Common Mistakes..

Common sentence structure mistakes

• Periods and commas should always go inside quotation marks. For example: "Write like this," she said. Question marks and exclamation points can go inside or outside the quotation marks, depending on whether they are part of the material being quoted. Please note that this is the American method, British English places all following punctuation after the quotation marks. See the Wikipedia page on British and American English usage for more information.

• Use square brackets within parentheses when you must use parentheses again (i.e., "She spoke ironically [meaning jokingly]").

• Use a semicolon in the place of a period when joining two sentences that share a central idea. For example, "Many people think that semicolons should be used the same way as commas; they should not be."

• Use either an em dash (—) or en dash(–) instead of "-" or "--". This depends, however, on the typesetting system available.

• Apostrophes should be used only for contractions ("It's OK to use one here") or possessive form ("Bob's use of apostrophes is correct"), with few exceptions. It is incorrect to use an apostrophe to indicate a plural ("Error's like this are annoying").

• Do not use constructions such as "as good or better than," because "as good than" makes no sense by itself. If you must use this phrasing, it should be "as good as or better than," because then each part stands on its own. A more graceful phrasing is "at least as good as."

FRom: Wikipedia

Grammar

Grammar and Punctuation (Genesee Valley Center Writing Program)
This is a resource list detailing correct usage and common errors in grammar and punctuation. Grammar listings include: agreement between subjects and verbs, pronoun agreement, pronoun case, parallelism, avoiding sentence fragments, and dangling modifiers. Punctuation topics address proper use of semicolons, colons, and commas.

Grammar Workout: Adjectives (Writer's Complex)
This short reading discusses the purpose of adjectives in the sentence and clarifies the roles of adverbs. Page includes link to practice exercises.

Grammar Workout: Adverbs (Writer's Complex)
This brief reading explains the role of the adverb as a modifier and how adverbs differ from adjectives. Page includes link to practice exercises.

Grammar Workout: Bottom-Line, Low-Anxiety Grammar and Sentence Structure (Writer's Complex)
The reading reviews sentence basics. Follow links to four major review topics and interactive exercises.

Grammar Workout: Nouns (Writer's Complex)
Explains the difference between common and proper nouns using examples.

Grammar Workout: Nouns and Adjectives (Writer's Complex)
Demonstrates the relationship between nouns and their adjective modifiers. Page include link to practice exercises. Page includes four practice exercises.

Grammar Workout: Nouns and Their Pronouns (Writer's Complex)
This extensive series of readings covers noun and pronoun agreement, how to recognize "trick" singular nouns, and use proper pronoun references to nouns. Features four practice exercises.

Grammar Workout: Nouns and Their Verbs (Writer's Complex)
Six separate readings explain different types of agreement between nouns and their verbs within the sentence. Topics covered include: noun and verb agreement, regular and irregular verbs, agreement when using regular and irregular verbs, "trick" singular nouns, and agreement when words come between the verb and the noun. Four different exercises are included.

Grammar Workout: Pronouns (Writer's Complex)
This is a short reading on the role of pronouns in the sentence. Explains proper agreement between the noun and its pronoun replacement. in number. gender and type.

Grammar Workout: Pronouns and Pronouns (Writer's Complex)
This brief reading addresses the need for consistency in pronoun usage within in sentences. Page includes link to practice exercise.

Grammar Workout: The One and Only Grammar Rule (Writer's Complex)
Introduces the concept that complementary elements in a sentence must agree.

Grammar Workout: Verbs (Writer's Complex)
Describes the role of the verb in the sentence. Provides examples of action verbs versus verbs that show abstract feelings or states.

Grammar Workout: Verbs and Adverbs (Writer's Complex)
Explains briefly the role of adverbs in describing or modifying verbs. Includes link to practice exercise.

Grammar Workout: Verbs and Verbs (Writer's Complex)
Explains how verbs must agree with other verbs, and tips on using the proper verb tense. Page includes link to practice exercise.

Miscellaneous Grammar Woes (Genesee Valley Center Writing Program)
Details how to avoid sentence fragments, misplaced and dangling modifiers, and incorrect parallel structure.

Punctuation

Grammar and Punctuation (Gennessee Valley Center Writing Program)
Resource list details correct usage and common errors in grammar and punctuation. Punctuation topics address proper use of semicolons, colons, and commas.

Punctuation Points (Writer's Complex)
This introductory reading describes the role of punctuation.

Punctuation Points Abbreviations (Writer's Complex)
Learn the essentials of using abbreviations correctly. Topics include: knowing when to spell out a word or phrase and when to use anabbreviation, correct punctuation and capitalization for common abbreviations, and proper usage of symbols.

Punctuation Points Apostrophes (Writer's Complex)
Outlines the three main uses of apostrophes. Offers tips on using personal pronouns. Includes a brief practice exercise.

Punctuation Points Brackets (Writer's Complex)
Explains the proper use of brackets. Includes examples.

Punctuation Points Capital Letters (Writer's Complex)
Outlines the three functions of capital letters. Reading includes examples and exercises.

Punctuation Points Commas (Writer's Complex)
This is an extensive review of the correct use of commas in five common situations. Several examples illustrate each rule. Pagei ncludes a link to a practice exercise on commas and colons.

Punctuation Points Colons (Writer's Complex)
Reviews the four common uses of the colon. Includes examples and a quiz on the colon, dash and parentheses.

Punctuation Points Dashes (Writer's Complex)
Details the correct use of dashes in formal and informal writing. Includes quiz on the colon, dash and parentheses.

Punctuation Points Ellipses (Writer's Complex)
This brief reading explains the use of the ellipse (three spaced periods) in formal writing.

Punctuation Points Exclamation Point (Writer's Complex)
This brief review summarizes the use of the exclamation point to indicate emphasis, surprise or a strong emotion. Includes many examples.

Punctuation Points Hyphens (Writer's Complex)
Rules for correct use of hyphens are in flux. This is a comprehensive review with examples.

Parentheses (Writer's Complex)
Punctuation Points Illustrates the proper use of parentheses to provide the reader with additional information within a sentence. Includes link to quiz on the colon, dash and parentheses.

Punctuation Points Quotation Marks (Writer's Complex)
Summarizes the three basic uses of quotation marks. Includes examples and review quiz.

Punctuation Points Semi-Colons (Writer's Complex)
Explains how semi-colons are used to join sentences and emphasize divisions between items that themselves include commas. Includes a practice exercise on the correct use commas and semi-colons.

Sentence Structure

Grammar Workout: Common Sentence Structure Errors (Writer's Complex)
This page links to readings and interactive exercises. Explains how to recognize and correct sentence fragments and run-on sentences.

Grammar Workout: How Does A Sentence Make Sense? (Writer's Complex)
Review the basic principles of agreement within the parts of speech that comprise a sentence. Includes links to readings and exercises.

Grammar Workout: Ways to Structure Sentences (Writer's Complex)
Explore the use and development of simple, compound and complex sentences to add interest and meaning. Includes two practice exercises.

Grammar Workout: Sentence Structure and Voice (Writer's Complex)
Learn the difference between the active and passive "voice" in writing and how to create sentences that are clear in specifying the actor and the action. Includes an interactive practice exercise.

The Sentence (Gennessee Valley Center Writing Program)
Learn about the variety of sentence structures. This variety helps not only to enrich the style of one's writing but also to improve its effectiveness of communication.


Copyright © 1999 - 2009 Empire State College.

Proper Grammar Checker enables those who lack with basic grammar writing confidence to easily improve their writing performance by identifying and correcting their common writing errors. Many of these NLP solutions (Natural Language Processing) quickly analyze your content by using advanced algorithms, and then 'fix' it according to their internal 'correct text' DB. If we research these nlp (natural language processing) programs we will notice that most of them provide the following: text editing, grammatical check, correct spelling, and proper punctuation.

Quick advantages

Automatic language processing tools as described in this article enable us with the following:

* Enriching our English vocabulary.

* Helping people who use writing as their main working tool whether at home or in the office.

* Assisting ESL learners assimilating English grammar rules.

Looking closer on this technology, we could easily find other advantages that aren't described in this article, as this technology keeps changing, bringing us fresh solutions that help us on improving our Writing abilities.

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Elements of Proper Grammar

The terms we use in grammar help to explain the relationship and the function of all the words in a sentence. Click on the element of grammar in the list below for the basic rules that apply to each of them. Proper grammar is key to the success of your composition.

You will find these definitions and examples extraordinarily helpful anytime you are not sure how to approach the grammar or punctuation in sections of your composition.

1. Adjectives and Adverbs

2. Conjunctions and Prepositions

3. Nouns

4. Verbs

5. Homophones: To, Too and Two


* Punctuation - is a powerful tool and can change the entire meaning of what you are trying to express.

* Capitalization - know when and when not to capitalize.

Other Writing Tips:
Letter Formats
Structure of Letters
Addressing Persons of Title
Letter Writing - Tips and Tools


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Common errors in grammar:

This section contains links to a web page containing a few of the more common errors and sub-standard usages that you should look for and correct during the editing process. Proper and improper examples are provided together with references to appropriate sections of The Blair Handbook (henceforth referred to simply as "Blair").

• Avoid the lack of subject-verb agreement.
• Avoid using double negatives
• Avoid the use of sentence fragments
• Avoid the use of run-on sentences
• Avoid confusing verb forms and tenses
• Avoid confusing pronoun case forms
• Avoid misplaced modifiers
• Avoid redundancy
• Avoid the use of slang, jargon, and clichés like the plague

Last updated on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 by Bill Hemphill