leave you a little out of breath. Write down the sentences here and divide them into shorter complete sentences by inserting periods and capital letters in the correct places.

1. ______________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________

4. ______________________________________________________________________