A Short Guide to Grammar
Logan Brundage
Overview
0 Sentence Structure
0 Use of pronouns
0 Mechanics
0 Resources
Sentence Structure
 Independent Clause
 Subject and Predicate
 Verb agreement
 Dependent Clause
 Is the clause essential or nonessential?
 Set nonessential clauses apart with commas
 Relative Clauses
 Relative pronouns (that vs. which)
 Adverb, adjective, and noun clauses
 Modifies verb, noun, or serves as subject or direct object
Pronouns
0 Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
0 Or/Nor=plural
0 Replacing one
0 Neutral Gender
0 He or She
0 Make plural and use their
0 Rewrite without a pronoun
0 Each student walks himself or herself to class.
0 Each student walks to class.
Pronouns
Avoiding Ambiguity
0 Upgrade!
0 Ex. His car was the classiest on the block. It demanded the
neighbors’ envy.
0 His car was the classiest on the block. The ’67 Chevy demanded
the neighbors’ envy.
0 Partnership brings productivity!
0 Ex. This is unacceptable.
0 This behavior is unacceptable.
0 Consolidation!
0 Ex. I just bought a new house. It is on Walnut Street.
0 I just bought a new house on Walnut Street.
Mechanics
 Dashes (–) function as a super-comma to add
parenthetical elements or set off lists in informal
writing
 Addition contains internal punctuation
 Hyphens (-)
 Create compound word modifiers before nouns
 Well-known
 Prefixes with capitalization
 non-English, A-frame
 Numbers
More Mechanics
 Colon….more than just the eyes of a smiley : )
 Used before lists or information that is preceded by
independent clauses
 Reader has a sense of what will follow the colon
 “Think of the colon as a gate, inviting one to go on:”
 The following members were present: the president, the
secretary, and the treasurer.
 We’ve only got two options: stay or leave.
 Semi-colon
 Aid in monster lists where commas alone would get confusing
 Separate two independent clauses that are related
 We visited Paris, France; London, England; Glasgow, Scotland;
and Dublin, Ireland.
 He never sleeps through the night; he has RLS.
Resources
Pronouns
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/pronouns.original.pd
f
Sentence Structure
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/frag-runon.original.pdf
Verb Tense
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/04/
Helpful Sites
http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/prepositionalphrases.html
http://www.grammar-monster.com/
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm