Use commas between coordinate adjectives, spell correctly, and choose precise, concise language free of wordiness and redundancy

Learning goal: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation and spelling when writing: use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives, and spell correctly. Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading or listening: choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, and recognize and eliminate wordiness and redundancy. Every example below is labeled correct or faulty, and every faulty example is followed by its correction.

Coordinate adjectives and the comma (L.7.2a). When two adjectives sit before a noun, they are either coordinate or cumulative, and only coordinate adjectives take a comma between them. Coordinate adjectives each modify the noun separately and equally; cumulative adjectives build up, with the adjective nearest the noun forming a unit with it and the earlier adjective describing that unit. Two tests decide, and both should agree. Reverse test: swap the adjectives; if the phrase still sounds natural, they are coordinate. And test: put and between them, keeping both in front of the noun; if that sounds natural, they are coordinate. (After a verb the test does not work: "the boxes were small and wooden" is natural even though "small wooden boxes" takes no comma.) Correct: "It was a fascinating, enjoyable movie." Reverse: an enjoyable, fascinating movie, natural. And: fascinating and enjoyable, natural. Coordinate, so the comma belongs. Correct: "He wore an old green shirt." Reverse: a green old shirt, unnatural. And: old and green shirt, unnatural. Cumulative, so no comma; green shirt is a unit that old describes. Faulty: "He wore an old, green shirt." Corrected: "He wore an old green shirt." Cumulative adjectives usually come from different categories, in a customary order: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, as in "a small wooden box" or "three old brick houses." Adjectives from the same category, two opinions or two qualities, are usually coordinate: "a cold, windy morning"; "a narrow, winding road." Two more conditions: never put a comma between the last adjective and the noun ("a cold, windy, morning" is faulty), and do not add a comma when and already joins the adjectives ("a cold and windy morning" is correct as it stands).

Spelling correctly (L.7.2b). Correct spelling in grade 7 rests on a small set of rules, each with its conditions, plus a list of words that must simply be learned. Rule one, i before e: when the two letters spell the long e sound, write ie (believe, achieve, piece) except after c (receive, ceiling, deceive); exceptions to learn are seize, weird and protein. When the sound is not long e, ei is common (neighbor, weigh, height, their). Rule two, the silent e: drop it before a suffix beginning with a vowel (hope, hoping; use, usable; care, caring) and keep it before a suffix beginning with a consonant (hope, hopeful; care, careful); keep it after a soft c or g before a or o so the sound stays soft (noticeable, courageous, manageable); and learn the few that break the pattern, such as argument, truly and ninth, which drop it, and dyeing and singeing, which keep it so they are not confused with dying and singing. Rule three, final y: after a consonant, change y to i before a suffix (carry, carried; happy, happiness; study, studies) but keep y before -ing (carrying, studying); after a vowel, keep y (play, played; enjoy, enjoyed), with the exceptions paid, said and laid; one-syllable words such as shy and dry often keep the y (shyly, shyness, dryness). These are common patterns, not laws, so check an unfamiliar result in a dictionary. Rule four, doubling: a one-syllable word ending in one vowel plus one consonant doubles the consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel (stop, stopped; plan, planning), but not when that consonant is w, x or y (snow, snowed; box, boxing; play, played), when two vowels precede the consonant (look, looked) or when the word ends in two consonants (jump, jumped); a longer word doubles only when its stress falls on the final syllable and stays there after the suffix (begin, beginning; occur, occurred; admit, admitted; but prefer, preference) and not otherwise (visit, visited; open, opened). Homophones are a spelling matter too, because the checker in a word processor will not catch them: their, there, they're; its, it's; affect (usually a verb) and effect (usually a noun); principal (head of a school, or main) and principle (a rule); stationary (not moving) and stationery (paper). Faulty: "The principle recieved the estimate and was surprized by it's size." Corrected: "The principal received the estimate and was surprised by its size." Four errors: principle for principal, ie for ei after c, z where surprised is spelled with s, and it's for the possessive its.

Precise and concise language (L.7.3a). Precise language names exactly what is meant; concise language uses no more words than the idea needs. They are separate virtues and a writer needs both. Imprecise: "The roof thing costs a lot." Precise: "The rooftop garden is estimated at 42,000 dollars." The revision replaces a vague noun and a vague quantity with the specific noun and the specific figure. Precision is also about verbs: "The engineer said the roof needs a check" is less precise than "The engineer requires a load check," because requires tells the reader that the check is not optional. Concise: "The check takes about six weeks" rather than "The check is something that will take a period of approximately six weeks in length." Precision has a condition: it is not the same as long words. "Utilize" is not more precise than "use"; it is only longer. The precise word is the one whose meaning fits most exactly, whatever its length.

Recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy (L.7.3b). Wordiness is using several words where one does the job. Common wordy phrases and their replacements: due to the fact that, because; at this point in time, now; in the event that, if; has the ability to, can; in spite of the fact that, although; a large number of, many; in close proximity to, near. Redundancy is saying the same thing twice, usually because one word already contains the meaning of the other. Usually redundant, with the repeated meaning shown: free gift (a gift is free); advance planning (planning is done in advance); end result (a result comes at the end); past history; each and every; completely finished; return back; unexpected surprise; true facts; 12 noon. These are candidates for cutting, not automatic errors: keep the extra word when it marks a real distinction in context, as "end result" does when a report has just listed intermediate results, or "advance planning" when the point is how early the planning began. Faulty: "Due to the fact that the estimate is not complete and finished, the end result is that the true actual cost is unknown at this point in time." Corrected: "Because the estimate is incomplete, the actual cost is unknown." Twenty-eight words become ten, and no meaning is lost. That last clause is the condition on concision: cut words, never information. "The estimate omits the staircase" must survive every edit, because it is the fact the sentence exists to carry. Eliminating wordiness means removing words that carry no meaning, not removing meaning.

The misconception. Students often believe that formal or academic writing is supposed to be wordy, so that "at this point in time" sounds more serious than "now." The opposite is true. Formal writing is precise and concise; wordiness signals that the writer has not decided what to say. A second misconception is that a comma belongs wherever a reader might pause. The comma between adjectives is not a pause mark; it is a signal that the adjectives are coordinate, and the two tests, not the ear alone, decide.

A worked model in prose. A student's draft sentence for the committee report reads: "At this point in time the council has made the decision to recommend the smaller, courtyard garden, which is a bright, sunny, space, due to the fact that the roof option's final end cost is not known." Work through it. "At this point in time" is wordy: now. "Made the decision to recommend" is wordy: recommends. "Smaller, courtyard garden" fails both tests, since "courtyard smaller garden" and "smaller and courtyard garden" are unnatural, so the comma goes. "Bright, sunny, space" has coordinate adjectives, since "sunny, bright" and "bright and sunny" both work, so the first comma stays, but the comma before the noun is faulty and goes. "Due to the fact that" becomes because. "Final end cost" is redundant: cost, or final cost. Corrected: "The council now recommends the smaller courtyard garden, a bright, sunny space, because the roof option's final cost is not known." Thirty-seven words have become twenty-one, every fact survives, and every comma has a reason.

Worked example 1 — applying both tests to six adjective pairs. "A fascinating, enjoyable movie": reverse natural, and natural, coordinate, comma. "An old green shirt": reverse unnatural, and unnatural, cumulative, no comma. "A cold, windy morning": both natural, coordinate, comma. "Three small wooden boxes": three is a number word, not one of the adjectives being tested, and never takes a comma, so test small and wooden. "Wooden small boxes" and "small and wooden boxes" are unnatural, cumulative, no comma. "A narrow, winding road": both natural, coordinate, comma. "A rusty iron gate": "iron rusty gate" is unnatural, cumulative, no comma. In each case the two tests agree; when they seem to disagree, read the phrase aloud once more, and if doubt remains, prefer the reading that treats the nearer adjective and the noun as a unit.

Worked example 2 — spelling by rule, with the rule named. Add -ing and -ed to plan: one syllable, one vowel then one consonant that is not w, x or y, so double: planning, planned. Add -ed to visit: two syllables with stress on the first, so no doubling: visited. Add -ed to occur: stress on the final syllable, so double: occurred. Add -able to notice: soft c before a, so keep the e: noticeable. Add -ing to hope: vowel suffix, drop the e: hoping. Add -ful to hope: consonant suffix, keep the e: hopeful. Add -es to study: y after a consonant becomes i: studies; but studying keeps the y before -ing. Spell the long-e word meaning to get: after c, so ei: receive. Spell the word for strange: an exception to learn, weird.

Worked example 3 — cutting a wordy paragraph without losing a fact. Draft, 54 words: "In the event that the load check, which is a test that is required by the engineer, is not able to be completed and finished before the month of May, the end result would be that the garden on the roof would not have the ability to be planted during this current spring season." List the facts: the engineer requires a load check; if it is not completed before May, the roof garden cannot be planted this spring. Corrected, 21 words: "The engineer requires a load check; if it is not completed before May, the roof garden cannot be planted this spring." Removed: in the event that (if), which is a test that is (nothing), able to be (nothing), completed and finished (completed), the month of (nothing), the end result would be that (nothing), have the ability to (can), current spring season (spring). Every fact remains; thirty-three words of padding are gone.

Comma and spelling record: Collect twelve noun phrases with two adjectives from your own writing or a class text. For each, run the reverse test and the and test, record the result of each, label the pair coordinate or cumulative, and write the phrase correctly punctuated. Then take ten words you have misspelled this year, write each correctly, and beside it name the rule that governs it (i before e, silent e, final y, doubling, or a homophone or learned exception). A strong record shows both tests for every phrase and a named rule for every word.

Independent performance: Take a paragraph of at least 120 words from your own recent writing. First, list every fact it contains, one per line. Then revise it for precision and concision: replace vague nouns, quantities and verbs with specific ones, eliminate every wordy phrase and every redundancy, punctuate every adjective pair by the two tests, and check every spelling against the rules. Record the before and after word counts. Success criteria: the revised paragraph contains every fact on your list; the word count has fallen; no wordy phrase from the list in this lesson remains; no redundant pair remains; every comma between adjectives can be justified by both tests; and no spelling error remains, including homophones.