Blog #5, Great Grammar Website by Julie White

Who knew that something so useful and handy could be a click away. The other day I discovered grammar girl, from quickanddirtytips.com. This website professes to be "your friendly guide to the world of grammar, punctuation, usage, and fun developments in the English language." According to Wikipedia, Mignon Forgarty, is “a professor of journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a former science writer who produces an educational podcast titled Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, which promotes the proper use of the English language and … is also the founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcasting network.”

Last week she posted a blog on the rule of “Quotation Marks with Commas and Periods”. What a crazy coincidence. This is going to be on the test next week.

She said, “In short, my U.S.-centric memory trick is to remember that inside the U.S., periods and commas go inside quotation marks.



In American English, periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark; semicolons, colons, asterisks, and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark; and question marks and exclamation points require that you analyze the sentence and make a decision based on context.” 

The editing mistake that I found is my mistake. I posted notes from our test review yesterday on the discussion board. When I reviewed it later, I cringed. Apparently, I still need more practice using grammar. I said, “If a sentence starts with the words, 'None of them...' its plural. If it says, 'Not one...' it's singular. I should know better by now. Both its are it's.

Week 5 Blog:

This week, I noticed a small yet noticeable error on a text message to a co-worker. I have noticed that I edit my messages more often. I have started doing that because of this class. One message got past me this week.

I spelled Davis campus wrong. I spelled it with a d and did not capitalize the "C" in campus. The meme of a referee throwing a flag seemed fitting for this error. 

For the second part of this assignment, I would like to recommend Purdue OWL. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/search.php/404/
This website was first introduced to me while I was working on my undergraduate degree in 2008. I have referred to this website throughout my academic career. It has saved my butt on more than one occasion. While I am not an expert writer, I believe the Purdue OWL has the resources to help me in my journey. It has examples of how to employ proper grammar and sentence organization. It has examples of how to properly give citation in research papers. I like that there are so many resources online to help me be a better writer. I am excited to see what the rest of you recommend as an online resource. 

Have a great week classmates!

Steve. 

Week 5: Weber State's Secret Grammar Site

Week 5: My Favorite Grammar Site

This might feel a little cheesy and pretentious because I work there, but I love WSU Writing Center’s grammar resources. Many students don’t realize what an awesome resource we have right here on Weber’s website, and that is a shame. The website was updated this last summer, and it is better than ever offering updated formatting helps and style guides as well as the awesome “Grammar Brush-ups.”

What’s so fantastic about this website is that not only are there descriptions of grammar concepts, but there are real, human tutors explaining these concepts in short videos. These videos cover everything from parts of speech to commas and punctuation to clauses and sentence types.

They also have note cards that quickly describe different grammar and punctuation rules. My favorite is the comma note card (while there is an updated version somewhere—which I helped edit—this one also works well). It goes over the six main comma rules with some fantastic sentences.

This website is definitely geared to English 1010 and lower level English classes; however, it’s always great to get a good, solid base of information when it comes to English basics. I feel as if many times grammar websites like to share the difficult, deep-doctrine grammar that is not always useful. The Writing Center’s website provides the most basic of the basics that everyone should know by heart. Also, it’s always nice to watch a real person explain something instead of having to decipher text or a handout by yourself.

Other good grammar sites are Grammarly and OWL Purdue for serious grammar help. If you just want a good grammar laugh, check out Facebook's "I am not a grammar cop. I am an English-language enthusiast."

For my grammar mistake, I found this gem on--I bet you will already guess it--E! News. I have found that this gossip site has a copious amount of hidden grammar mistakes, probably because we only read the headlines. Anyway, in this article they wrote "here" instead of "her."

Week 5

My favorite grammar site on the web is Purdue OWL. I used it a lot in high school and I still use it when I need to cite sources in MLA or APA. Citations are long enough that I will never be able to memorize the correct formatting. It does not help that I use MLA for my English classes and APA for my Communication classes.

As much as I love Purdue OWL, I rarely use it to fix my grammatical errors. My main grammar help website is called Grammar Girl. I go here every time I forget the difference between “who” and “whom.” I also use Grammar Girl to make sure I am using the correct form of words, such as “farther” versus “further” and “effect” versus “affect.”

I was looking through pinterest this week and I found this picture. Looking at the numbers, I could not see anything wrong with their order; numbers one through fifteen are all there. As I looked closer at the words beneath, I noticed the error. The “t” and “s” in the word “mistake” are switched. My brain knew what “mistake” is supposed to look like so my brain automatically corrected the word for me when I first read the sentence. I wonder how many people have stared at this image, unable to find the error.

Week 5 Blog, By Jake Halter

This week I found another small mistake made by the Associated Press. This article was written in response to when North Korea claimed Donald Trump declared war on them via twitter. I blurred most of the passage except for the sentence with the grammar error. The writer of the article forgot to add the word "if" between "even" and "they're." It does not read correctly without the word "if" and needs to be added to make the sentence flow properly. Although this is a small mistake, proper editing and rereading of your own writing can make mistakes like this less likely.

My favorite grammar site on the web has to be Purdue OWL. Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) has saved me countless times when I was not sure on specific grammar rules. I learned about this website during my first year of college, and I have used it ever since. There are different styles available for each student, such as AP Style or MLA Style.

Overall, I only know a handful of grammar websites, but time and time again I find myself going back to Purdue OWL. Their website stays mostly up to date and has more credibility than any other site that I have seen thus far.

Cami Sabin, Week Four

I enjoy reading the topical guide section of the textbook. Yes, I am that type of person. I enjoy it partly because the material is interesting, but also because the authors seem to have a sense of humor – such as when they suggest that readers “pour a glass of juice in the morning before you pore, or ‘study attentively,’ over ‘When Words Collide.’”

The entry for “that/which/who” is a good one for me to focus on. I often get find myself wondering whether I should use “which” or “that,” and forget about “who” entirely. Take, for example, the following sentence: I am looking for people that went to Weber State University. I know “which” doesn’t sound right in this context, so I automatically go with “that.” I tend to forget that “who” is even an option, when in fact it is the correct option to use whenever referring to people. The sentence should say, “I am looking for people who went to Weber State University.”

“Who” can be used for both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, but “that” and “which” are each only used on one or the other. “That” is only for restrictive clauses, and “which” is only for nonrestrictive clauses. So you wouldn’t say, “There are three pizzas which have pepperoni and two which only have cheese.” Instead, you would say, “There are three pizzas that have pepperoni and two that only have cheese.” [Okay, in all honestly you would probably rewrite the sentence to be active voice: Three pizzas have pepperoni and two only have cheese.]

The Topical Guide includes an entry for “since/because,” which I find so interesting because I hear so many people misuse these words. “Since I can’t go to the store, could you get me some tomatoes?” is incorrect. Since is only about time. “I haven’t been to the store since my accident.”

As far as an editing mistake, my example this week is more about syntax and slang than editing; but it is certainly something I see often, and definitely one of my pet peeves. I was scrolling through Facebook, and saw the following post by my friend, along with a photo of his kids on their first day of school: Dems chillens juss keep gettin coola! First day of gettin schooled...

I had to read it three or four times. I understand that he (and others) speak like this, but writing like this is distracting and confusing to the reader. Personally, I use full sentences and punctuation in all of my written communication, whether formal papers or informal texts. While I admit to using “lol” on occasion, I wish spelling shortcuts like “u” for you and “ur” for your would just go away.

Let's Explore Week Four

In my introduction to business class, I learned that you retain about 90% of what you learn if you can teach it to someone. So, it's about time I remember the grammatical difference between affect and effect. I'm going to teach it to you because I don't want any of our professors saying the same thing to us that Inigo Montoya is saying in the meme below.

The word Affect is typically a verb and the word effect is typically a noun. According to the Topical Guide, Effect means to "result" or "impact" and Affect means to "influence" or "pretend to have." I think most people get these two words confused because "impact" and "influence" seem very similar in their meanings. Something that helps me determine the difference is to replace affect or effect with a different verb or noun and see which one sounds right. I am somewhat of a visual learner, so the picture below also helped me understand the difference between affect and effect. 

This week I came across a few different grammar errors. It seems like every other post on Instagram contains a grammar error. One post said, "yesterday was cute." I'll be honest, that sentence really doesn't make sense at all. It also seems like it is trendy to not capitalize anything on social media.  I also noticed that a lot of people use excessive exclamation points. I found an older post of mine with 13 exclamation points. I'm definitely at fault for posting sentences with grammar errors on social media, but I'm going to be a lot more careful of what I post from now on. Do you think it's okay to have bad grammar on social media? I'm not quite sure.