Grammatical Errors? Improve Your Grammatic Skills!

This is a common dilemma of people, mostly of students. Grammatical errors are hard to find and it is harder when you are the one who made that paragraph or sentence. This dilemma seems to be natural among Filipino individuals. As a blogger and a student, I suffer that problem too a lot of times. But there is a simple way to solve that. I hope this will help you. If not, feel free to ask me on the comment section below. I will try my best to answer what I can answer. So let us get started!!

There are 4 simple rules that may help you compose grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs.

First rule:

This is the most unidentified error in composing sentences and paragraphs but has a large impact on the sentence if read as a whole. Subject and Verb Agreement are broken down into these rules according to circumstances:

1. Always must agree in numbers. If subject is plural, verb must be plural. If subject is singular, verb must be singular.

2. Sentence that starts with "There" or "Here" has the verb before the sentence's subject.

3. If two subjects and two infinitives are separated by "and", verb must be plural.

4. If predicate depicts the same thing to the two subjects, verb must be singular.

5. If "each", "every" and "no" comes before the subject, verb must be singular.

6. If subjects are singular and connected with "or", "nor", "either/or", "neither/nor" and "not only/but also", verb must be singular.

7. Indefinite pronouns such as "everyone" and "anyone" and Collective pronouns takes singular verbs.

8. Except for these indefinite pronouns -- "few", "many", "several", "both", "all" and "some" -- that uses plural verb.

9. Only subjects affect verbs.

10. Subjects don't always comes before verbs in questions.

11. If one subject is singular and one is plural, use verb form of the nearest subject.

12. All gerund subjects uses singular verb.

Second rule:

This is the hardest one to memorize so don't forget to take notes!

1. Present Simple. (Base form + -s or -es, don't or doesn't, do or does)

2. Past Simple. (Past tense verb + common aspect)

3. Future Simple. (will or shall + Base form)

4. Present Progressive. (Be or be not + verb-ing)

5. Past Progressive. (Was or were + verb-ing)

6. Future Progressive. (Will be/won't be or shall be + verb-ing)

7. Present Perfect. (Has or have + past tense)

8. Past Perfect. (Had + past tense)

9. Future Perfect. (Will have/won't have or shall have + past tense)

10. Present Perfect Progressive. (Have been or has been + verb-ing)

11. Past Perfect Progressive. (Had been + verb-ing)

Third rule:

This rule is easy to know so it won't be hard for you to memorize this.

1. Apostrophe (') - can be used as contraction of "is" and "has" and used for possession.

2. Hypens (-) - used to connect two independent words to function as one.

3. Dash (--) - used to set off the specific event or object that the subject depicts.

4. Period (.) - used to end a sentence and used for abbreviations.

5. Question Mark (?) - ends a question sentence.

6. Exclamation Mark (!) - ends a surprised sentence.

7. Comma (,) - separate things in series.

8. Colon (:) - used to show a list or explanation.

9. Semi-colon (;) - separates two independent clauses and group of words.

10. Quotation Mark (" or ') - used to identify exact words of speaker.

Fourth rule:

This is the easiest so you'll get a hang off it yourself.

1. First word of a sentence should be capitalized.

2. Capitalize proper nouns.

3. Capitalize titles when used before name.

4. Do NOT capitalize occupations before full names.

5. Capitalize titles when used to address someone.

6. Capitalize relative's family name when used to address relative using that name alone. (e.g My Mom made me a cake.)

7. Capitalize specific geological places.

8. Capitalize the first word of a complete quotation sentence.

9. Capitalize specific course title.

10. Do NOT capitalize first word after colons.

I had this research and summarized it to help you, my fellow steemians, make better blogs in the future. Even if your posts are good already, make it better using correct grammar. Hope this helps! See you at my next blog!

Happy blogging everyone!