Standard English Conventions:
The Craft of ********
“Conventions” is just another way of referring to standard practices and
expectations that we follow in all sorts of areas of our lives, not just in ********.
We rely on conventions in most of life: driving in the correct lane,
waiting our turn to pay at the store, making room for people on the sidewalk
or in an elevator, and so much more. Conventions aren’t just about etiquette;
they’re the customs we use and rely on throughout the culture in order to
make our dealings with other people function more smoothly.
******** conventions are much like conventions in other parts of our lives.
******** conventions offer a standard (typical, broadly agreed-upon) way
to construct written expression in a manner that meets people’s expectations
and thereby helps ensure that our spoken and, especially, our written utterances
are received and understood. To take a simple but important example,
we commonly agree that in most cases a “sentence” in writing consists of
a more or less complete thought, that a sentence will have certain parts
(at least a subject and a verb), that the start of a new sentence should be
signaled by a capital letter, and that the end of a sentence should be indicated
with punctuation (a period, question mark, or exclamation point).
for Expression of Ideas, Standard English Conventions on
the Writing and ******** Test is an overarching category that includes
three subcategories, each of which contains several testing points. Standard
English Conventions questions require you to edit passages for sentence
structure, usage, and punctuation. (Spelling and capitalization aren’t directly
tested.)
