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Dirty Dozen Begins Soon!

Most people don’t consider themselves writers, though that is exactly what they are when they are writing. 

And their readers expect what all readers expect: clear communication without distracting errors. Everyone who writes needs to aim for clear, correct writing.
At the same time, all writers have weaknesses, and all writers commit mistakes in their writing. So you are not immune to mistakes. Many of the mistakes are the result of (drum roll …) the Dirty Dozen.

The Dirty Dozen is a collection of very common and serious grammar errors. They range from sentence fragments to fused sentences, lack of parallel structure, and misplaced modifiers, to name a few (for acomplete list with short explanations, click here). Sad to say, even experienced writers make some of these mistakes. And even sadder, some professors care so much about making sure you learn to fix these mistakes that they take some points off every time you make one in your academic writing.

But fear not! MU’s Writing Center is here to help. We’re presenting a workshop series—The Baker’s Dirty Dozen—that reviews the 13 most common errors that tangle up otherwise good writing. Here’s the schedule. 

We cover one or two errors each week: once on Monday at 11 a.m. and once on Tuesday at 8 p.m. All of the workshops are held in the Seminar Room in Davis Memorial Library. (If you’re standing at the reference desk, look to your left for the all glass room underneath the staircase.)

We hope you join writing consultant Becky King as she not only explains the errors that could cause your otherwise clear writing to get snarled, but also shows you how to fix the mistakes.
In addition to our presentations, don’t forget the resources on our website:
§  Handouts
§  DirtyDozen videos
§  DirtyDozen PowerPoints
§  DirtyDozen quizzes
§  And more

In addition to those resources, our blog will post about each of the errors every week as a companion to the Dirty Dozen workshops.


So, get on your way to straightening out those places that get all knotted up in your writing, and join us for our Baker’s Dirty Dozen series starting next week.  

(Written by Baylor Hicks, senior Writing Center consultant and managing editor of the Monarch Review; Robin Greene, Writing Center director; and Carrah Royal, Writing Center assistant director)

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