Purdue OWL

My favorite online grammar site is Purdue OWL. If you'd like to check it out you can find the website by clicking here. I started using this website when I was still going into English Teaching. One of my teachers introduced it to me and I loved all of the resources and how easy it is to use.
A very good resource, that I would recommend using, is the MLA and APA Style Guides that they have available. For college students, this is especially useful, because depending on what class you are taking and the preference of your teacher, you never know which they are going to require. I don't know about you, but I also forget that major and minor differences between the two, and it is nice to have a straightforward guide to reference.
Another great resource from the Purdue OWL site, is the Grammar and Punctuation section under the General Writing tab. I have used them many times throughout the semester while working on homework assignments for this class, and it has been a live saver. The grammar section is especially useful, because not only does it have the information, but it includes exercises that you can use to test your knowledge and ensure that you understand.
My grammatical error came from Yahoo Sports this week. While speaking of Ben Simmons and his recent foot injury, they said, "For now, he can do everything with a basketball but shoot it. The passing, the rebounding, finishing at the rim." This is definitely not a complete sentence and is missing some information. The issue is the second sentence. It just doesn't match up with the first sentence and does not flow well.

Christie Fewkes

Week 5

This week seemed fairly difficult for me because it seemed as if the rules were so abundant.  Knowing when to use who or whom kills me every time.  I know that in every day conversation, not many people use the word whom. I have been trying to use it where I can, though, just to remind myself of the applications for the rules surrounding the usage of it.

I asked my daughter, an editor, what site she uses for grammar and she directed me to www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl. I know several of you have heard of it, and perhaps used it already.  It seems like a really good tool and resource for all kinds of grammar questions.  It boasts over 500 podcasts, and I actually found myself watching them; it really helps.

My grammar issue comes from a friend this week who is trying to raise support for her boy’s fundraiser.  She posted the following on Facebook.  I placed corrections in red beneath her post. 

Friends and Family it is that time of year again when my Boy Scouts are selling the Live Wreaths, they are really nice and they help the boys through out the year. I will delivery Local or arrange to meet you somewhere. PLEASE let me know if you would like to order so we can help these Boys out. DELIVERY TIME IS AROUND THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING!!!

Friends and Family, it is that time of year again when my boy scouts are selling live wreaths.  They are really nice and help the boys fund activities throughout the year. I will deliver locally or arrange to meet you somewhere.  Please let me know if you would like to order and help these boys.  Delivery time is approximately the week of Thanksgiving.

Week 5, Derrek Ballard

This week was hard for me because I've never been able to grasp when to use "whom" rather than "who."  Hopefully I get the hang of it before the test next week!

My favorite grammar site is http://www.grammarbook.com.  This website defines terms in a way I can understand them and gives really good examples of each term.  The website also offers free online quizzes to help me recognized what I've learned and what I should review again.

The editing mistake I found this week was, again, on my Facebook feed.

I don't even know where to begin on this.  First of all, there shouldn't be a comma after "past" because it's not a complete sentence.  Second, she used the wrong form of "your."  Third, she spelled "decisions" incorrectly.  Fourth, she also used the wrong form of "for."  Finally, there's no punctuation to end the sentence.

And to think this is inked on her arm for the rest of her life!

Justin Littlewood - Week 5

Hello Everyone,

                I think that the writing lab that I have used the most in my collegiate career is the Purdue Online Writing Lab. I started using this in my first year at college, and looking back know that is more than 6 years ago. Wow the time goes by quicker than you would think. Through all those years Purdue’s Online Writing Lab has been there to help me through all of my papers and not making the mistakes that I would have otherwise. Whether it be a mistake in citations or formatting their site always had a good answer for what I was looking for.

                I used to consider myself somewhat of a grammar Nazi, but the assignments in this class have really opened my eyes even more to the amount of mistakes that are made in everyday writing and talking. I would have to agree with the others who have posted already that the “Dangling Modifiers and Parallelism” assignment had me second guessing what I thought I knew about them. I guess if I were to help someone with this assignment I would say read your sentences out loud and make sure they sound good.

                I live in Bountiful and I am always looking for signs and billboards that may have things written incorrectly. This last week I was driving past Nielsons Frozen Custard and they had this sign up: 

I would first have to say that Nielsons should have an apostrophe if it is possessive. Next they are missing all punctuation on their sign and it runs together and I always have a hard time reading what they have put down.

I will admit that I did struggle a bit with the "Dangling Modifiers and Parallelism" assignment this week. Although I feel that I did a good job of re-writing each sentence in order to make more sense, I still feel that I am not truly sure if I changed it in the way that was intended.

In my own writing, I feel that I do a good job of using active voice and making sure that my sentences are parallel. However, at my work, I am a chat customer service representative, so I communicate with customers all day through text. This is a perfect avenue to examine my own writing, as I have been doing it for so long that I usually do not have to think very much on how to phrase my responses. From doing it so long, I realized that I have found what works and what does not work with customers and I try to base my responses around that. In examining my writing, I realize that I use a lot of passive voice with customers and I am not sure why. After reading the importance of using active voice in our text, I was able to change things up. It will be interesting to see if active voice resonates a bit better with customers or if it tends to make my statistics worse.

Another area that I struggle is using apostrophes. I truly thought that I had a firm grasp on them, but it seems that I use them very often to show possession incorrectly. I definitely need to work on this, as I was truly embarrassed to realize that I had been using them wrong so very often.

Here is a funny apostrophe mistake that I would often use in my own writing:

Week 5 Jessica

The assignment "Dangling Modifiers and Parallelism" was difficult for me. I wanted to talk about sentence structure in my blog post this week because that assignment opened my eyes. As an editor, if I was given the sentences that we were meant to rewrite, I would be overwhelmed.

It is so important to compose a strong sentence from the get-go. You should never be reading a sentence and wondering, "What is the main point here?" Throwing around dangling modifiers and clauses that are unbalanced and poorly worded cloud up the meaning for your reader.

It is one thing to compose a descriptive, creative sentence. It is another to fill it with jumble and unnecessary adverbs and verbals. Once I attempted to rewrite the sentences from our assignment, I quickly became stumped. There are so many ways to organize sentences and they will still make sense. But I found myself always asking, "Is this correct? Is this the best sounding order I could have picked?"

For many of the sentences, the best option still didn't sound pleasing, which taught me that the initial sentence is very important. Write with intention, and give your sentences structure to share clear, concise ideas with your readers. They should never feel confused and need to reread a sentence because it was worded so awkwardly.

The photo pasted below is my editing mistake for the week. The mistake is the use of "everyday." If you are using "everyday" it is as an adjective. If you are using it as "every day" then it is an adverb. Since it is used as an adverb, there should be a space between the words. If it were, "My everyday routine," the usage would be correct because it describes the routine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 5

Blog 5

One of the sites I really love it knightcite.com. A professor recently introduced it to me. It is used to format all your citations into APA format. It is glorious!!! It just has blank fields labeled “publisher” and “date” and things like that, and you put in the information and it automatically generates the citation for you. My editing mistake happened at that very same time. My professor wrote it on the board to show it to us, he spelled KNITEcite instead of KNIGHTcite. Pretty embarrassing.

Another favorite is Grammar Girl’s quickanddirtytips.com. They have really helpful diagrams and illustrations to help you figure out and remember the rules. It also helps you clarify those nit-picky little things.

Also, if you haven’t followed the Grammarly page on Facebook, look me in the eyes and tell me why. That is a must. They post so many hilarious pictures and quick tips for remembering stuff! And it is where all the literate people hang out. Seriously if you are bored some days, go read through the comments on some of the images. The comments and the jokes are so witty and classy. There is not a lot of dirty jokes, racism, hate, profanity or bashing. It is very refreshing. It shows what an educated mind can do and I thoroughly enjoy people being truly clever without adding inappropriate humor. But heaven help you if you have a grammar mistake in a comment. :) And you can see gems like this:

Week 4

I am struggling with understanding the differences between the verbs.  I get what they are when the book shows them in context or examples, but I am scared that if I was asked to identify them would I be able to tell the difference?  I also am unsure of whether some verbs can be more than one type at a time.  Can a linking verb also be a present perfect participle?  This is where I am getting a bit confused.  I am hoping as we see and use words it will become more and more clear.

The thing I learned that I really liked was the gerunds.  I never knew there was an actual name for them and truth be said didn't even realize they existed.  We do things like turn verbs into nouns and never think twice.  It got me thinking about the new age of doing this in all types on things.  We were talking in another class about how things become some popular that the noun becomes a verb.  For example:  "I really don't want to "adult" today!"  I got a kick out of swimming or dancing becoming nouns in certain situations.  It was funny how the word changed right before our eyes and most of us didn't even notice it.  Now whenever I see gerunds I am going to point them out and tell people what they are and give them my new found definition.  I love learning new random facts that I don't think anyone else knows.

#3 Grammar

The first mistake I noticed is on a bill.  The company used "principle" instead of "principal".  I normally wouldn't have even known the difference, but I happened to come across it after looking at the book.  I had to actually look it up to find if it was correct or not.  The book states that the word principal is used to describe someone in rank or authority or primary meaning first.  The word principle means a doctrine or rule of conduct.  This doesn't really explain if you should use one or the other when describing the actual amount as shown below.  I then had to google which one people state is correct because the book wasn't very clear.  According to many different sources, the word "principal" should be used on the billing statement.  That was definitely something new I learned.

The next mistake I found was the usual use of "ur" for your, you're.  I received it in a text from a friend.  I am guilty of doing this all the time.  I shorthand every possible word I can when communicating via text, email, and notes.  For my job, we have to make notes on everything we do and it is documented in each file.  In order to keep the files from growing to ridiculous lengths, we shorthand all of our notes.  We also create abbreviations that only our office would understand and would be hard for outsiders to interpret.  For example, we use DOI all the time.  Everyone in our office knows that is "date of injury," but it would mean anything to anyone else.

My husband is guilty of the third mistake I saw last week.  He ALWAYS spells "damn" without the "n."  This drives me crazy!  I will message him back and make some reference to swimming, lakes, or the ocean just to remind him that it requires the "n."  It seems to be somewhat of a pet peeve of mine.  He get mad at me when I tease him about it and states "you know what I mean!"

Week #4

Editing Mistake:

So I got set up on a blind date last week. His mom and my mom know each other, and decided to become matchmakers. I know his mom from church and she is just the sweetest. Her and my mom text quite a bit, and my mom is always showing me their conversations. She does this because this woman’s grammar is quite hilarious. To give all of you a better understanding of why we laugh so stinking hard at her texts, here are a few examples:

“Does it work 4 u 2 go 2gether 2 the salad social? U could give a msg on the road! I’ll b @ ur house at 12. Just LMK.”

Guys, she is 50 years old, and she is an English major! This is a real text!

The reason why I brought up the date is we spent a few minutes of our conversation talking about his mom’s texting abilities. After the date, he sent me a text that said “thx for the d8 2day, i luved meeting u!” He obviously did this as a joke, and it made me laugh quite hard, especially since I was in this class and knew I would use the text as my example in today’s blog. And for those who I know are wondering, we are totally going out again.

Topical Guide:

I have always confused the words farther and further. The topical guide gives such a distinct definition: farther refers to physical distance and further refers to time or quantity.

When using the word hopefully at the beginning of a sentence, it needs to have a comma following because it is a dangling modifier. I find myself using this word a lot in my social media posts for example and forgetting to add a comma.

A rule I have never considered is the difference between in and into. In is referring to a location or position, while into refers to movement.

At work I write session summaries for the autistic kids I work with. I realized that I misuse the word in when it should be into.

This week was yet another eye opener for how I really struggle with my grammar. I think one of my favorite assignments we had was the it's/its quiz. I felt very confident going into this one because I felt like I knew most of it. But of course, I was wrong. I didn't realize that it's could be used in so many different ways. It has, it is, and the possessive.

I also always have a hard time with the Active, Passive voice. I can never remember which ones which but I found that remembering that Active and action, so in the active voice the subject performs the action, and Passive is the opposite. This has helped me a lot when I need to just simply remember the difference between the two.

Today I was reading an article and happened to come across a typo, thanks to this class I noticed it. It was a CEO of a major company speaking to all of his clients and he named the article "Moving Forward." But it said "Moving Foward" I mean I probably wouldn't have even caught this normally because for some reason the words look almost similar to me even with the error. But it just shows how even a CEO of a company can mess up on a big article and it kind of makes him lose some credibility.

Week 4 - Topical Guide

Thus continues the ongoing saga of the realization of how little I know about grammar. This weeks focus...verbs. I was able to read a few of the blog post that other students submitted, and this seemed to be a reoccurring phrase, "I didn't realize there were that many verbs." My thoughts exactly. For example, future perfect tense. It is something that I understand, but never knew there was a term for it. It indicates that an action will be completed at some point in the future. This tense is formed with "will" plus "have" plus the past participle of the verb.

For example, if I were to say, "I will have spent all my money by the end of the night."

Another lesson I learned from the topical guide section of the textbook, is about when to use "compliment" or "complement". To be honest, I didn't even know these were two words. Now I won't forget. Complement, means to complete something, or bring it together. So I would say that my wife complements me. Compliment, on the other hand, is when you are expressing praise or admiration. So I would compliment my wife on how well she complements me.

Well I hope that I was able to share a few helpful tips for grammar that you can take away and apply. The grammatical error that I read this week was actually in Weber States Signpost. On the back page of the Friday edition, there was an article about the player of the week in the NFL, which was awarded to Josh McCown. Unfortunately, I don't have the paper with me to site the errors. If you get the chance to pick one up on campus though, there were multiple in the first paragraph or two. Including the misspelling of 'Josh McCown.'

Rules From The Topical Guide.

For this week’s blog post, I would like to focus on several rules I learned in the topical guide. The very first rule in the topical guide teaches us the different between the suffixes -able and -ible. The guide says, “It may help to remember that –able endings are more common and that in most cases the –able suffix is attached to a complete root work.” A great example word for this is acceptable. If you take out the –able you are still left with the word accept. When in doubt of spelling, always look for a root word.

Something else I learned is that I use the word badly … badly. Badly is an adverb; therefore, it should only be used when describing a verb. When describing a subject, just simply use the word bad.

My mom feels bad for what she said. (Talking about my mom)

I threw the football badly. (Talking about how I threw the ball)

The final rule I want to discuss is collective nouns. The guide explains that collective nouns are words that “look singular but obviously imply plurality.” Understanding this rule is important because it helps us understand what verb form to use. When the collective noun is used as a whole, just simply use a singular verb form:

The team is ready to play the game. (Since we are talking about the team as one, we use the singular verb is.)

Two members of the team are ready to play. (We are now discussing specific individuals of the team, we must use the plural verb are.)

An editing mistake I encountered this week was while I was at work. I found my manager had put up this sign:

My manager should have used they’re instead of there.

Week 4

Hello Everyone,

One of the rules I read about that I thought was interesting, and something I thought everyone would like to know was the one about chair/chairperson. In such a male dominate world it is hard to remember that some words do not have to apply to both a male and a female. So instead of using chairman or chairwoman you would use the chair or chairperson.

Another rule that used to catch me was the good/well rule. Knowing when to use the correct word in a sentence can be hard. I learned that the word good is always linked with something that is exactly that. With the word well this is an adverb and is usually linked with doing well or feeling well. Good is something that describes a noun, and well is what describes a verb.

Another one I quite enjoy and have seen numerous times is the difference between reek and wreak. To reek means to emit or give off a smell, and I cannot count the amount of times that I have seen people use the word wreak meaning the first.

One last rule that always confuses me and it is probably something that is not used as much as it used to be is the who/whom. Who is used when it is the subject of the sentence. Whom is used when you are the subject of the sentence such as “Whom are you taking to the concert?”

Lastly, below is a picture of why punctuation is important.

Week 4- Keela Disterhaft

I always struggle with passive and active voice. I’ve always been shown examples of active versus passive verbs but I never quite understood it. The way that the book describes it helped me out a little. The most useful sentence that I read is:

“In the passive voice, the person or thing performing the action becomes instead the object of the sentence; it does not act, but is acted upon by the verb.”

This statement helped clarify what exactly is passive voice. I always had a hard time pinpointing a sentence or a phrase as passive or active. The only thing I knew for sure was that active voice sounds better and is less cluttered with words.

Another example pf passive voice that completely goes against what I though earlier was, “Mistakes were made.”

Prior to reading this chapter I would’ve thought that this sentence was active because it’s short and to the point. The book points out that there is no identity of who made the mistakes. If you add a person to the sentence,

“Mistakes were made by him.”

This sentence sounds awkward and needs to be “cleaned up.” I would change this to, “He made a mistake.”

The mistake I saw this week was from an article written by Buzzfeed. I really love this company but I know they have a bad reputation amongst a lot of the people I talk to who are writers. The headline read: New Born Babies in Venezuela Are Sleeping in Cardboard Boxes. They misspelled newborn.

Week 4 - Carly Rowe

This week was a difficult one for me, not only was I unsure about passive and active voice while coming into this course, it was difficult at times during the lessons to determine the different voices examples. As for the it's and its, that was simple, but it was also a relief to have a refresher in that area. Sometimes we forget how to use the correct "it's/its" and it can completely change the meaning when it is used incorrectly. Another thing from this week, I never imagined there could be so many different types of verbs, I did not even know what some of those "future perfect verbs," etc. were before this assignment, it was rewarding to learn them and give examples for each. However, I would say that the run on sentences area of this week’s assignments were the most recognizable. I see run on sentences on a daily basis in the field I work in. I read various criminal history charges daily at work, and a lot of the time I am seeing incorrect sentences, punctuation, and grammar. I can personally say that it drives me insane when I see run on sentences.

One example of a run on sentence was seen this morning on Facebook from ABC 4’s page. It stated:

Farmington Fire Department credits Lagoon employees for their swift actions in a fire that broke out at Frightmares Saturday night.

I personally see this as a run on sentence, much because there should be a comma somewhere in there, probably between employees and for. I would also like to point out that my little sister is one of these employees.

Also, different topic but with active voice and passive voice, it is helpful to know key words that pertain to each, so I’ve heard.

Week 4

I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of verbs.  When I first looked at that verb definition assignment I thought, “This seems like a bit much.”  However upon finding all of the different forms of verbs I found that I knew very little about them, and still do.  Verbs are a lot more complex than I ever thought they were and I am glad for finding and defining all of those different variations, I am sure there are more.  I am always surprised by how much I learn just completing our weekly assignments.  It seems so crazy to go through a lot of your writing life not knowing all of the intricacies of English.  I blame myself for not knowing as much as I should when it comes to writing, but am glad to try to polish and establish a deeper knowledge of the written word.  I think that because this is a college course it is easy to see the assignments as just bulky work that needs completing.  However I think we would get more out of it if we did a little each day, instead of what I often do which is everything at the last possible moment all too often.  Because I don’t give the assignments the time they deserve I often find that I am pushing through the content, when I should be studying it in detail.  We should take the time to do this right, and by “we” I mean I.  

Week 4

While doing the active voice assignment, I wondered when I would need to use passive voice. I feel like it is easier and better to use active voice when writing. It seems to flow much better that way. Reading the book, however, helped me see when passive voice would be a benefit. Here is the quote from our book: “You might want passive voice when you need to stress the receiver of the action rather than the performer or when the performer is unknown.”

I learned many other things this week about grammar and editing. Another thing I learned was what an appositive is. An appositive is a phrase or word that adds information about the previous word. We see this often when names are used. The example in the book is: “My friend John helped write headlines while his friend Susan did the design.”  Susan and John are both appositives. I also learned that good writing takes time. It takes a lot of time to come up with powerful verbs that express similar messages.

The mistake that I wanted to post this week has to do with run-on sentences.  The mistake was found today on Facebook.  This is what it says:

“Good morning everyone I’m up and going put a roast in the crockpot with potatos celery mushrooms onions and corn, and going to go do my laundry at the laundry mat to wash my clothes, my hairs not done o well.. Hope everyone is having a great Saturday”

This sentence needs a few more periods and commas. In addition to the run-on sentence, "potatoes" is spelled wrong.  

Week 4 - Verb Tenses and Active Voice

I found this week’s chapters more of a review than new knowledge, mostly because of my my 8^th grade English teacher (thank you, Mrs. Greco).  She was a stickler for active voice, because of this we were forbidden from using all the forms of “to be” in our papers.  To the tune of twinkle-twinkle little star we would sing, “is am are was were be being, been have has had se-e-ems” while writing every paper. This forced us to write in simple past, present, or future tense.  This also forced me to learn active voice. 

I highly recommend every student learn to look for the “to be” verbs, as they help identify tense changes and passive voice. Sing the song to yourself, learn it. You won’t be sorry!

Something that really caught me off guard was perfect and progressive forms. I knew they were a form of tense, but it was really interesting learning their rules. I found it intuitive once I started thinking of of “perfect” as “completed”.  So in past perfect, it’s a past tense verb that has already been done.  “He has thrown the ball”.  Future perfect, is an action that will have been done.  For example: if your making a plan in the future about a football play  “he will have thrown the ball by the time the receiver gets to the hook”.  

It also really helped to remember that all progressive tenses, the verbs end in -ING because something is currently progressing. 

This week I found this poster on campus. Who can find the commonly misspelled word? Also who noticed the sentence fragment and the misuse of the period, how about the verb subject agreement (who love children). This whole poster really needs an editors help!

Week 4 - Dana Shumway

This week consisted of both successful and challenging moments for me. The concept of “it’s” vs. “its” has always come pretty easy to me. This is a concept I’ve felt confident about for many years, and luckily it’s stuck with me.  I also had a fairly easy time with powerful verbs. I am getting better at identifying run-on sentences, and learned a lot about active voice vs. passive voice.

The most challenging assignment for me this week was our assignment on verbs. Wow. I didn’t realize how difficult verbs can be. I also didn’t realize how many different types of verbs there are! This week I learned about gerunds. I did not know what a gerund was until I took this course.

 A gerund is “ a verb which always has an -ing ending, has the feel of action but serves only as the subject or object in a sentence. Gerunds are always nouns. “I learned that there is a difference between gerunds and participles. Participles also end in -in but are used as adjectives while gerunds act as nouns. This may seem silly but the way i’ve remembered a gerund is by remembering the word “run”.  The word “gerund” has the word “run” in it. Once i remember “run” i think of the example below which is an example of a gerund.

Example of gerund: I really enjoy running. This silly exercise helps me remember how to write/identify a gerund.

I found a couple of grammar mistakes this week. The first mistake I found was while reading a blog.
“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to miss the beach and sunshine but fall is my absolute favorite season. “

This sentence should have a “,” inserted before “but”.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to miss the beach and sunshine, but fall is my absolute favorite season."

I found another grammar mistake while reading the website/story of one of my favorite gluten-free bakeries. The sentence read as follows:

On the other , I had no idea where to start or what to eat.

This sentence should read: On the other hand, I had no idea where to start or what to eat.