Common Composition Errors (_ ) Class: 6RS1 Date : 24 Sep 2020 Name: Language and Organisation Description Error Correct q] Past Tense today that day last night the previous night (similar to S&T reported speech) From then on, ... be a new paragraph!) Past Tense From now on, ... Event had happened | started walking | walked towards ... already towards ... Misspelled/confused belive believe words lifes lives Dialogues John said “I am so tired.” John said, “lam so (Every dialogue should (missing comma) tired.” John shouted, “I cannot stand you anymore.” (should be an exclamation mark as the emphasis with the saying verb “shouted") John shouted, “I cannot stand you anymore!” Dialogues (Every dialogue should be a new paragraph!) Also, avoid writing dialogues that have 2 parts. The punctuation marks might be confusing for writers. “This is so sad«” John lamented. (Wrong punctuation mark) “This is so sad,” John lamented. Dialogues (capital letters vs small letters) “John, you need to clean your room now!” My mother said. “John, you need to clean your room now!” my mother said. “John, you need to clean your room now!” Sally said. “John, you need to clean your room now!” | said. Scanned with CamScanner7 couldnot =. Contractions (Only use couldn't did not them in dialogues but didn't not in the main writing) S alate a 7 9 it Tt would be a wonderful It wol > Se plan, John thought. wonderful plan,” John thought. (quotation marks are needed unless it is a first Am | in trouble? person narration.) How could he steal my ideas for the Speech competition? That was what That was what happened ... happened. No short phone. mobile phone _ forms/shortened MRT train Mass Rapid Transit forms/abbreviations in (MRT) train writing (Subsequently, you can use the shortened form, MRT) ‘Avoid long sentences | As John walked down the | As John walked down that can cost you your | deserted street, he saw a the deserted street, he marks man who was behaving spotted aman suspiciously and trying to | behaving suspiciously. forcefully open a'door and | The big burly man he then decided to alert | was trying to forcefully the law enforcement open a door. The officers so that they could | quick witted John stop him from doing decided to alert the law something illegal. enforcement officers. He hoped that the officers could stop the man from committing . a crime or involving. in an illegal activity. Avoid semi-colons, colons and dashes unless you are confident to use them The power company turned off your electricity for one simple reason: You have not paid your bill in months. Scanned with CamScannerlove listening to her TED Talks; she is full of helpful advice. | looked up, and there he was — the same man from the gym and the party. There was only one possible word to describe how | felt at that moment — like a ‘pile of mush. Content Development 1. Cliched Intros Introductory paragraphs for compositions that use flowery phrases to describe the hot sun or weather are overused. Opening lines which start with a sound effect like “Riiiing!” or “Bang!” are also used too frequently. For PSLE composition writing, you want to stand out, so avoid using such cliched openings that all the other students in Singapore are using. Be different and unique! The marker will not be impressed if you wrote something that every other student is writing. If you insist on describing the setting, describe the specific setting, instead of spending one paragraph talking about the weather when the weather has no part to play in the conflict later. €\ 2. Jumping from one sequence to another, without adequate description. ee Students have a habit of writing compositions with minimal description, and focus too much on narrating from one sequence to another. This results in a chain of events that will happen very quickly in the essay and students will then have to worry about not having “enough” words to meet the requirement. E.g: The robbers stormed into the bank, took the money and shot the security guard. Then they left before the police came. The witnesses told the police what had happened. The next day, the robbers are caught. The End. Scanned with CamScannerWhat is lacking is the detailed description that accompanies each sequence. E.g: The robbers stormed into the bank without warning. They glared at the shocked faces through their black ski masks. The customers cowered in fear and stifled screams were heard. Waving their guns and shouting grievous threats, the robbers herded all the customers into a corner... Do not just jump from one sequence to another. Make sure you add in detailed description for each action that happens. 3. Illogical Content There is always some illogical content like: Calling the police and the police will appear at the scene immediately or a car knocking down a pedestrian before exploding into flames on its own. Any illogical content written during your PSLE essay will cause you to lose marks. 4. Problem or Conflict is resolved too easily Every essay will involve a problem or conflict which the characters in the story will seek to solve. In some essays, the problem could be mischievous acts committed by the student. In other essays, the conflict could be between 2 characters fighting or arguing with each other. One of the mistakes that students tend to make is that they allow the problem to be resolved too easily. E.g: Mark and John started fighting in the coffee shop. The police came and arrested them. The end. Make the problem worse. Did Mark hit John too hard and John became unconscious? Did they accidentally injure a passerby? Keep in mind that when you make the problem worse, you must still keep the [Link]! Scanned with CamScannerae 5. Not participating in the Problem or Conflict Many students, when writing from a first person point of view, will take a bystander approach to the problem or conflict that happens within the essay. They will write the essay such that the problem or conflict is happening to other people, while they just stand aside and watch. E.g: Mark and John started fighting. I hid behind the wall and called the police. Even when your child is writing as the first person, they must get involved in the problem or conflict. Instead of hiding behind a wall and watching the scene unfold before them, the main character must always partake in the conflict, willingly or not. 6. Memorising fancy phrases. Then using them wrongly. Don’t blindly memorise phrases then using it in your compositions. I have seen funny phrases like: The students made a beeline for the bomb. Focus on learning the meaning of each phrase, how to use the phrase, and then write naturally. Good phrases will fit into the sentence naturally. You don’t have to force them in. 7. Rushed Ending/Conclusion The most common mistake for PSLE composition writing always happens at the end. The ending is too rushed. Due to poor time management or lack of discipline, students often rush to finish the ending. Then, the student will ~ probably add in a lame, generic lesson learnt like: “I learnt never to tell lies again.” 8. Writing Out of Topic Most students don't plan their compositions. They tend to make it up as they go along. Hence they will often go off-topic as they get engaged in the task of writing and totally forget about the theme. Also, as the topics become tougher or more specific, students tend to stray from the core topic. For example, a student writing a topic of ‘A Disappointment’ becomes ‘A Dilemma’, or a student writing about ‘A Bad Decision’ becomes ‘Bullying’. Many students lack the awareness to maintain focus on the core theme of the story. Scanned with CamScannerOthers lack the essential writing skills of description, variation of sentence structure or a set of powerful vocabulary. Therefore, they try to make the story more interesting by creating conflicts, problems and additional complications in the story. Sadly, most of the time, they just go out of point as the Resolution and Conclusion tend to be about the problem-created, not the topic they were supposed to write. To make things worse, some students will try to end their stories with irrelevant proverbs like “A friend in need is a friend indeed” or “Honesty is the best policy” when the entire composition doesn't even deal with Friendship or Honesty... 9. Writing overly-long sentences or joining sentences wrongly. These students belong to 2 groups. Those who have a stronger grammar foundation, and those who have a weaker grammar foundation. The students who are better at grammar seem to pride themselves in writing overly-wordy, long, complicated sentences that just confuse themselves and the reader. They think that long sentences demonstrate their writing prowess. Nothing could be further from that fact! The 2nd group of students who are weaker in grammar try to write long sentences too! They do so by using commas to join 2 independent sentences together without any conjunctions or connectors! Eg: The boy was so frightened of the bully, he quickly ran away, hoping the bully was unable to catch him. That is grammatically wrong. Jt What students should do is focus on writing clear and concise sentences that convey the message the reader easily. Sentence structure variation should then be used to improve the flow and fluency of the story. think ISPACED Scanned with CamScanner