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Top
Ten Grammar Problems
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- If only a comma
appears between two independent clauses without a
coordinating conjunction, the error is called a comma splice.
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Faulty:
Salmon swim upstream, they leap over huge dams to reach their destination. Revised: Salmon swim upstream, and then they leap over huge dams to reach their destination. |
- A comma splice also occurs when a comma and a transitional expression join two independent clauses.
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Faulty:
Some parents support bilingual education, however, many oppose it
vociferously. Revised: Some parents support bilingual education; however, many oppose it vociferously. |
- ·Apostrophes
indicate ownership or possession (Fred's books, the government's plan).
- They can also signal omitted letters (who's, can't).
- When you use the present tense, subject and verb must agree in person and number.
- Two key points
about Agreement:
- Generally, you can put an -s on a noun to make it plural,
- or you can put an -s on a verb to make it singular.An -s on both is not standard English.
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Faulty: Revised: |
4. Coordinated & Subordinated Conjunctions
- Conjunctions indicate the relationship between words or groups of words.
- The two classes
of conjunctions are coordinate and subordinate.
Coordinate conjunctions - indicate units of equal status (yet, and, but, or, for, so, nor).
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Ex. Do you want
cake or ice cream? |
Subordinate conjunctions - indicate that one unit is more important than the other (after, although, as, because, before, if, since, that, unless, until, when, where, while).
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Ex. |
- Avoid using two negatives in one sentence, or you will end up saying the opposite of what you mean.
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Faulty:
Barely no one noticed that the pop star lip-synched during
the whole Revised:
Barely anyone noticed that the pop star lip-synched during
the whole |
6. Disruptive & Misplaced Modifiers
Be wary of modifiers that sometimes seem to modify two things, or the wrong thing.
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Notice in this example that "just" is used in four places, and in each place it carries a different connotation.
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Just
twenty new people just volunteered just for the sea
turtle rescue program |
- The antecedent is the noun that a pronoun refers to. The pronoun and antecedent must be in agreement.
- When pronouns and the nouns they replace are separated by several words, sometimes the agreement in number is lost.
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Faulty:
The band members collected his and her uniforms. |
Prepositions are words used before nouns and pronouns to form phrases
that convey relationships such as of time and space (in the poem,
throughout the day, behind her, without a doubt, for you). Prepositional
phrases are often idiomatic: on occasion, in love.
- Prepositions can pile information onto previous nouns:
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The design of
the apparatus with the tubing and the electrical wiring was |
- Fragments are incomplete sentences that are punctuated to look like sentences.
- Fragments lack key elements-often a subject or verb-or else are a subordinate clause or phrase.
- How to turn fragments
into sentences:
Incorporate the fragment into an adjoining sentence.
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Faulty:
She saw him coming. And looked away. |
Add the missing element.
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Faulty:
When aiming for the highest returns, and also thinking about the
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- Run-ons jam together two or more sentences, failing to separate them with appropriate punctuation.
- The writer must be careful to determine where one main clause stops and the next begins.
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Faulty:
I do not recall what kind of printer it was all I remember is that
it could |
Holly Blackford -
Contributor
Darling, Capital Community College
Faigley & Lester, The Brief Penguin Handbook
Diane Matlock - Contributor
Raimes, Keys for Writers
Williams, Style: Toward Clarity & Grace
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