Style Checklist
Read one sentence at a time. Look for the specific problems listed below. Revise accordingly.
Stylistic or Mechanical Problems
Maintain a professional tone. For example: • kids (are GOATS!) -> children (for those little humans)
• a lot of -> many, much
• roaring drunk -> severely intoxicated
Use present tense when writing about fiction. Imagine that the characters come to life when you open the book.
 • When Sylvia climbs (not climbed) the tree, she experiences an awakening about. . .
Use ACTIVE, not passive, voice when writing about literature. 

 Passive: a form of "to be" + main verb ending in -ed or -en+ (by + object of preposition)

 The treat was eaten by the cat.
Active: simple, active verb + direct object The cat ate the treat. Notice that eliminating passive voice requires flipping the sentence order. Imagine flipping pancakes.

More samples:

Passive: Snow White was killed by her Wicked Stepmother.
Active: The Wicked Stepmother killed Snow White

Passive: Zlata was affected by the war.
Active: The war affected Zlata.
Replace flat, lifeless, boring, YAWN-YAWN "to be" verbs with interesting, action packed verbs. 
 • is, are, was, were, be, become, being
When you were young, your mother taught you not to use expletives (bad /curse / four-letter/ words).

You shouldn't use THOSE types of expletives in English class, nor should you use the following: this is, there are/were, it is/was. To eliminate these bad words, which usually appear at the beginning of a sentence, determine the sentence's true subject and put it first. For example:

 • It is important to remember to take out the garbage.
• Remember to take out the garbage.

• There were sixteen customers at Ben and Jerry's last night.
• Sixteen people went to Ben and Jerry's last night. 
Eliminate useless words.  • Sally usually is able to run three miles a day. 
• Sally usually runs three miles each day.
Eliminate redundancy:
• "Knowledge comes from recalling episodes that occurred in the past."
• "Knowledge comes from recalling past episodes." 
Reduce prepositional phrases to eliminate the laundry list syndrome.

 LAUNDRY LIST

The limited availabliliy of basketball tickets for NCSU students is the result of a large number of alumni who buy season tickets for the games because of their love for the team. NO LAUNDRY LIST NCSU students receive limited basketball tickets because alumni, who love the team, buy season tickets.  
Eliminate vague pronoun references: you, we, they
• "You must build more computer labs."
• "NCSU's Computer Technology Initiative must build more computer labs."

• "They did research on. . . "
• "Anne Slipermat and John Grumpster did research on. . . " 
Eliminate pronoun shifts from singular to plural.
• The child built a tower with the blocks they collected.
• The child built a tower with the blocks SHE collected. 
Use a comma before a conjunction (and, but, or, so) if the list consists of a series of 3 or more items or if it links independent clauses (you can identify an independent clause if it has a subject and verb that allow it to stand alone as a sentence) 
Use a comma after an introductory phrase, clause, or word.
• In most cases,
• However,
• After the cat at the goldfish, it. . . 
Use a semicolon to link two independent clauses when the second clause begins with a conjunctive adverb.
The teenagers tried to determine how fast the car could speed down the hill; however, they had to end their experiment when the car killed the principal. 
Use the apostrophe for POSSESSIVE, NOT PLURAL • more than one city= cities, NOT city's
• a decade = 1990s, NOT 1990's
• more than one student = students, NOT student's
Capitalize proper nouns
Underline or Italicize titles of books, movies, journals, magazines, newspapers, government documents, tv shows, (see p. 497)

see p. 497 for when to use " " marks with a title