I need to write an editing test ASAP (interviewing a guy Weds. afternoon). I’m thinking of a couple of paragraphs, sprinkled, of course, with deliberate mistakes (and perhaps a couple of things that aren’t really mistakes, but look like they are – I haven’t entirely decided how evil to get with this).
So far, I’ve come up with:
[ul]
[li]Accommodate, embarrass – these are my two main words whose spelling I’m never confident about – are there other good ones?[/li][li]A singular/plural noun/verb agreement error[/li][li]Its vs. it’s[/li][li]A verb tense error[/li][li]Screwy punctuation (semicolons or something; comma outside quotes?)[/li][li]Sentence-ending preposition (see above )[/li][li]Sentence fragment[/li][/ul]
What else do I need? Should I throw in “hopefully”? I personally don’t have a huge problem with it in informal writing, since there really is no one-word substititution for it.
Yes, but you shouldn’t penalize someone for not correcting a sentence with a preposition at the end. Leaving it in may be a sign they know what they’re talking about. Hopefully, they won’t lose the job because they use a disputed usage.
Also, sentence fragments can be very effective writing. Or not. It depends on the usage, so make sure it’s one that doesn’t work otherwise.
If I was you, I’d consider giving examples where the subjunctive mood is preferred.
1 on the errors should consider the proper use of numerals vs. spelled-out numbers.
Something about the use of “that” and “which” that is often confusing – but again you need to show an example which isn’t ambiguous.
Also, make sure the know the proper affect of using “affect” and “effect” incorrectly.
I would NOT include comma outside quotes - there is enough disagreement there (Amercian vs. British for one thing) to make it reasonable that someone would leave it alone.
The you’re/your couple and the there/their/they’re triple are always good. And I agree about the subjunctive - have a sentence saying “If he would have done it correctly, we would have won the game.” or something like that. Sets MY teeth on edge every time.
You might want to try something rather blatant, like “If he could of…” Oh, and for heaven’s sake, get the lie/lay thing in there. I cringe every time I hear someone (often otherwise quite civilized) tell his or her dog to “Lay down.”
Some stylistic things that, if flagged, might give you an indication of the personality, even though they’re not necessarily right or wrong:
Capitalising headlines (per the OP) or not.
Plural abbreviations.
Use of capitalisation in acronyms.
Collective nouns and verb agreement (“The NYPD say…”).
every day/everyday
who’s/whose
then/than
would of/could of/should of
less/fewer
loose/lose
breathe/breath
appraise/apprise
stationary/stationery
advice/advise
conscious/conscience
to/too
Sprinkle apostrophes liberally throughout.
judgment NOT judgement
Web site NOT Web sight or cite
Unique doesn’t take a modifier
Free doesn’t either
Oriented NOT orientated (even if it’s fun to say)
Intents and purposes NOT intensive purposes
A lot NOT alot
The one that always makes me shake my clenched fist is “comprise.” Most people seem to use it incorrectly (of course that means that in 5 years or so, the definition will have shifted, but IT HASN’T YET!). So this could be a way of using it correctly and seeing if the interviewee marks it as a mistake.
Correct: “The project comprises several elements.”
Incorrect: “The project is comprised of several elements.”
Or offer a choice between “comprised of” / “composed of” and see which the person chooses.
Irregardless* of whatever else you include, you should definitely feature the word marked with an asterisk, along with the “definately” misspelling of the italicized adverb. Of course, jjimm would correctly spell the bolded adjective “italicised” in his country, but such orthography would generally be marked as an error in the USA.
Also, I’d recommend that you include an exercise which requires the applicant to demonstrate knowledge of the word lead as either the chemical element that rhymes with “bed” or (when pronounced to rhyme with “feed”) the present tense of the verb whose past-tense form is led.
Throw in “nonplussed” to see if they are nonplussed by it. It certainly seems that people use this opposite its meaning. And “noisome” has nothing to do with sound.
Even when the number is the first word in the sentence? ::shudder
Restating as a general rule what a lot of other posters have mentioned: homonym errors. Your vs. you’re; weather vs. whether; and anything else that could get by a spell-check program but will be jarring to the reader who notices it.
Well, no. Standard advice, though, is to rewrite the sentence so the number isn’t the first word:
*Eighty-six percent of survey respondents were female and 14 percent were male.
Among survey respondents, 86% were female and 14% were male.
*
Also there are a few extra exceptions for ‘one’ (use as a personal pronoun is OK, obviously).
And I’m going to do the quotation marks thing – since we’re in the U.S. and this is for a U.S. publication, it’s not exactly a trick question. Ditto for various British vs. American spellings.
It’s tempting, since this is for a garden magazine, to spell “fuchsia” correctly and see who bites… angelic smiley
I just remembered another word I heard misused by a sports commentator yesterday. She mentioned that a basketball coach “ascribes to” a certain philosophy of defense. I was moved to ask (as if she could hear me): “What does he ascribe to it?” Either you subscribe to (agree with) a theory, or you ascribe something (e.g. your team’s recent improvement) to (your adoption of) said theory.
Use of “e.g.” in the preceding sentence reminded me of the difference between that abbreviation and i.e. The former stands for exempli gratia, which means “for example”. The latter is short for id est, Latin for “that is to say”. Compare:
Female posters to this forum, e.g.twickster (there are many others, she’s just one example)
The poster who started this thread, i.e.twickster (only one person fits the description)
Sternvogel, I would have completed punctuation, post-parenthesis, on your last two sentences. But I am a perfidious Brit so perhaps this is a cultural difference.
I realise also that quotation-mark punctuation is different here and there. Another thing over here is that, IIRC, in journalese, numbers are spelled out a) at the beginning of a sentence, and b) for anything up to and including ten. Might be different over the water.
)[/li][li]Sentence fragment[/li][/ul]