This is one of those grammatical errors people make daily. But this video breaks it down in an understandable way. Check it out.
0 Comments
Amber found this great writing resource and shared it with us. It'll help you both improve your blogging and your Inman submissions. It needs no more ado than saying you should definitely give it a read. Here's "33 Writing Tweaks That Will Turn You into a Copywriting Master."
Here's another little refresher on dependent and independent clauses from Khan Academy. Enjoy.
After last week's discussion on independent clauses versus dependent clauses, I found another great video from Khan Academy that explains the sentence building blocks -- phrases and clauses.
If you've never checked out Khan Academy -- it's totally worth it. You can learn and refresh your memory on all sorts of things. I used it to study for the GRE.
And if you go to the YouTube page where this video is housed, you can find links to an exercise and the next lesson on Khan Academy.
One of the things I mentioned from Grammarly last week was misplaced commas. The biggest errors we see are the missing comma after an independent clause or an unnecessary comma before a dependent clause. I think this is because you have to be mindful of when you have written an independent clause and go back and add the comma. Often, we get into writing the sentence and forget about that comma.
Check out this video for a refresher on independent and dependent clauses and a reminder where commas go. Hey all! Amber has been sending me this nifty little report from Grammarly that tells us our most commonly made mistakes. Although the report is not representative of all the contributed content (because not all of it goes through Grammarly), these mistakes are pretty common in all submitted post.
The three mistakes are:
The most common mistake that I see across all contributed content is the third one. Here's an example of probably the most common offense. A real estate agent knows their stuff. See the problem here is that real estate agent is singular and their is plural. Therefore, they aren't in agreement. The correct way to write that would be to say either: Real estate agents know their stuff. (plural) Or A real estate agent knows his or her stuff. (singular) It's an easy mistake to make because that's often how we speak. But now that it's been pointed out to you, I bet you'll start seeing it everywhere. I know I notice it even when people speak. Amber sent me this great article we thought we'd share. It's from CoSchedule, and it will help you craft a strong pitch email. Enjoy!
So I was going to give you a section of my favorite grammar book, but it was very complex, so I turned to Grammarly, which dumbed it down for me in the same way my grammar professor did (yes, there are professors who teach grammar among other things -- at a fast pace -- and are annoyingly exceptional at it).
So here's what Grammarly said: "Who should be to used to refer to the subject of a sentence. Whom should be used to refer to the object of a sentence." Try this simple trick: If you can replace the word with he or she, who is your best bet. If you can replace it with him or her, whom is the right choice. (Memory device: him ends with m, just like whom.) Who went to the park? (He went to the park. She went to the park.) Whom should I go to the ball with? (I should go to the ball with him or her.) Grammar Girl gives a more in-depth version if you are interested. • Choose which to set off something nonrestrictive (nonessential to the meaning of the sentence) -- or, as we say, parenthetical.
Choose that to set of something restrictive (essential) -- something you wouldn't put in parenthesis: Nonrestrictive: The Nile, which flows into the Mediterranean, gives Egypt life. Restrictive: The Nile is the river that gives Egypt life. • If you think of a nonessential clause as something parenthetical -- an aside -- you can remember that which introduces a clause set off by parentheses, dashes or commas. That introduces a clause not set off by parentheses, dashes or commas. Restrictive: The policy that critics charged was flawed from the beginning was amended. [tells which policy of several] Nonrestrictive: The policy, which critics charged was flawed from the beginning, was amended. [merely adds a fact parenthetically about the policy under discussion] Restrictive: The house that had a brick front was theirs. [tells which house] Nonrestrictive: The corner house, which had a brick front, was theirs. [merely adds a fact parenthetically about the house] • Use what rather than that or which mainly in questions and in place of the phrase that which or those which: What book has Democrats seeing red these days? [question] Pundits say he stands a good chance to get what he wants. [meaning that which] Next week, we'll talk about the differences between who, whom, whoever and whomever. This week, I thought we'd do a written lesson because we haven't done one in a while. This particular issue is something we editors see on a regular basis -- and even commit from time to time.
It's about choosing when to use THAT and when to use WHO. This lesson is taken from Working With Words -- a God sent of a grammar book. Here goes: "When the word refers back to a collective noun (such as the name of an association, a business or a governing body), a thing (an inanimate object, abstraction and so on) or an animal without a proper name, the relative pronoun should be from the THAT family (that or which). "When the word refers back to a person or an animal with a proper name, the correct relative pronoun should be from the WHO family (who, whom, whoever, whomever, whose or who's):
Next week, we'll talk about the differences between that and which (and possibly what). |
Archives
April 2019
|