Name _____________________________________

Throughout the year you will have many different types of writing assignments in your Composition Folder. I expect you to do your best work on all of these, including carefully proofreading each one to find and correct all errors. These are the types of mistakes that you should be able to recognize on your own:

•simple spelling mistakes

•missing or improper punctuation

•omitted or repeated words

•presence of incomplete or run-on sentences

For your Required Topics Assignments, we will focus special attention on particular skills. In these cases, you will record the specific skills for the entry, along with other information about the assignment on the cover sheet for the Required Topic. The specific skill areas fall generally into these four basic categories:

Mechanics	Style
Correct capitalization	Vocabulary appropriate to aim and audience
Proper use of punctuation	Varied sentence structures
Proper use of quotation marks	Rhetorical and literary devices
Standard usage (subject-verb agreement)	Point of view and tone of voice
Organization	Content
Developing effective topic sentences	Accuracy
Proper sequencing of details	Logic
Appropriate essay structure	Use of details
(introduction, body, conclusion)
Building logical paragraphs	Credibility
Constructing appropriate transitions

Since we will refer to these areas throughout this year, you should save this sheet in your Composition Folder and become familiar with each of these skill areas. You should use this sheet as a proofreading checklist for all of your writing assignments including those for which no specific skill areas are designated. You will also need this sheet when you are asked to select your own specific skill areas on which to focus for an assignment.