Grammar Fixes That Break the Argument
A student's conclusion reads: 'The novel shows that memory is unreliable, and the narrator proves this by contradicting himself. Which means the reader cannot trust anything. This is the main theme of the novel.' The teacher marks two sentence fragments and a comma splice across the essay and tells the student to proofread. The student rewrites the conclusion as one long, grammatically correct sentence of 54 words. The meaning becomes harder to follow, and the emphasis on 'main theme' is lost. The student has 15 minutes before submission and cannot rewrite the whole essay.
1. Evaluate whether the student's grammatical 'fix' improved the conclusion.
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It improved correctness but damaged clarity and emphasis. The original had genuine errors: 'Which means the reader cannot trust anything' is a fragment, and joining clauses with a comma creates a splice. Correcting these is necessary.
However, merging everything into a 54-word sentence removes the short final claim that gave the conclusion its punch. The phrase 'This is the main theme of the novel' was doing real work: it signalled evaluation and closure. Burying it inside a subordinate clause weakens the ending.
Grammar serves meaning. A better revision keeps short sentences for the key claims and uses accurate punctuation to separate them: 'The novel shows that memory is unreliable, and the narrator enacts this through self-contradiction. The reader therefore cannot fully trust his account. This uncertainty is central to the novel's design.'
2. Given 15 minutes, what should the student prioritise, and why?
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Prioritise errors that impede reading or signal carelessness in high-visibility positions: the thesis, topic sentences and conclusion. Fix the fragment and splice in the conclusion properly, and scan the introduction for the same errors.
Do not attempt a full stylistic overhaul. Fifteen minutes is enough for targeted correction, not rewriting. The student should read each body paragraph's first and last sentence aloud, since fragments and splices cluster at clause boundaries, and check subject-verb agreement in long sentences.
Finally, restore the short evaluative sentence at the end of the conclusion. A conclusion that is grammatically clean but fades out costs marks under control of expression, because expression includes shaping emphasis, not only avoiding error.