College

Which error in the sentence should be corrected when editing?

"The first Penal Transportation Act in 1718 allowed English courts to sentence convicts to seven years."

A. awkward phrasing
B. wordiness
C. punctuation
D. spelling error

Answer :

Final answer:

The sentence contains an error due to awkward phrasing, as it truncates the phrase intended to state 'seven years.' Other issues like wordiness, punctuation, and spelling are not present. The sentence needs to be revised for clarity.


Explanation:

Identifying the Error in the Sentence

The sentence in question is: The first Penal Transportation Act in 1718 allowed English courts to sentence convicts to seven ye. Upon examining this sentence, the focus is on what type of error it contains. The correct option to identify the error here is related to awkward phrasing.

The phrase 'to sentence convicts to seven ye' is incomplete, as it does not specify the duration clearly (expected to be 'seven years'). This makes the sentence awkward and unclear. An editor should correct this awkwardness to better convey the intended message.

In contrast, the other options—wordiness, punctuation, and spelling error—do not apply to this particular sentence because:

  • The sentence is concise and does not contain excessive wordiness.
  • There are no punctuation errors; the structure is correctly formatted.
  • There is no spelling error in the words provided, other than the incomplete phrase mentioned.

Conclusion

Therefore, the main issue is with the awkward phrasing that results from the sentence being cut off. A clearer and complete version would resolve this.


Learn more about sentence error identification here:

https://brainly.com/question/37864563