Should all educators have to pass basic grammar in order to teach? Several months ago, Grammarly polled, and over 30,000 people cast their votes. The overwhelming majority, 94 percent, answered yes. But what kinds of skills should be tested? Most states require teachers to pass a test of basic skills, but each state has unique licensure requirements. Generally, the states who use tests focus on math, writing, language arts, and reading comprehension.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
11 Risks of Not Proofreading Your Application Essay
Guest Post from Leslie Anglesey, Professor at California State University, Sacramento
Writing an application essay is no easy task, but reading it should be. College admission boards consider a number of things when reviewing an application. While most students understand the importance of extra-curricular activities and GPAs, the admission essay often gets overlooked. As a result, admission boards may skip reading the essay altogether or, worse yet, actually read the entire thing and determine you never made it past English 101.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A Grammar Lesson: Direct and Indirect Objects
An object is the part of a sentence that gives meaning to the subject’s action of the verb. For example: Alice caught the baseball. Subject=Alice Verb=caught Object=baseball
A direct object answers the question of who(m) or what. In the sentence above, you could determine that ‘baseball’ is a direct object by asking the question: What did Alice catch? She caught the baseball. Baseball is the direct object.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Program vs. Programme–What’s the Difference?
In American English, program is the correct spelling. In Australian English, program and programme are both acceptable. In British English, programme is the prefered spelling, although program is often used in computing contexts.
Decades ago, program appeared in American and British writing. In the nineteenth century, the Brits started to favor the French way of spelling it—programme.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
What Does Afk Mean?
- Afk is an abbreviation for away from keyboard.
- It lets people know that you will not be at your keyboard for a while, or that you will not be online for a period of time.
If you’re chatting online or playing an MMO, afk lets your friends know that you are stepping away from the keyboard.
The Meaning of Afk
Afk means away from keyboard, a phrase that lets others know that you won’t be at your computer for a while.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Realise or Realize?
Realise and realize are different spellings of the same word, and they can be used interchangeably. Both are common throughout the English-speaking world, though in different areas. Realize is preferred in American and Canadian English, while realise is preferred outside North America.
You can find more details about these spelling differences below.
Realise or Realize—Which Should I Use?
Friday, October 28, 2011
Hoping vs. Hopping
Even though the difference in spelling between hoping and hopping is just one letter, the difference in meaning is actually much bigger. All you need to do is hope and hop to see how big a difference it is.
What Is the Difference Between Hoping and Hopping?
When you look up the definition of hoping and the definition of hopping, you notice that they have one thing in common—both are present participles.