Improve Your Grammar Some Cool Tools (but No Magic Pills)

Learn from Mistakes Pay attention to comments on your papers For instance, if your instructor writes fragment on your paper, find out what a fragment is. Common Errors

Fragments Verb Tense Shifts Subject-Verb Agreement Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Unclear Pronoun Reference Mixed Construction Capitalization

Run-Ons and Comma Splices Shift in Person Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers Usage problems--Confused Words Apostrophes Commas Faulty Parallelism

Cool Tool #1 for Academic Writing: OWL at Purdue The OWL has grammar handouts you can print out, information about how to document sources, and how to write different kinds of papers. ! The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue home http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ ! The OWL at Purdue grammar handouts http://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/ ! Purdue OWL PowerPoint Resources http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/760/1/ ! See the Editing and Proofreading Strategies handout on the Purdue OWL website at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/general/gl_edit.html ! Sometimes when you try to write more complex sentences, you run into trouble because your sentences are grammatically confused. See the Purdue OWL Sentence Clarity PowerPoint at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/711/1/ Cool Tool #2 for Practice Quizzes and PowerPoint Presentations: Guide to Grammar and Writing The Guide to Grammar and Writing has interactive quizzes and PowerPoint presentations ! Homepage at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ ! List of Interactive Quizzes at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm ! Guide to Grammar and Writing Sentence PowerPoint presentations at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/powerpoint.htm

Cool Tool #3 for a Free Individual Study Plan: Exercise Central You can take a diagnostic test and follow your own study plan at Exercise Central. You can do a Basic Study Plan, a Comprehensive Study Plan, or an ESL Study Plan. You get free access to tutorials and hundreds of interactive exercises. ! Register for Bedford/St. Martins Exercise Central. Do not send your results to any instructors email unless your instructor wants to get your quiz results. To register and use the free website, go to http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/exercisecentral/ Cool Tool #4 for Grammar Tips: Grammar Girls Quick and Dirty Tricks for Better Writing ! If you like to learn grammar in fun small doses and find the answers to common questions such as whether you should use who or that for animals and people, you can go to the website or to iTunes and download Grammar Girl podcasts http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com. Cool Tools for Fun Ways to Learn Grammar: Fun Site #1: Grammar Bytes at http://www.chompchomp.com -- most humorous site for videos, PowerPoints, interactive quizzes, and more! Fun Site #2: Free Rice at http://freerice.com/#/englishgrammar/1936457 -- Grammar that does good! Fun Site #3: Schoolhouse Rock on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ht5ByH7V4&list=ALHTd1VmZQRNqBjiMkuOFZDizKEy3FZVFT

How to Improve Your Writing ! ! ! ! ! ! Know your own common errors Target one at a time. Practice revising and fixing your errors. Learn how to combine sentences effectively Dont give up. It takes a long time to overcome bad habits. Read a lot. Reading good writing helps improve your vocabulary and awareness of the craft of writing.