Grammar

The following are some tips and tricks that you can follow to improve your grammar.

Parts of speech

In this lesson, we will go over some of the basic parts of speech that are necessary for forming effective sentences.

Nouns

A noun is a word that identifies a place, object, idea, etc. It can either be a common noun or a proper noun.

A common noun refers to places, objects, ideas, or things without specifying them, e.g., country, shoes, love, trees. Common nouns are lowercase unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence.

A proper noun is specific in nature and always begins with a capital letter. These usually include names of places, phenomena, institutions, or people, e.g., Denmark, Halley’s Comet, Judaism, Sam.

Pronouns

Pronouns are words we use to represent nouns in a sentence. They often are substituted when referring to a person, place, or things.

In order to understand pronouns, it’s important to also understand antecedents. An antecedent is the noun that goes before a pronoun. In order to use a pronoun, there needs to be a noun that it represents. When writing has unclear antecedents, the meaning of the sentence becomes unclear.

How to use pronouns free of bias

When using pronouns in writing, if you do not know the preferred pronouns of the person or people you are referring to, it is always best to default to “they/them/theirs” pronouns. Remember that:

• He/him/his are masculine pronouns
• She/her/hers are feminine pronouns
• They/them/theirs are neutral or plural pronouns

Let’s look at an example:

• Incorrect: As a software developer, he uses Javascript, CSS, and Django.

• Correct: As a software developer, they use Javascript, CSS, and Django.

Note: We changed “he” to “they” because we do not actually know who the software developer is in this statement. Always avoid gendered pronouns if you are unsure or in general statements.

The table below outlines the different types of pronouns.

Verbs

Verbs represent the action that is taking place in the sentence. Verbs are the center of a sentence.

The different kinds of verbs are:

• Transitive: Transitive verbs are verbs that have a direct objectA direct object is a word or phrase that receives the action of a verb. For example: “I fed the cat.” In this sentence “the cat” is the direct object receives the action of “fed.” but do not have an indirect object.

• Intransitive verbs: Intransitive verbs use neither a direct object nor an indirect objectAn indirect object is a word or phrase the receives the direct object. For example: “I made my friends dinner.” The indirect object is “my friends” because they are receiving the direct object “dinner.”. They are action verbs that are complete on their own.

• Action verbs: Action verbs, also called dynamic verbs, are one of the most common verbs because they describe a physical action or activity that is taking place. These verbs are normally something external that is happening, but it can also include mental or internal actions.

• Being verbs: Being verbs or “state of being” verbs are the opposite of action verbs in that they describe the state of the subject or how the subject is feeling.

• Linking verbs: A linking verb can be any type of verb that links the subject to the rest of the sentence.

Below is a list of some common irregular verbs in English. Unfortunately, there is no pattern to follow, they must be memorized.

Adjectives

Adjectives are the words we use to add attributes to nouns or noun phrases in order to describe or modify them.

They can describe the quality of a noun, e.g. good dog, or the quantity, e.g. many dogs.

Therefore, descriptive words like colors, size, textures, and tones are adjectives, such as big, soft, blue, funny, etc.

Numbers or numerical descriptors are also adjectives, such as many, few, twelve, infinite, etc.

Why use adjectives?

Adjectives are important in writing because they essentially make nouns more specific. For example, if you write “flower,” the reader may imagine something completely different than what you had in mind.

However, if you write “small, blue, three-petaled flower,” the reader can now clearly conceptualize what you are referring to.

How to spot adjectives

Adjectives are usually easy to find, because in English, they come right before the nouns they are modifying.

• For example, we would write: “Alex had a very beautiful dress.”
• We would not write: "Alex had a very dress beautiful" or “Alex had a beautiful very dress.”

If we have multiple adjectives, we can separate them with conjunctions like “and” or commas, such as:

• “Alex had a very beautiful and long dress.”
• “Alex had a very long, beautiful dress.”

These examples also contain an adverb, “very.” It is important to note that adjectives do not modify verbs, adverbs, or other adjectives.

Adjective order

When using multiple adjectives, it can get tricky to figure out what order to write them in. Luckily, there is a standard rule of thumb for this order! It is as follows:

• Opinion
• Size
• Age
• Length or shape
• Color
• Origin
• Ethnicity, religion
• Material; purpose

So, for example, we could write: the giant hundred-year-old brown Canadian moose.

• It would be incorrect to write: the brown hundred-year-old Canadian giant moose.

For native English speakers, the second sentence probably sounds odd to you, but for English learners, this order is not necessarily intuitive. Thus, you can always refer to the above list when you’re unsure of multiple adjective order.

Punctuation

Colons and semicolons

A colon alerts the reader to a quotation, list, or enumeration that will follow.

You can use it:

• For lists. “I have four favorite fruits: pomegranates, blackberries, mangos, and dragonfruit.”
• To indicate a quote. “Frederick Douglass once wrote: ‘Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.’”

A semi-colon is used to link two independent clauses together or to indicate a stronger breaka longer wait time before reading the rest of the sentence than a comma would indicate.

You can use it:

• Between independent clauses. For example, “The radios were shipped today; the television sets will be shipped tomorrow.”

• In a series. If items in a series already contain commas, you can use semicolons to separate the items. For example, “Invitations have come from Houston, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; Paris, France; and several other cities.”

When not to use semicolons

Semicolons are not commas

Semicolons are most often misused because they are substituted for commas. Remember: only use semicolons to link two independent clauses. If one of the clauses is dependent, your sentence is incorrect.

The following are examples of how not to use semicolons. See if you can find the dependent clauses:

• I saw a bald eagle today; eating a fish.
• Desperate for coffee; I waited in line at Starbucks for half an hour.
• The painter worked hard; for hours and hours; until the portrait was done.

In all of the sentences above, we should use commas instead of semicolons.

Semicolons must form logical links

Another misuse of semicolons arises when we try to use semicolons to combine sentences that don’t make logical sense together. For example, there’s no reason these sentences should be linked with a semicolon:

• I love bagels; it is sunny.
• The chinchilla is soft; when does math class start?
• She spent hours looking for her car keys; his favorite book is The Catcher in the Rye.

Although sentences linked by semicolons can contrast each other, the above sentences simply have no correlation with each other, so no semicolon is needed. These sentences can and should be separate, complete sentences ending in a period, not joined by a semicolon.

Commas

Commas are used for a few different reasons:

• Introductory prepositional phrases: A comma is necessary after an introductory phrase that contains five or more words. Ex: “In addition to her responsibilities in that department, she also recruits seniors.”
• Two independent clauses or short independent clauses: Use a comma when joining two independent clauses. Ex: “I live in a house, but I work at an office.” “Sign the enclosed card, and mail it today.”
• A series: Use commas to separate items in a list. Ex: “I am getting flour, butter, and eggs at the store.”
• Nonessential elements: If you can remove an element of a sentence without greatly changing the meaning, it is nonessential and can be separated by commas. Ex: “Dr. Kim, whom you have just met, will be your Professor this year.”

Parentheses

Parentheses() usually enclose material related to the sentence but not the sentence structure. Ex: "I live in a house (that was just painted green) on Briar Lane.

However, there are some rules for how parentheses work with other punctuation marks:

• The first letter of the information in parentheses is only capitalized if it is a proper nounEx: New York, Mary, UCLA, etc., proper adjectiveEx: Spanish, Russian, etc., or the pronoun “I.”

• Never put punctuation before an opening parenthesis. Place all required punctuation (if any) after the closing parenthesis.

• When a question or an exclamation point is enclosed in parentheses, a question or exclamation point is placed before the closing parenthesis. Ex: "The food I ate last night (you used to be the chef at Plaza Bella, right?) was much better than the food at Plaza Bella.

General syntax

A sentence is a group of words that has at least one subject-verb"The dog chases the cat." combination.

A sentence is made up of a subjectWhat or whom a sentence is talking about. and a predicateWhat the sentence is saying about the subject..

A complete sentence is an independent clause. An incomplete sentence is a dependent clause

In the following example, the independent clause is in bold:

"The store ran out of the item quickly because supplies were limited.

Sentence structure

There are three different types of sentence structure.

• Simple sentence. Has one subject and one verb.

Ex: “Joe is checking his email.”

• In this sentence, the verb is “is checking” and the subject is “Joe.”

• Compound sentence. Has at least two independent clauses, so there will be two or more subject-verb combinations.

Ex: “Joe is checking the invitations; Pat is mailing them.” OR “Joe is checking the invitations; however, Pat is mailing them.”

• In this sentence, the verbs are “is checking” and “is mailing,” and the subjects are “Joe” and “Pam.”

• Complex sentence. Has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

Ex: “Roger will file those papers after I have checked them.”

• “Roger will file those papers” is the independent clause and “after I have checked them” is the dependent clause.

Word usage

1. Dangling Modifiers. Phrases and clauses should be placed as close as possible to the word(s) they modify.

Example:

• “Rotting in the refrigerator, our office manager threw the fruit in the garbage” wrong because what is rotting in the refrigerator is unclear.
• “Our office manager threw out the fruit that was rotting in the refrigerator in the garbage.” right

2. There vs. their vs. they’re. All of these words sound the same, but they are all used very differently.
   • “There” is used to refer to a place (e.g., “Look over there.”)
   • “Their” is used to show belonging or association (e.g., “Their children are well-behaved.”)
   • “They’re” is the contraction of “they” and “are,” and is used the same way those two words would be used (e.g., “They’re looking for dinner.”)