The correctness checklist
Matters of Correctness is 5% of the diploma, and Matters of Choice another 5%. Between them, a tenth of the exam is decided by sentences — and by a handful of errors that turn up in nearly every rushed paper.
Why correctness is scored at all
It is tempting to treat grammar as pedantry, and the exam does not: Matters of Correctness and Matters of Choice are 5% each, a tenth of the diploma between them. The reason is not tidiness. Punctuation is how written English marks relationships between ideas, so an error in it is usually an error in meaning.
A comma splice, for instance, is two thoughts presented as one without saying how they connect. Repair it and you have to choose: because, although, so — and that choice is an argument. Most correctness errors hide a decision the writer has not made.
The practical point is that these marks are recoverable in five minutes, which no other marks on the exam are. Nothing else on a diploma paper can be fixed that fast.
Where it turns up
- Being understood at all — an unclear sentence in an email, a report or an application does its damage silently — nobody tells you they misread it.
- Applications — scholarship essays, cover letters and university applications are read quickly and judged partly on control of language.
- Anything you publish — the credibility cost of visible errors is unfair and entirely real.
- The exam — 5% of the diploma recoverable in the last five minutes of the paper.
- Why it matters
- 1. Sentence errors
- 2. Punctuation that carries meaning
- 3. Matters of Choice
- 4. A five-minute proofread
Sentence errors
The idea: three errors account for most of what markers see. All three are findable in a proofread if you know what you are looking for.
| Error | Looks like | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Comma splice | Two complete sentences joined by a comma: He hesitates, he is afraid of what follows. | Use a period, a semicolon, or add a joining word: … because he is afraid… |
| Fragment | No main verb, or a subordinate clause alone: Which is why the ending matters. | Attach it to the sentence it belongs to |
| Run-on | Clauses pushed together with no punctuation | Split it, or punctuate the join properly |
| Agreement | Each of the characters make a choice | The subject is each, so: makes |
| Dangling modifier | Walking home, the argument replayed in her head. | Give the opening phrase the right subject: Walking home, she replayed… |
| Tense drift | Slipping between present and past when discussing a text | Stay in the literary present throughout |
Punctuation that carries meaning
The idea: a few marks do real work in analytical writing, and using them correctly reads as control.
- Semicolon joins two complete, closely related sentences. If either side cannot stand alone, it is wrong.
- Colon introduces what the first half promised: a list, an explanation, or a quotation.
- Dash sets off an interruption or an afterthought — effective once or twice, tiring more often than that.
- Apostrophes: its is possessive, it's is it is. Plurals never take one.
- Commas after an introductory phrase, and around a clause that could be lifted out without breaking the sentence.
Matters of Choice
The idea: this category rewards precision, not vocabulary. A long word used loosely costs more than a short word used exactly.
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| shows, says, talks about | suggests, implies, undercuts, insists, withholds, concedes |
| a lot of, really, very | cut it, or name the amount |
| good, bad, interesting | say what makes it so |
| In today's society… | begin with the claim |
| This quote shows that… | name the choice: the repetition, the shift to short sentences |
- Vary sentence length deliberately. A short sentence after two long ones lands.
- Prefer active constructions — the text does things; things do not merely happen in the text.
- Cut the throat-clearing. First sentences like Throughout history, people have always… earn nothing.
A five-minute proofread
The idea: you cannot reread everything, so read for specific things in a fixed order.
- Tense. Scan only for verbs about the text. Any past tense is a candidate.
- Quotation marks and titles. Every opening mark has a partner; titles are punctuated consistently.
- The joins. Look at commas between two complete sentences — that is your comma splice check.
- Its and it's, their and there, and any apostrophe on a plural.
- The last paragraph. It was written fastest, so it carries the most errors, and it is the last thing the marker reads.