Monday, March 28, 2016

Comma Before But

Deciding whether to put a comma before or after but in a sentence is hard for a lot of writers, but it doesn’t have to be for you!

When Do You Need a Comma Before But?

You should put a comma before but only when but is connecting two independent clauses.

I would go for a walk, but it’s raining outside.

How do you know you have two independent clauses? First, look at the words before but: I would go for a walk.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

The Importance of Providing Books in High Poverty Classrooms

Guest post by Debra Hannula, J. D. Bookmentors.org

As the daughter of two retired public school teachers and an attorney for thirty years working on behalf of and representing the poor, the lack of proper books in high poverty schools is an issue that is near and dear to me.

Research shows that the amount of books students read affects their reading levels and their ability to perform well on standardized tests.

Sentence Fragments

Sentence fragments are snippets of words that don’t quite add up to a complete thought. There are several common types of sentence fragments, including:

  • Subordinate clause fragments
  • Participial phrase fragments
  • Infinitive phrase fragments

Let’s take a look at each of them.

To understand sentence fragments, we must first know what a complete sentence looks like. In its most basic form, a sentence consists of a subject (a noun) and a predicate (a verb).

Monday, March 21, 2016

Verb Conjugation–Grammar Rules

Verb conjugation refers to how a verb changes to show a different person, tense, number or mood.

Person:

In English, we have six different persons: first person singular (I), second person singular (you), third person singular (he/she/it/one), first person plural (we), second person plural (you), and third person plural (they). We must conjugate a verb for each person. The verb to be is a particularly notable verb for conjugation because it’s irregular.

Celebrate Social Media Day with These 5 Tips

Happy World Social Media Day!

It’s no secret that we love social media. And as Grammarly’s Social Media Manager, I’ve devoted most of my professional life to figuring out what the cool kids are doing online. And today, I’m here to help you do the same. Let’s dive into all the things you should (and shouldn’t) be doing on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.

via GIPHY

1Write, Reread, Ponder, Then Post

via GIPHY

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The State of Writing 2016

The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written. — Joyce Carol Oates

With 2016 coming to a close, Grammarly’s team of writing analysts took a look at the biggest trends in writing in English this year. And we found some fascinating results! Below are the grammar and writing trends that dominated 2016, as well as our predictions for the next year in written English.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

7 Helpful Tips on How to Write A Memorable Personal Essay

Everyone has a story to tell and a message to share. The challenge lies in getting that story and message out of your head and into print in a way that resonates with your audience.

Starting somewhere in the late 2000s, a certain type of personal essay experienced a popularity boom. These essays were ultra-personal and confessional in nature, often in a TMI sort of way. Their headlines were clickable, not to mention shareable, for their shock value alone.