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Task B: PunctuationIndex page
Workshops indexTask A: Grammar
Summary
Concise, correct and clear writing is important in all your writing tasks. This applies to your work while you are a student and later when you are a practising professional. This task identifies two of the most common errors made in student writing and introduces you to a number of online writing sites where you may find information and activities to rectify the errors you are making in your writing.
You will learn:
Subject-verb agreement
A frequent mistake in English is using a plural subject with a singular verb, or a singular subject with a plural verb:
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Nurses = plural subject |
likes = singular verb |
their work. |
 |
Nurses = plural subject |
like = plural verb |
their work. |
|
The nurse = singular subject |
like = plural verb |
her work. |
|
The nurse = singular subject |
likes = singular verb |
her work. |
The only way to master subject-verb agreement is to learn the rules. Follow these steps:
- Firstly, you need to be able to identify the subject and verb in a sentence. If you are unsure whether you can do so, study these instructions and interactive exercises: Identifying subjects and verbs (OWL, Purdue).
- To learn about subject-verb agreement and to practise with interactive exercises, follow these links:
- Making subjects and verbs agree (OWL, Purdue)
- Subject-verb agreement (CCC)
- Subject-verb agreement (UNE)
- Now, test your knowledge and skills on the following activity.
Activity
Read the following sentences and select the verb form that will best fit in the blank. Even when you choose the correct answer, it might still be a good idea to consult the rule to check your understanding.
Exercise 1
Pain and stress is/are considered not to be either physiological, psychological or social, but a combination of all three.
Exercise 2
Your responsibilities as a nurse includes/include helping your patient/s cope with pain.
Exercise 3
Your colleagues or your manager is/are available for discussion about individual patients' pain and possible coping strategies.
Exercise 4
It is considered that pain or stress drives/drive most people to seek medical care.
Exercise 5
Each of the patients is/are questioned about pain dimensions (eg physical, emotional, acute or chronic) and origins of pain.
Exercise 6
Fortunately, few people has/have a congenital insensitivity to pain; however, nurses need to be aware of the phenomenon.
Exercise 7
At the hospital, a group of health professionals meets/meet annually to consider pain management techniques.
Exercise 8
There is/are a number of pain management methods, including acupuncture and hypnosis.
Tense shift
Tense shift is a problem in many students' written work. The rule is: if you're writing in the present tense, don't shift to the past tense (or vice versa) unless you have a good reason to do so. For example, in the sentences below there is no reason to switch from the present tense (underlined) to the past tense (shown in red).
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Many people suffer from headaches or toothache; however, they often find they were less aware of the pain when they were busy with an activity. Thus, active engagement in distracting strategies can reduce patients' pain. |
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Many people suffer from headaches or toothache; however, they often find they are less aware of the pain when they are busy with an activity. Thus, active engagement in distracting strategies can reduce patients' pain. |
To learn how to avoid tense shift and practise with sentences and paragraphs, follow these links:
Now, test your knowledge and skills on the following activity.
Activity
Each of the sentences below contains an error/s in verb tense. Read the following sentences and write the correction/s on your scratch pad. When you have finished, check the answer.
Note: the highlighted verb is in the correct tense - do not change it.
Exercise 1
Incorrect: Guided imagery is a strategy that asked the patient to imagine a pleasant scene incompatible with the pain (e.g. the scene of a beach, forest or meadow).
Exercise 2
Incorrect: After the patient had a cancerous tumour removed from her breast, the surgeon uses hypnotism to control the pain.
Exercise 3
Incorrect: Children were distracted while a nurse sutures their wounds. The study was to find out whether the children's pain was reduced by the distraction.