Here are some common grammatical problems that arise in history papers, listed

with the correction mark for each, and the solution to the problem.

Mixed verb tenses ("tense"):

"Bernal Diaz presented a positive view of the Spanish because he wants to

protect himself from recrimination." (Put "wants" in the same tense (preterit):

"wanted.")

Passive voice ("passive"):

"The Aztecs were destroyed in droves, and finally defeated." (Identify the

proper subject of this sentence and re-work, as in "The Spanish destroyed the

Aztecs in droves, and finally defeated them.")

Run-on sentence ("run-on"):

"Coffee contains caffeine furthermore, chocolate, tea, and cola also contain

significant amounts of caffeine." (Add a semi-colon after "caffeine" to properly

conjoin two independent clauses.)

Comma splice ("splice"):

"Many industrialists thought workers lazy, as a result they paid their employees

poorly." (Replace comma after "lazy" with a semi-colon to properly conjoin two

independent clauses.)

Sentence fragment ("frag"):

"The little town of Dayton, Tennessee, in the tumultuous 1920s, caught in the

international limelight." (The sentence needs a verb for its subject, Dayton.)

Faulty pronoun reference ("ref"):

"The Spaniard hated the Aztec because of their religious beliefs." (The referent

for "their" ("Aztec") is singular; change "their" to "his.")

Subject-verb agreement ("s-v"):

"The army required each one of the soldiers to carry their own entrenching

tool." ("Their" is plural, yet refers to the singular "one," not "soldiers."

"The army required each soldier to carry his own entrenching tool.")

Faulty predication ("pred"):

"The belief in Manifest Destiny cannot conceive of Indians having rights."

("Conceiving" is a verb that "belief" is incapable of carrying out. Identify

proper subject for the verb: "People who believe in Manifest Destiny cannot

conceive. . . .")

Misplaced modifier ("mod"):

"The slaves burned the farmhouse, furious at their masters." (The participial

phrase "furious at their masters" cannot modify "farmhouse"; it must be placed

immediately after "slaves.")

Dangling modifier ("mod"):

"Arriving by boat in the New World, the weather was brutal." (The weather cannot

arrive by boat in the New World; identify the proper subject for the first

clause, as in "Arriving by boat in the New World, the Puritans found the weather

brutal.")

Faulty parallel structure ("parallel"):

"Ways of preventing blacks from voting included the Grandfather Clause and

holding all-white primaries." (A noun, "Grandfather Clause," is listed in series

with a verb, "holding." Re-work so both are the same, as in ". . . included the

Grandfather Clause and the all-white primary.")

Colloquial ("colloq"):

"Some critics try to straddle the fence between standard and revisionist

interpretations of history." (Substitute non-colloquial phrase for "straddle the

fence," as in "Some critics endorse elements of both standard and revisions

interpretations of history.")

Word choice ("w.c."):

"One slave tells of how he was able to get a job after the war and earn enough

money to travel to North Carolina to find his long separated mother." (His

mother had probably remained in once piece; substitute "lost" for "separated.")

Faulty Possessive (“fp”)

We form the possessive with an apostrophe (‘).  “The gladiator’s armor was made of gold.  The gladiators’ horses were all white.”

Faulty preposition (“fpn”)

Chose the correct preposition – to, from, under, over, on, by, with, near, for – and if you are not sure, look up the word in the dictionary.  “Some authors are different than others.”  (It should be “different from”).  Do not end sentences with a preposition.  “The table he put the book on.”  (Should be:  “The table on which he put the book.”)

Transitive verbs (to brush, to evade, to love) require a direct object to complete their meaning.  (We love something or someone, in other words.  We don’t merely “love” in the abstract.)  Make sure your verbs are not deprived of an object if they need one.