Read the following excerpt from a student essay. How can the writer best improve his or her grammar and mechanics?
In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip, a young orphan, is sent by his sister to the home of Miss Havisham, a wealthy, eccentric woman. There he meets Estella, a beautiful girl whom he falls hopelessly in love with. On one visit to Miss Havisham's, Pip encounters a boy who challenges him to a fight; wanting to impress Estella, he hits the boy. "I never have been so surprised in my life as I was when I let out the first blow and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose", Pip recounts. Estella seems delighted and says to Pip "Come here! You may kiss me if you like".
by fixing run-on sentences by punctuating quotations correctly by using semicolons correctly
During peer review, you read and respond to a fellow student's writing. While there are many methods and strategies that you can use for reviewing a text, it is generally helpful to frame your suggestions in concrete and constructive ways and to consider the following areas for revision:
Ideas and development: Does the writer express a clear idea and develop it with evidence, examples, or analysis?
Organization: Does the writer order ideas in a clear, logical way so that they build on one another and are easy to follow?
Voice: Does the writer maintain an appropriate voice, such as a formal and objective voice in an academic essay or an engaging and expressive voice in a narrative essay?
Sentence fluency: Does the writer use sentences that vary in structure and length to create a sense of rhythm and flow within and between sentences, or does the writing sound choppy, rambling, or repetitive?
Word choice: Does the writer use words accurately and precisely to create clear, effective, and engaging writing?
Grammar and mechanics: Does the writer follow appropriate conventions, using accurate spelling, punctuation, and grammar to create writing that is correct and easy to read?
The writer could best improve his or her grammar and mechanics by punctuating quotations correctly.
For example, the writer could revise the underlined text by placing periods and commas inside the quotation marks and by using a comma before the second quotation.
In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip, a young orphan, is sent by his sister to the home of Miss Havisham, a wealthy, eccentric woman. There he meets Estella, a beautiful girl whom he falls hopelessly in love with. On one visit to Miss Havisham's, Pip encounters a boy who challenges him to a fight; wanting to impress Estella, he hits the boy. "I never have been so surprised in my life as I was when I let out the first blow and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose", Pip recounts. Estella seems delighted and says to Pip "Come here! You may kiss me if you like".