Laudable endeavors & less satisfactory sentences

COLLEGE PREP :TOPICS IN LITERATURE

LAUDABLE ENDEAVORS

• “All of my friends judged and criticized me for choosing to attend RHS. Even my parents objected once I have informed them about my decision.”

LESS Laudable Endeavors

• “When you put attention to something, you can always do good and feel good about yourself.”

Laudable Endeavors

• “Although some of my family members are generally supportive and positive, some of them are unknowingly offensive.”

LESS Laudable Endeavors

• “Im good, man, an’ I’m thinkin’ to myself, well, its like Im a good writter.”

• “My writting should get better.”

Laudable Endeavors

• “However, my dream was shattered not too long after revealing my fantasy to my mother about becoming an FBI agent.”

LESS Laudable Endeavors

• “ Once I started that stuff, everybody always thing that the thing I was doing was too hard.” (about taking up AP)

• “Once I got placed in that class, I thought everything was going to be pretty easy.”

Common Spelling Errors

• writting WRITING• more better BETTER• Thanks God THANK GOD• englis, english, spanish English,

Spanish

Common Spelling Errors: “Look-alikes, sound alikes”

• Then vs than• There vs. they’re vs. their• Quiet vs. quite• It’s vs. its

Avoid the following:

• “In my country, we respect our religion.”

• What country? Name it?• Who is we? Iranians, Iraqi, Mexicans,

Ecuadorians…• What’s “our religion?” Does it have a name? Islam? (not

Moslem/Muslim)Christianity?

Stay away from the following words in formal writing:

Good, bad, happy , sad,, Stuff, thing, thingy, ok, okay, weirdo (slang, unspecific words)

Everything, everyone, everybody, anyone, anything

People (unless NATION)

You (avoid “I” unless writing a personal narrative)“I think” (we know that you think)

Awesome, cool, wonderful, great, amazing, great, nice

Basically, actually, really

There is/there are

A little bit, a bit, get (better, interested, taller),

Reporting Verbs

• When using reported speech, most students learn to use "say" and "tell":

• Examples:• John told me he was going to stay late at work.

Peter said he wanted to visit his parents that weekend.

• These forms are perfectly correct for reporting what others have said. However, there are a number of other reporting verbs which can more accurately describe what someone has said.

Reporting Verbs• advise

encourageinviteremindwarn

• agreedecideofferpromiserefusethreaten

• admitagreedecidedenyexplaininsistpromiserecommendsuggest

• reprimand

denyrecommendsuggestaccuseblamecongratulateapologizeinsistinformexpress