I. Thou shall not use parenthetical remarks (“say it or leave it out”).
II. Thou shall not use exclamation marks!
III. Thou shan’t use contractions.
IV. Thou shall not overuse: colons by any means.
V. “Thou shall not quote too much – thy own voice needs to be heard.”
VI. Thou shall use commas properly (before last item in a list, after introductory and non-restrictive clauses)
VII. Thou shall use semi-colons properly (in compound sentences with no conjunction).
VIII. Thou shall not use passive voice (in English everything has to be very active : )
IX. Thou shall spell numbers 10 or less.
X. Thou shall not commit any grammatical errors, particularly not consistent, repetitive ones because thy writing is expected to be perfect, even if it is a first draft.
Some of these things are done differently when we write in Portuguese (particularly punctuation). So, even though many people have told me up to this point (10 years in the U.S.) that my English was excellent, I have to think again, it’s not. I’m just another foreigner who cannot write proper English. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
A girl's got to vent sometimes. Particularly if she's a graduate student. Even more if she's an ABD.
P.S. This post has been in the works since I received my first annotated chapter in the mail last year. I just felt that if I took all this stuff too seriously I just wouldn't be able to continue, so I tried to look at it from a slightly humorous point of view... (deep sigh)
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5 comments:
Oh, I am in trouble! I use parenthesis way too much.
Me too!! All the time (even in blog comments) :)
Lilian, I can't write in English, either. At least according to some of my Austrian profs, who insist that we have to be better in English than native English speakers!
And I commit ALL of those 10 faux pas that you've listed there. But from what I've seen, so do native English speakers!! So I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that you are a foreigner!!! ;)
Oh, yes, these are definitely native-speaker failings! Funny post, though.
funny; (funny) I think it has nothing to do with your English, perhaps, it is just part of the pain they want you to experience before calling you a doctor (after all you have to earn it). I always send my drafts for English correction before giving to my advisor, still he tells me I need someone to help me with my English (duahhhhhhhh).
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