Your spellchecker probably can't make decisions for you about the following words, so check these words to make sure you've chosen the one you mean to use:
"They're" is the contraction for "they are."
"There" is a direction.
"Their" is a possessive pronoun.
NOTICE THAT THEY ALL START WITH "THE."
While we're on the subject of contractions and possessive pronouns. . . The following examples are correct. (Note that "its'" doesn't exist in English.
That political party is slowly changing its policies. It's too bad the voters have run out of patience.
All the pollen in the spring air AFFECTS my allergies. The EFFECT of pollen is sneezing.
Don't listen to the cheese slice commercials: Those slices should have fewer not less calories. Since "calories" can be counted {1 calorie, 2 calories}, use "fewer." If the item can't be counted, like "water" {1 water, 2 water}, use "less."
When you proofread, check every use of the works "this" and "it." Both words are called pronouns and they replace nouns, not whole sentences.
For example - "The Spice Girls are very popular with girls 10 - 13 years of age. This means that parents are asked to shell out for Spice Girls paraphernalia."
You have several options for correcting this problem. Choose the one which says what you mean most clearly:
The Spice Girls are very popular with girls 10 - 13 years of age, so their parents are asked to shell out for paraphernalia.
Because the Spice Girls are very popular . . ., parents are asked to shell out for . . .
The Spice Girls are very popular with girls 10 - 13. This popularity means that parents are asked to shell out for paraphernalia.
Now the serious stuff, the boo-boos that land you in serious trouble.
Some universities threaten to expel students who plagerize the ideas and expression
of the writers they quote or paraphrase. Often, students don't mean to "plagerize."
They're just sloppy documentors.
The RULE is -- Every piece of information borrowed from any source must be credited to that source. While footnotes and endnotes are still used by some university departments, in-text citation methods are easier to use with word processors and many respected scholarly journals require these methods.
Check out the links below on MLA and APA documentation methods. If you're wondering which guide to use, ask your instructor (he/she might prefer a completely different method) or decide based on your discipline. MLA is a humanities method. It's concerned with telling readers who said the borrowed info. APA is a social science method and focuses on when the research was done in addition to who did it. Beware that APA is a style guide as well as well as a documentation method. For example, information which is provided in quotations or paraphrases is introduced in past tense. Read the examples carefully.
Links to other sites on the Web
MLA documentation guide
APA style and documentation guide
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