Online
Writing
Lab

OWL Home

 

 

 

 

English Department Louisiana Tech

  

This page written by Sean Chapman

How to fix 50% of your grammar problems  

1. Learn what makes a sentence. A sentence is a group of words containing, at the very least, a noun and a verb. (Read some William Faulkner to see a sentence at its very most).

So, a sentence is this: John ran. Here is another sentence: John fell. Now we have to combine these two sentences.

2. Here are four major ways to combine two sentences correctly with two subjects and one way to combine them using one subject:
a.) John ran, and John fell. Combine with a coordinating conjunction-always use a comma before the conjunction. Use the acronym FANBOYS to help you remember these coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
b.) John ran; however, John fell. Combine with a conjunctive adverb; this sounds complex, but it just means use words such as however, thus, or therefore. These words take a semi-colon before them and a comma after them. Think of this as starting a new sentence with the word however.
c.) John ran; John fell.
 Use a semi-colon instead of a period. In most cases a semi-colon is just that, a sort of "junior" period you use when you want to imply a connection between two sentences.
d.) John ran. John fell. Simply write two sentences with a period.
e.) John ran and fell. Change the two sentences subtly by combining verbs instead of the whole sentences. Note that you do not use a comma before the coordinating conjunction when using one subject.
   

3. If you begin a sentence with an introductory clause, you need a comma. See the clever example I just wrote. Notice that I began the sentence with if (a subordinating term). Other words to look out for: When, After, Before, While, Since, Once, Whenever (note these have to do with time) and Because, Although, Though, As if, While Wherever, Unless. That's what you should do, but why? The easiest way to think of it for me is that you need to tell the reader that the subject of the sentence, the focus of the thought, is coming up. In the first sentence of this paragraph, you is the subject, the most important element, and I need to tell the reader, "perk up, here comes the subject."

Continuing our previous examples about John:

f.) If John runs, he falls. When beginning a sentence with a subordinating term, a comma is used

g.) John falls if he runs.

When the subordinating term appears in the middle (attached to the second phrase), no comma is needed.


4. The word affect is a verb; the word effect is a noun. Think of this: "The effects of the test will affect thousands." I always pair effect with "the" to remind me: The effect. I just remember those e's next to each other. Beware that this rule usually works; there are a few exceptions.

5. Check the spelling of these words: cannot, all right, a lot, too, their, and its.

 
   

OWL HOME