3 Who Cares About Grammar?
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn to
- Explain Standard American English
- Recognize common errors
What Is Standard American English?
English teachers, needless to say, can be sticklers for grammar. They may bristle when someone uses “less than” instead of “fewer than,” or when someone says “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.” A missing apostrophe or an incorrect semicolon can make even a laidback English teacher groan. But does anyone else really care whether you put your commas in the right place or if you write “who” instead of “whom”?
The answer is yes, in most cases, your readers will be more receptive to your ideas if you understand the rules of Edited American English. Also known as Standard American English and sometimes referred to as “good English,” Edited American English is a dialect. A dialect is an accepted way of speaking in certain groups. Whether you have a Tennessee dialect or a Southern California dialect, you unconsciously follow certain ways of speaking with other people from the same area. In academic settings, Edited American English is the dialect you’re expected to use when writing essays. But guess what? No one speaks Edited American English–not even English professors! Writing for an academic audience, therefore, is always a matter of translating the ways we typically speak and write into Edited American English.
Edited American English follows what are often referred to as grammar and punctuation rules. Most grammar and punctuation rules–the ones that really matter–exist because they help us communicate clearly. Commas, for example, set off parts of your sentences so that your complex ideas are easier to understand. If you don’t put periods at the ends of your sentences, your reader is likely to get confused. Other rules, though, are more a matter of convention; they exist not because they matter much in terms of clarity, but because someone decided those are the words we should use or that’s the way we should put the punctuation marks on the page. For example, no one is confused if an apostrophe is missing or if someone uses the subject pronoun “I” instead of the object pronoun “me.” If you live in the south, you might say “had went” instead of “had gone,” and no one asks you what you mean.
Finally, some rules are rules in one circumstances but not another. If you’re taking a journalism class, your professor might tell you not to use the Oxford or serial comma, whereas your English professor will definitely want you to use it. If you’re texting a friend, you might not use periods whereas if you’re emailing your employer, you’re likely to follow all punctuation rules.
So, how important is it to learn the rules of Editing American English? While some professors claim they don’t care about grammar and punctuation, the truth is, anyone who is educated will likely respond well to writing that adheres to Edited American English–and they’ll respond less positively to writing that contains errors. Even if they don’t know what to call certain errors, most educated readers know when something doesn’t sound right, and they certainly know when something isn’t clear. Major errors can confuse your readers while minor errors might distract or annoy them. Knowing the rules of Edited American English, therefore, will always, always put you at an advantage. English professors are not the only people who will be impressed with clear, concise, and engaging sentences.
But What If I Never Learned These Rules?
Many students claim that they never learned grammar and punctuation rules. Either their teachers didn’t teach them the rules, or the rules never really made a lot of sense to them. They may worry that their professors will think less of them if they make mistakes in their writing, but in a first-semester college English class, professors know many of their students will need to brush up on the mechanics of writing.
The good news is, anyone who has been writing and speaking English for some time has learned certain rules. No one, though, not even those of us born speaking English, thinks about the rules when speaking or when writing to friends. We simply write or speak in a way that we hope is clear and interesting. When writing essays for your college classes, you should do the same: write as clearly as you can so that educated readers will understand and appreciate your ideas. Then, edit.
If you worry about sounding formal and being correct as you’re writing a first draft, you’re more likely to neglect some of the other issues you need to think about, such as organization and being specific. Even writers who know the rules of Edited American English will make mistakes as they struggle to get ideas on the page, but they know that writing is a process, and they come back to their work to edit.
Editing, though, doesn’t work if you don’t know what to look for. If no one has ever told you that you tend to have comma splices in your writing, or that you need to learn the differences between affect and effect, you are not likely to see those errors when you edit. Successful editing, therefore, doesn’t require learning all the rules of Edited American English; instead, you need to learn the mistakes you tend to make and look for those when you edit your writing. A good English professor can help you learn to recognize these errors. You can also take advantage of your college’s support services, like free tutoring. Neither your professor nor a good tutor will fix your errors for you because how will that help you learn to edit on your own? Good professors and tutors will point out the errors, help you understand why they are errors, and offer suggestions for how to recognize and correct the errors.
What About Using AI?
Many students are eager to use Grammarly or other online services use AI to edit their work, but in a writing class, an essay that uses artificial intelligence–even just to edit an essay–could be considered plagiarism. Some professors use software that checks for AI and fail any essays that appear to rely on AI. Even if they don’t use an AI checker, most professors will not award an AI-edited essay a good grade. Why? Because AI isn’t (yet?) capable of producing the kinds of writing your professors are looking for.
Artificial intelligence is artificial; that is, it cannot edit your work as effectively as someone with human intelligence–someone who understands how grammar and punctuation choices affect an actual reader. AI simply applies rules, without considering how the shape of a sentence, the use of punctuation, or a particular word choice can affect readers. Moreover, grammar and punctuation are not always simply a matter of correct/incorrect. For example, you might choose to use a sentence fragment for effect. Finally, as of this writing, AI isn’t always right, even when it comes to grammar and mechanics. John Warner, author of numerous articles and two books about writing, explains that the only thing AI can do “is assemble patterns according to other patterns it has seen when prompted by a request.” Many of the patterns AI has seen do not follow the rules of Edited American English.
So, while using AI to edit your work may ensure you don’t have glaring mechanical errors, it won’t do a lot to make your writing interesting or to make your message come across powerfully and precisely. If you want readers to engage with and enjoy the ideas you present in writing, and if you hope to earn high grades in your writing class, you need to understand the rules of grammar and punctuation. Don’t let AI do the job for you.
What are the Most Common Errors?
Everyone makes different mistakes, so the best way to learn to edit is to learn which mistakes you tend to make. Below is a list of common errors and a brief explanation. Reviewing the list of common errors below might help you start to recognize errors in your writing. If you know you have certain errors, or if your professor points out specific errors in your writing, you will need to learn to recognize and correct them. The list below includes a brief explanation, and the error is a hyperlink to a more detailed explanation.
Sentence fragments are incomplete sentences–a group of words that don’t constitute a sentence. The group of words may be missing a subject or a predicate or it may include a word that turns a complete sentence into a modifying phrase or clause.
A comma splice is not simply a problem with commas. When a sentence contains a comma splice error, the problem is that two complete sentences are joined with a comma rather than with a semicolon or period.
Sometimes, when a sentence is especially long, people will worry that it’s a run-on. The length of a sentence, though, has nothing to do with a run-on error. Run-ons occur when the writer puts no punctuation between two complete sentences. One sentence “runs on” to the next one, with no punctuation to slow the reader down.
Pronouns like “this” and “it” can create confusion if your readers don’t know what the pronouns refer to. When editing, you should always be suspicious of pronouns and check to make sure their antecedent–the thing they refer to–is clear.
Modifiers are groups of words or words that describe something in a sentence. In the English language, modifiers appear next to whatever they are describing. When modifiers appear in a sentence but don’t clearly attach to anything in that sentence, those modifiers are considered “dangling”; in other words, they are modifiers with nothing to attach to.
With a misplaced modifier, the word or group of words describing something appear in the wrong place in a sentence. Again, the rule is that modifiers always appear next to what they modify. If they are misplaced, they need to be moved.
The verbs in your sentences need to be in the correct form so that they match the subject. Catching these errors can be tricky!
This error occurs when a sentence’s parts–e.g., the subject and predicate–don’t match. Recognizing and correcting mixed sentences may require a review of different kinds of sentence structures.
Many words in the English language sound alike and are easily confused. Look for this common error when you edit your work.
Many of us are confused about when and where to place an apostrophe, and sometimes, the apostrophe seems unnecessary. When you’re writing to an educated audience, though, you want to make sure you use apostrophes correctly.
The semicolon is even more confusing than the apostrophe, but unlike the apostrophe, a semicolon is punctuation you never need to use; instead, you use it for effect, as this sentence illustrates.
Like semicolons, the colon is a stylistic choice–something you might use for effect. The effect won’t work, though, if you use colons incorrectly.
Dashes can also add to your writing style, but you need to make sure you don’t confuse them with hyphens, and you need to follow the rules for using dashes.
If you ever learned that you use a comma “when you pause to take a breath,” forget that rule! It does not help you use commas correctly. Commas divide sentences into smaller units so that they are easier to understand, and certain structures call for commas. Reviewing the common errors associated with commas can help you correct them.
Parallelism is a means of emphasizing and connecting ideas–a stylistic choice–as well as a grammatical requirement. Good writers know when to use a parallel sentence structure and how to recognize parallelism errors.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- No one speaks or writes Edited American English, so everyone needs to edit their work
- Editing your work for correctness and clarity will always make your writing stronger
- Everyone makes different mistakes, but knowing some common errors can help you edit
