Page 250 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

segments. Others swear that they cannot see their errors until they
hold the printed copy in their hands. Find out what works best for you.

Group Exercise 7-1 Proofreading an

Essay Confident? Go solo!

Each of the 30 sentences in the following essay contains an error.

Form a small proofreading team with two or three of your classmates.
Pooling your knowledge, see how many errors you can identify and

correct. The first 15 errors are underlined. Record your corrections in

the spaces provided or on a separate sheet of paper.

An Urban Legend

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Around a carefully tended fire that kept predators at bay until
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morning, our cave-dwelling ancestors told tale of the hunt. In the
american West, the power of a good yarn drew cowboys around the fire,

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a circle against the darkness. Today, the folk tale lives on in what
are often called “urban legends,” stories that many has heard but
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none can verify. Stories of alligators in sewers and narrow escapes
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in lovers’ lanes. One modern folk tale, “Gunshot Wound,” exemplifies
the urban legend in it’s themes of danger, individual power, and

reprieve.

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Like many urban legend, “Gunshot Wound” plays on modern fears. The
story opens in a Supermarket parking lot as a shopper notices a woman

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in a car, clutching the back of her head with both hands. The

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