Correction Symbols

During the last few weeks of the semester your descuidos (acts of carelessness or forgetfulness) and other errors will not be corrected; instead, I will indicate the types of errors involved. You will be expected to correct the errors yourself [and not have someone else correct them for you] and hand in the composition again at a later time. Here are some of the symbols which will be used:

• AG = AGreement. There is a problem of agreement, for example between 1) a noun and a modifying adjective as regards gender (masculine or feminine) and/or number (singular or plural), or 2) a subject and verb, as regards person (first, second, or third) and/or number (singular or plural).

  	AG		AG
  E.g.: Juanita	dicen	que	la	tema es interesante. [Should be: dice, el.]

• P = Punctuation. There is a problem with missing, wrong, or superfluous punctuation (including such things as underlining).

  	P		P
  E.g.:		Te gusta la canción	Cielitos	? [Should be: ¿, “Cielitos”.]

• SP = SPelling. There is a spelling problem in the indicated word; this includes not only misspellings and typographical errors but also missing and superfluous accent marks, and wrong case (upper/lower).

  	SP		SP
  E.g.: La señora	Gomez	no ha	echo	nada para nosotros. [Should be: Gómez, hecho.]

• VT = Verb Tense/Mood. A different verb tense and/or mood should be employed. For example, you may have used the preterit instead of the imperfect, and/or the indicative instead of the subjunctive.

  	VT
  E.g.: Quiero que	vienes	en seguida. [Should be: vengas.]

• WC = Word Choice. A different word or expression is required.

  	WC
  E.g.: Ella	realizó	que yo le mentía. [Should be: se dio cuenta de.]

• WO = Word Order. The order of the underlined elements must be changed.

  	WO
  E.g.: Yo	lo te	voy a decir. [Should be: te lo.]

• _____ = Change required. The underlined part needs to be changed. (Ordinarily, the type of change required is indicated by two letters above the underlined expression, as illustrated above.)

  E.g.: Nadie me dice

  el truth.

• _ _ _ = Change recommended. It would be better to change the indicated section, even though it may be grammatically correct to leave it.

  E.g.: ¿Miguel? Sí, le conozco. [Ok in Spain, but you should probably use lo.]

• ^ = Missing word(s). Something needs to be inserted at this point.

  E.g.: Yo no conozco		Luisa.  [A personal a should be inserted.]
  	^

• ? =  I do not understand what you are trying to say. [I try to use this as little as possible, but sometimes “no hay remedio”.]