Glossary

apostrophe	a punctuation mark generally used in order 1) to show the omission of one or more letters in a contraction, and 2) to show ownership or possession



comma splices	incorrect use of a comma to connect ("splice" together) two complete thoughts. Ex.: I go to school, my brother stays home.



editing	revising a piece of writing with particular attention to grammar, style, punctuation, and other mechanical issues



expository patterns of development	patterns of paragraph development such as illustration, classification, cause and effect, process analysis and comparison/contrast



proofreading	the last step of paper preparation: carefully re-reading the near-finished draft, checking for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format.



sensory details	descriptive evidence that appeals to a reader's sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch



sentence fragment	a word group that lacks a subject or a verb and/or one that does not express a complete thought. Ex.: Whenever I go to school. ("Whenever," introduces a dependent clause, so it cannot stand alone.)

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.