5 Sentences in Need of Commas

5 Sentences in Need of Commas 5 Sentences in Need of Commas 5 Sentences in Need of Commas By Mark Nichol Commas signal delineation in sentences, sometimes showing the break point between two thoughts and sometimes marking the beginning and end of a phrase inserted in the midst of a sentence. Here are five sentences in which a single comma, or the second of an inseparable pair, is missing, with revisions and explanations. 1. â€Å"Even when he was caught, some say he was plotting.† The phrase â€Å"some say† is an interjection in the midst of the statement â€Å"Even when he was caught, he was plotting.† It is not enough to merely insert the phrase; one must bracket it in commas (the first of which supersedes the original comma, the function of which is to separate the sentence’s two clauses): â€Å"Even when he was caught, some say, he was plotting.† 2. â€Å"Sorry guys, she’s married.† When directing a comment at readers, the writer must set off with commas the word or words used to identify the audience: â€Å"Sorry, guys, she’s married.† (Otherwise, the writer appears to be addressing guys who are sorry though they are sorry if they’re thinking they have a chance with the woman in question, so the erroneous version almost works.) The sentence is further improved by distinguishing the internal punctuation to enhance the impact of the statement: â€Å"Sorry, guys she’s married.† 3. â€Å"Now there’s a formula for ethical quandary.† Terms that are located at the beginning of a sentence and that refer to time (now, soon, before, afterward, and so on) may or may not, depending on their function, be followed by a comma, but in this case, in which now is used as a meaningless interjection and the emphasis is on the expletive there’s, it is essential: â€Å"Now, there’s a formula for ethical quandary.† Otherwise, the statement reads like a pitch from a television commercial for a shampoo formulated to eradicate ethical quandary. (Now, that would be a hot-selling product.) 4. â€Å"Residents decide driving, and shorter trips to places like Canada are safer options.† The phrase referring to travel to Canada is an interjection inserted into â€Å"Residents decide driving is the safer option,† with a change in the verb is and conversion of the singular option to the plural options to accommodate the additional choice: â€Å"Residents decide driving, and shorter trips to places like Canada, are safer options.† (Note that if the conjunction and were replaced with or, the verb and the form of the noun would remain singular: â€Å"Residents decide driving, or shorter trips to places like Canada, is a safer option.†) Alternatively, the sole comma in the original version could be omitted (â€Å"Residents decide driving and shorter trips to places like Canada are safer options†), but that revision changes the sense somewhat, turning a parenthetical aside into an integral part of the statement. 5. â€Å"This city knows how to create high-rise neighborhoods while San Francisco just talks about it.† Without a comma between the two clauses in this sentence, it reads as if one city has the knowledge about how to create high-rise neighborhoods during the time San Francisco just talks about it. But the meaning is that while San Francisco dawdles, the other city does: â€Å"This city knows how to create high-rise neighborhoods, while San Francisco just talks about it.† While is not used here to mean â€Å"at the same time,† denoting a continuation of one thought; it is a synonym for whereas, and the comma signals a new thought. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Meaning of "To a T"Use a Dash for Number RangesHow to Send Tactful Emails from a Technical Support Desk

Using Shaping to Mold Child Behavior

Using Shaping to Mold Child Behavior Shaping (also known as successive approximation) is a teaching technique that involves a teacher rewarding a child as she or he successfully improves the acquisition of a target skill. Shaping is considered an essential process in teaching because behavior cannot be rewarded unless it first occurs. Shaping is intended to lead children in the direction of appropriate complex behavior, and then reward them as they complete each successive step. Best Practices for Behavior Shaping First, a teacher needs to identify the students strengths and weaknesses around a specific skill, and then break the skill into a series of steps that lead a child toward that target. If the targeted skill is being able to write with a pencil, a child might have difficulty holding a pencil. An appropriate assistive step-wise strategy might start with the teacher placing his or her hand over the childs hand, demonstrating to the child the correct pencil grasp. Once the child achieves this step, they are rewarded and the next step is undertaken. The first step for another student who is uninterested in writing but does like to paint might be providing the student with a paint brush  and rewarding the painting of a letter. In each case, you are helping a child approximate the topography of the behavior you want so that you can reinforce that behavior as the child grows and develops. Shaping may require a teacher to create a task analysis of the skill in order to create a roadmap for shaping the behavior or meeting the final skill goal. In that case, it is also critical for the teacher to model the shaping protocol for classroom para-professionals (teachers aides) so that they know what approximations are successful and which approximations need to be cleared and retaught. Although this may seem like a painstaking and slow process, the step and reward process deeply embeds the behavior in the students memory, so that he or she will be likely to repeat it. History Shaping is a technique that arose from behaviorism, a field of psychology established by B.F. Skinner and based on the relationship between behaviors and their reinforcement. Skinner believed that behaviors need to be reinforced by specific preferred items or food, but can be also paired with social reinforcement like praise. Behaviorism and behavioral theories are the foundations of applied behavior analysis  (ABA), which is used successfully with children who fall somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Although often considered mechanistic, ABA has the advantage of allowing the therapist, teacher, or parent to take a dispassionate look at the specific behavior, rather than focus on a moral aspect of the behavior (as in Robert should know that its wrong!). Shaping is not restricted to teaching techniques with autistic children. Skinner himself used it to teach animals to perform tasks, and marketing professionals have used shaping to establish preferences in a customers shopping behaviors. Examples Maria used shaping to help Angelica learn to feed herself independently, by helping Angelica use the spoon hand over hand - moving to touch Angelicas wrist until Angelica was finally able to pick up her spoon and eat from her bowl independently.While teaching Robert to use the toilet independently to urinate, his mother, Susan, saw that he had difficulty pulling up his pants. She decided to shape this step in her task analysis by praising and reinforcing his ability to pull his pants up to his knees, then stretching out the elastic waist to finish the step, and then helping Robert by using hand over hand to complete the pulling up pants step.One shaping experiment that Skinner conducted was when he and his associates decided to teach a pigeon to bowl. The target task was to get the bird to send a wooden ball down a miniature alley toward a set of toy pins, by swiping the ball with a sideward movement of its beak. The researchers first reinforced any swipe that looked like what they had in mind, then reinforced any that approximated what they wanted, and within a few minutes, they had succeeded. One way modern marketers use shaping is to provide a free sample of a product and include a coupon for the large discount on the purchase price. In the first purchase, the consumer would find a coupon for a smaller discount, and so forth, until the consumer no longer needs the incentives and has established the desired behavior. Sources Koegel, Robert L. Assessing and Training Teachers in the Generalized Use of Behavior Modification with Autistic Children, Dennis C. Russo, Arnold Rincover, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Wiley Online Library, 1977. Peterson, Gail B. A Day of Great Illumination: B. F. Skinners Discovery of Shaping. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 10.1901/jeab.2004.82-317, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, November 2004, Bethesda, MD. Rothschild, Michael L. Behavioral Learning Theory: Its Relevance to Marketing and Promotions. Journal of Marketing, William C. Gaidis, Vol. 45, No. 2, Sage Publications, Inc., JSTOR, Spring 1981.