Question

please proofread this and keep my wording please. List all errors.

During and before the outbreak of the war, Americans disputed on whether the national government or the state government should have the final say. The majority of these fights revolved around the issue of slavery. Some people in the north wanted a stronger national government to create rules that applied everywhere. However, people in the south instead wanted "states' rights." They argued that states should make the decisions about big topics like slavery. Southern states depended on slavery for farms and wanted new states and territories to allow slavery. Northern states had instead opposed the spread of slavery and wanted to limit or stop the spread of slavery into new states or territories.

Answer 1

Below I list the errors sentence by sentence and give minimal corrections that keep your wording as much as possible.

1) Original: "During and before the outbreak of the war, Americans disputed on whether the national government or the state government should have the final say."
- Errors:
- Word order/awkward phrasing: "During and before the outbreak of the war" (better as "Before and during the outbreak of the war" or "before and during the war").
- Wrong preposition/collocation: "disputed on whether" → should be "disputed whether" or "disagreed about whether."
- Number/parallelism: "the state government" should be plural ("state governments") when contrasted with "the national government."
- Minimal corrected version: "Before and during the outbreak of the war, Americans disputed whether the national government or the state governments should have the final say."

2) Original: "The majority of these fights revolved around the issue of slavery."
- Errors:
- Word choice / register: "fights" is informal; "disputes" or "debates" is more appropriate.
- Slightly awkward phrasing: "The majority of these fights" → "Most of these fights" or "Most of these disputes."
- Minimal corrected version (keeping most wording): "Most of these fights revolved around the issue of slavery." (Or better: "Most of these disputes revolved around the issue of slavery.")

3) Original: "Some people in the north wanted a stronger national government to create rules that applied everywhere."
- Errors:
- Capitalization: "north" should be "North" when referring to the region.
- Minimal corrected version: "Some people in the North wanted a stronger national government to create rules that applied everywhere."

4) Original: "However, people in the south instead wanted "states' rights.""
- Errors:
- Capitalization: "south" → "South."
- Redundancy: "However" and "instead" both signal contrast; use one.
- (Quotation marks are acceptable here but not necessary.)
- Minimal corrected versions:
- "However, people in the South wanted "states' rights." or
- "People in the South instead wanted "states' rights.""

5) Original: "They argued that states should make the decisions about big topics like slavery."
- Errors:
- Word choice / register: "big topics" is informal; "major issues" is better.
- Slight wording: "make the decisions" → "make decisions" is tighter.
- Minimal corrected version: "They argued that states should make decisions about major topics like slavery." (If you want to keep "big topics," you can, but it's informal.)

6) Original: "Southern states depended on slavery for farms and wanted new states and territories to allow slavery."
- Errors:
- Missing possessive/pronoun: "for farms" → "for their farms" (or clearer: "for their agricultural economy").
- Minimal corrected version: "Southern states depended on slavery for their farms and wanted new states and territories to allow slavery."

7) Original: "Northern states had instead opposed the spread of slavery and wanted to limit or stop the spread of slavery into new states or territories."
- Errors:
- Tense / aspect: "had instead opposed" (past perfect) is awkward here; simple past "instead opposed" or "opposed" is more consistent with the rest of the paragraph.
- Repetition: "the spread of slavery" appears twice.
- Slightly wordy: "into new states or territories" → "in new states or territories" is cleaner.
- Minimal corrected version: "Northern states instead opposed the spread of slavery and wanted to limit or stop it in new states or territories."

Other small notes:
- Consistency: Use "North" and "South" capitalized throughout when referring to the regions.
- Tone/register: Consider replacing informal words ("fights," "big topics") with "disputes," "debates," or "major issues" if you want a more formal tone.
- Ambiguity: "the war" / "the outbreak of the war" is vague without context — not an error per se, but you might specify which war if needed.

If you want, I can produce a single minimally edited paragraph that applies all of the above corrections while keeping your original wording as close as possible.