Sentence Fragments, danglers, comma splices, lacking parallel parts

Hi Corinna,

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Choices: Sentence Fragments, danglers, comma splices, lacking parallel parts

1. The new drug proved to be highly effective, it has no side effects.

I would consider this a comma splice since they are complete sentences alone .. Yup.

2. Do you advise me to go to college or that I should get a job after high school?

To me this is a run on.. But I am not in full understanding of lacking of parallel parts..

...advise me [to do X] or [to do Y] makes it parallel. ... to go to college or to get a job would be parallel

3. To be fit, you should get enought sleep, exercise regulary, and eat a healthy diet.

I find this sentence to be correct .. but they throw a new option in UNCLEAR PRONOUN... to me the pronoun is very clear ..

This one is nice an parallel - get sleep, exercise, eat - all verbs, in the same tense, etc.

There's nothing wrong with using the impersonal you, but apparently this class thinks it should either say "one should" (instead of "you should") or "a person should." 

And someone please explain a dangler and lacks parallel parts to where I can hopefully understand what they mean ..

I hope the bit above helped explain parallelism. A dangler is when you start to describe something, but then don't hook it up with the thing that's being described. My favorite has always been "Hanging in the closet for a year, Lola had forgotten about her aqua dress." This dangles because it was not Lola that was hanging in the closet for a year, but the dress.

Hey, great - I'm glad you signed up.

No, I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. (The kitten had her first birthday on Monday. She's not such a terrorist anymore. With age comes calmness.)

For active/passive, I hate to use such silly terms, but let's use the terms "doers" and "did-to's" (those things/people that something was done to).

In the active voice, the doer does someething to the did-to. We (the doers) fixed the machine (the did-to).

In the passive, the did-to is the subject of the sentence. The verb is used, but the doer may not be mentioned.

• Jim made a mistake. Active. Doer - did something - did-to
• A mistake was made by Jim. Passive. Did-to  had something done to it by the doer.
• A mistake was made. Passive. The doer is not mentioned.

You machine has been repaired. The machine is the "did-to." The doers are not mentioned. To make it active, you have to have the doers as the subject. We have repaired your machine.

It will be returned. Still passive. The subject is the "did-to" - in this case, "it" (standing in for "the machine").

To be active, you need to say who will be the doer - who will return it? I will return it to you today. Alex will return it to you today.

Corinna 7

This material has been tested by our engineers - this would be Active because the subject is doing?

it will be returned to you today  - Passive since it stands for material - so there is no doer?

Tanit,

I am glad that I stumbled on upon this site. I hope that I will be able to help someone the same you two have helped me.

Now that you explained that it makes sense.  I was looking for a person, not a subject. Thanks for the "by" tip. Not in my text book .. From what I am learning my goal is to be an active writer.

I think I have it!

The supervisor announced the new work schedule. << this is ACTIVE right?  the subject is doing the verb action right? which makes him the doing ...