1. Mrs. Hying’s Top 10 Editing Tips Righting dun write…

2. #1: Formal vs. Informal In a formal paper (CA essay), do not use “I”, “my”, or “you”… instead, refer to yourself or the audience as “the reader”.

3. #2: Citations Citations should include the page number within a set of parentheses, after the quotation mark and before the punctuation.

4. #3: Titles Titles of books should be italicized, but titles of short stories or articles should be put into quotation marks.

5. #4: Character Names Character names should always be capitalized, unless the word “the” comes before, then they should not be capitalized. TITLE CHARACTER

6. #5: Contractions Do not use contractions in a formal paper, unless they are used in an example.

7. #6: Spell Out Numbers and Small Words “and”, not &“with”, not w/ “two”, not 2“for” or “four”, not 4

8. #7: Spelling If you aren’t sure how to spell something, look it up or ask a friend!

9. #8: Proofread Read your paper out loud and if it sounds funny, you are probably missing something!

10. #9: Punctuation Using commas correctly is hard to do, but it’s really important. If you use them incorrectly, you might be saying something you don’t mean!

11. #10: Overemphasizing!!!! -Only use one ! or ? -Do not WRITE IN CAPS or bold your words to make them seem more important

12. What’s wrong with this? I think Mary Maloney is clever because she had the police eat the murder weapon.

13. What’s wrong with this? The Landlady asked, “Milk?” she said. “And sugar?” (line 368). Should be: The landlady asked, “‘Milk?’ she said. ‘And sugar?’” (line 368).

14. What’s wrong with this? Despite the apparent kindness of the landlady, it’s actually all an act.

15. What’s wrong with this? The landlady shows us her kind consideration by placing “a water bottle between the sheets to air them out.” (line 162).