Copy-Editing Symbols

Follow this link, as well as this other link, for a legend of the standard copy-editing symbols used in the marking of your essays

Some of the more frequently-used are the following.

• SYN: faulty syntax
• GR: faulty grammar
• AWK: awkward wording or awkward expression of idea.
• SP: spelling error
• PRON: missing or faulty pronoun.
• AGR: faulty agreement (grammar.)
• T: incorrect tense (grammar.)
• M: incorrect mood (grammar.)
• //: lack of correct parallelism
• ¶ : faulty paragraph structure
• CAP: capitalise
• MM: mixed metaphor
• NO CAP: don't capitalise
• CAP: capitalise.
• WDY: excessive, roundabout or unhelpful wording that obscures the argument.
• ARG: argument required.
• DEV: faulty or missing development of the argument.
• TRANS: weak or missing transition.
• D: faulty diction (e.g. use of jargon or informal idiom.)
• PASS: passive (usually adjectival rather than adverbial) form
• WC: faulty word choice
• WW: wrong word
• RELEV: irrelevant remark.
• PETITIO: a petitio principii ('begging the question')—assuming as a conclusion that which needs to be established as a premis. Often in essay argument, a statement delivered as a proof which itself is as yet unproven.
• UNCL: unclear expression of an idea
• REP: repetitive wording or repetition of a previously-presented idea.
• REL: faulty relation of idea or no clear relation to surrounding idea.
• TRUISM: statement of the obvious: unnecessary.
• P: faulty punctuation.
• PL: pluralisation error.
• ITAL: italicise this text.
• DEL: delete text
• PLEON: pleonasm
• REPORT: book report--i.e. absence of argument. 
• CIT: missing citation
• DANGL: dangling modifier.
• STR: faulty or missing argument structure.
• R-O: run-on sentence(s).
• FRAG: sentence fragment
• CS: comma splice
• THESIS: misplaced thesis-level sentence
• X: false statement.
• INROD: faulty introduction of character, idea, etc.
• SS: faulty sentence structure
• INDIR: indirect expression of idea--often by weak or padded syntax.

Final Paper: Creative Option

For those classfellows who wish to consider a creative option for the Term Paper, it will be necessary to have me sign off on your proposed format in advance. The proposal must take the form of a set of failure standards -- applying the falsification concept from experimental science, where a theory is ranked as scientific only when it is capable of being falsified in a reproducible trial.

So, if you chose to submit a creative project for your Final assignment, in either essay or point form, list the full set of criteria by which your project can be gauged to have failed. To wit,

• if the project does not advance an academic thesis
• if the project does not identifiably incorporate material from relevent scholarship
• if the project fails to relate directly to some number of the primary course texts
• if the project fails to represent and demonstrate advanced understanding of the central ideas of the course
• &c, &c.

This criteria requirement arises from creative submissions in previous courses, where creativity was more than once mistaken (by the student author) for open license. At the same time, it has proven to give the student a helpful planning template and a good stimulus to .... productivity.

The creative project must be accompanied by a concise scholarly essay justifying the academic validity of the project.

Final Essay: Spring 2010

The Final Essay in open topic, thirty-five hundred words, due in my mailbox on April 23rd no later than 23:59, engaging any three course texts and centred explicitly around lecture themes. Note that the three texts need not be given equal importance in your argument.