Consistent Perspective

One of the weakest language shifts involves the change from third person to first or second. We've discussed this issue a few times.

• Sentence to sentence, you need to maintain the same subject when discussing the same subject. If you start a thought with "our" or "Albert" you must stick to that subject until the thought is complete, even in the next sentence. Shifting from "We love to take walks. You are amazing" is really disconcerting. 

• "You" is most effectively used as the subject when giving advice or directions (such as when you are writing a process-oriented paper on How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yum!)

Time is also very important. You screw time when you shift verb tenses, within a sentence or from sentence to sentence! 

• In literary analysis, you write in the 3rd person simple present (Albert walks. Klara states). Doing so will allow you to much more cleanly express flashback using key transitional words or phrases or the simple past tense.

• Albert goes on a worldwide search for his father, and ends up in the South Pacific. To find his father, he must work as first mate to a slave trader named Jack Lewis. Albert compromises his ethics to seek the truth of his father. 

That dirty, sinful word 'syntax' needs consistency, too. 

• Active voice construction is the first key. Your writing in Active Voice is benefited by a consistent verb tense, coincidentally. Why? Because the "simple present" forces you to scrap all worthless verb constructions for the easiest. You get down to "subject + verb" construction. 

• Passive voice:  linking verb + by/with + subject  (The boy was bitten by the dog.)

• In listy sentences, or in multiple sentences in which list ideas, you should also follow the same order and form (137-39).  

• Order: in multiple sentences or compound sentences, make sure the sentences that go together follow "subject, verb" structure. If one of the actions changes to "verb, subject" then you have a shift.

• Form: Pay attention to the verb forms and types. If you have an action verb, the next verb construction should be an action verb. Your goal is to get those verbs to match in form and "type."  
• Linking verbs (to be or to have verbs) are a great clue.  
• When the verb form changes drastically over a sentence or two, you've got an issue.

Basic Editing Skill: Diagram your sentences to test for most grammar issues

1. Underline the subject of the sentence

2. Circle the verb

3. Box or bracket or cross out (with a pencil or your mind!) all the other words

Supplemental strategies:  

• Write DEP above dependent clauses and IND above the complete sentences. 
• Draw a vertical line ( |  )  between each end punctuation to isolate and edit individual sentences.
• Edit by BACKWARDS READING. Start with the last sentence in the paragraph. Then the second to last, then the third, and so on.... 
• Use the space bar to separate a paragraph from the rest. Even spacebar each sentence so they stand alone on a line.