marking symbols

Greek belief in nobility.
The phrase "in the process" interrupts the flow of the sentence; it should come at the beginning or the end. In addition, the modifier "almost" is placed awkwardly: it splits an infinitive, and should be closer to the verb it modifies. A more effective way to structure the sentence would be this: In the process, Cocteau almost seems to ridicule the Greek belief in nobility.
Agr (Agreement)
Subject and verb do not match, or pronoun and antecedent. The easiest way to make this error is simply to forget an "s": "The quick brown fox jump over the lazy dog." More complicated agreement problems arise with multiple subjects, intervening phrases and pronouns. See the section on agreement in the grammar section for further information.
See the full discussion on comma splices in the pages about sentences.
Dangling or Misplaced Modifier (Dgl)
A dangling modifier has been placed in a sentence where it has nothing to modify: ---Flying into Victoria, the trees looked lovely. This sentence suggests that the trees are flying. The sentence must be reworked so that the person doing the flying is mentioned. A misplaced modifier has been placed next to the wrong word: ---He attacked the dragon with a sword. The sentence suggests that it's the the dragon that has the sword. While the meaning is often clear in context, the sentence would benefit from rewriting ---He drew his sword and attacked the dragon. For more, see the discussion on dangling modifiers in the section ont (Frag)
A sentence fragment is a sentence without a verb. Usually the student is appending a phrases to a sentence, but does not understand the function of semi-colons or parentheses: semi---There ---There are a few events in the play which are important both in themselves and symbolically. The first one being the plucking of Gloucester's eyes. Every sentence must have a subject and a verb (in this case, there is no verb, only a participle ). For more, see the page on sentence fragments in the section on sentences.
Marking Symbols
Presented by Liu Tianlun (刘天伦) (刘天伦 刘天伦) English Department School of Foreign Language Studies Nanchang University
1
Index
Agr (Agreement) Amb (Ambiguity) Awk (Awkward) Colloq (Colloquial) Constr (Construction) CS (Comma Splice) Dgl (Dangling Modifier) Frag (Fragment) Id (Idiom) Para(Paragraph) ll (Parallelism) P (Pronoun
Ambiguous (Amb)
Whether the error is one of grammar or diction, the comment ambiguous means that what you have written is confusing. An example of grammatical ambiguity is the following pair of sentences: Biff is presented to us as an All-American boy. As he grows up all AllWilly can do is criticize his son. This construction implies that it is Willy who is doing the growinggrowing-up, rather than Biff. (The sentences need to be reworked: "Biff is presented to us as an All-American boy. As he grows up, Allhe receives nothing but criticism from Willy." Ambiguity can also be produced by a mistake in vocabulary (many --see, examples are dealt with in the Dictionary of Usage (45Kb) --see, for example, the entries on allusion/illusion and continual/continuous or word order (is a "big boys' school" a big school for boys or a school for big boys?).
Awkward (Awk)
This term can cover a variety of errors, but in general applies to anything unwieldy in your essay. Sentences become awkward through a combination of structural flaws, wordiness and incorrect usage. ---For King Lear, because of the one fault he makes, he pays for it
Colloquial (Colloq)
The word or phrase you have used is inappropriate in a formal essay, because it is too slangy: ---The ---The very idea of Titania falling in love with Bottom seems a tad preposterous. preposterous. Or the grammar may be too loose, too conversational: Another thing is, every sentence ends with a question mark.
dearly.
This sentence is awkward because it contains an extra phrase that does not fit grammatically ("For King Lear") and because the student uses "fault" unidiomatically (a better word would be "error"). A subordinate clause or phrase placed incorrectly can cause confusion or awkwardness: ----Besides ----Besides that of her parents, it is not until Jane arrives at Lowood that she experiences love. The opening clause should be at the end: