Lists & Rankings: Online Writing Lab’s Top Five Grammar Requests

“Without a doubt our No. 1 request for help is about formatting research papers for college or high school students,” says Tammy Conard-Salvo, associate director of the Writing Lab, which is housed in the Department of English. “The most common questions are about citing sources, especially electronic sources.”

Here are the other questions that round out the top five queries received by the Online Writing Lab, known as OWL:

+ The difference between “affect” and “effect.” Affect is a verb and effect is a noun.

+ Questions about subject-verb agreement, especially with indefinite pronouns such as each, every and any, which are singular and require a singular verb.

+ Questions from English-as-second-language students about idiomatic expressions or exceptions to grammar rules. For example, one student recently submitted a question about whether the word “data” is singular or plural. The answer is based on the context because “data” can be both.

+ A number of questions are from nontraditional students who are working on a writing assignment. Conard-Salvo says many requests start with a phrase like, “I haven’t taken an English class in many years. How do I get started on writing an argument essay?”

Source: Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) via AScribe

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 and is filed under Fast Facts, Lists and Rankings, Resources for Educators, Source File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.