Edit and proofread your draft.
Two kinds of errors occur often in essays speculating about causes: mechanical errors in using numbers, and use of the wordy and illogical construction the reason is because. The following guidelines will help you check your essay for these common errors.
Uses a bar graph to show the increase in health club memberships over time
Checking Your Use of Numbers
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) proofreading and editing efforts.
Whether they are indicating the scope of a phenomenon or citing the increase or decrease of a trend, writers who are speculating about causes often cite dates, percentages, fractions, and other numbers. Academic writing prescribes conventional ways of writing such numbers. Look, for example, at these sentences from an essay about increasing reports of sexual harassment in the workplace:
According to a 1994 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, the percentage of human resource professionals who have reported that their departments handled at least one sexual harassment complaint rose from 35 percent in 1991 to 65 percent in 1994. The jury awarded Weeks $7.1 million in punitive damages, twice what she sought in her lawsuit.
The writer follows the convention of spelling out numbers (one) that can be written as one or two words and using a combination of numerals and words for a large number ($7.1 million). (She could also have used numerals for the large number: $7,100,000.) She uses numerals for dates and percentages.
The Problem Ignoring the rules for writing dates, percentages, fractions, and other numbers in academic writing can confuse your readers or make them question your attention to detail.
The Correction
- Spell out numbers and fractions of one or two words.
- Use numbers when fractions and numbers are more than two words.
- Write percentages and dates with figures.
- Spell out numbers that begin a sentence.
Checking for Reason Is Because Constructions
When you speculate about causes, you need to offer reasons and support for your speculations. Consequently, essays that speculate about causes often contain sentences constructed around a reason is because pattern, as in the following example:
The reason we lost the war is because troop morale was down.
The Problem Since because means “for the reason that,” such sentences say essentially that “the reason is the reason.”
The Correction Rewrite the sentence so that it uses either the reason . . . is or because, but not both:
The reason we lost the war is that troop morale was down.
We lost the war because troop morale was down.
