Edit and proofread your draft.
Students frequently struggle to maintain a neutral tone when arguing a position they hold dearly. Our research also indicates that incorrect comma usage in sentences with coordinating conjunctions and punctuation errors in sentences that use conjunctive adverbs are common in position arguments. The following guidelines will help you check your essay for these common errors.
Editing for Tone
To demonstrate that you are treating alternative viewpoints fairly, use words with a positive or neutral connotation (emotional resonance) and avoid name-calling.
- Too often... the drive to win
parents 
As you edit your position argument, also watch out for language that is puffed up or pompous:
- A coach who had attended the Adelphi workshop tried to
he had learned there, but the players’ 
would not support him.
Using Commas before Coordinating Conjunctions
In essays that argue a position, writers often use coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor, so, and yet) to join related independent clauses—groups of words that can stand alone as complete sentences—to create compound sentences. Consider this example from Jessica Statsky’s essay:
Compound sentence: two independent clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction
In this sentence, Statsky links two complete ideas of equal importance with the coordinating conjunction but to emphasize contrast.
The Problem Two common errors occur in sentences like these:
- A comma may be left out when two independent clauses are linked by a coordinating conjunction.
- A comma may be inserted before the coordinating conjunction when one of the sentence parts is not an independent clause.
The Correction Add a comma before coordinating conjunctions that join two independent clauses, as in the following example:
- The new immigration laws will bring in more skilled
but their presence will take jobs away from other Americans.
Omit the comma when coordinating conjunctions join phrases that are not independent clauses:
- We need people with special
and diverse skills to make the United States a stronger nation.
Avoiding Comma Splices When Using Conjunctive Adverbs to Link Independent Clauses
A Note on Grammar and Spelling Checkers
These tools can be helpful, but do not rely on them exclusively to catch errors in your text: Spelling checkers cannot catch misspellings that are themselves words, such as to for too. Grammar checkers miss some problems, sometimes give faulty advice for fixing problems, and can flag correct items as wrong. Use these tools as a second line of defense after your own (and, ideally, another reader’s) editing and proofreading efforts.
Conjunctive adverbs (such as consequently, furthermore, however, moreover, therefore, and thus) indicate the logical relationships among ideas. For example, words like thus and therefore are used to alert readers that a conclusion is coming, and words like furthermore and moreover are used to alert readers to expect additional ideas on the same topic. When writers take a position, they often use conjunctive adverbs to link independent clauses.
Consider this example:
In this sentence, the writer uses the word thus to indicate that he is drawing a conclusion.
The Problem A comma splice is one error that often occurs when writers use a comma before a conjunctive adverb linking two independent clauses.
The Correction Use a semicolon before and a comma after a conjunctive adverb when it links two independent clauses:
Make sure that both parts of the sentence are independent clauses before inserting a semicolon, a conjunctive adverb, and a comma to link them. If one or both parts cannot stand alone, add a subject, a verb, or both as needed to avoid a sentence fragment:
Alternatively, you may replace the semicolon, conjunctive adverb, and comma with a coordinating conjunction:
A Common Problem for Multilingual Writers: Subtle Differences in Meaning
Because the distinctions in meaning among some common conjunctive adverbs are subtle, nonnative speakers often have difficulty using them accurately. For example, the difference between however and nevertheless is small; each is used to introduce a contrasting statement. But nevertheless emphasizes the contrast, whereas however softens it. Check usage of such terms in an English dictionary rather than a bilingual one. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has special usage notes to help distinguish frequently confused words.