Category: Writers Block
Hey all, a bit of a rambling thought. Lol, hope there are others like me.
Do you ever wonder how is that written? Where is the semi-colon, is that hyphenated, is an ellipsis appropriate?
I think part of my problem is I listen to some many books on tape. The number of times I'm listening to something and I wish I had a hard copy in front of me, so I can learn how it was written.
I've studdied grammar and I feel more confident than I use to, but I continue to second guess myself.
This is a rule I learned and I think I understand it correctly. When you are writing a sentence and if it looks like the sentence could be divided into 2 sentences, that is a case for the colon instead of the comma.
Any grammar buffs out there? Do you have some good rules of thumb? BTW, should rule of thumb be hyphenated? *Hehehehe!*
It doesn't help matters, that I am not a great speller. I'm constantly using spell check and figuring out little rules so I can remember the correct spelling.
For example, a piece of pie. I remember that pie already exists in the word. A silly example, but there you go!
Si! I am a gargantuan geek in anything under the category of language arts!
And for one thing, If a sentence looks as though it should be two sentences, then it calls for a semi-colon, not a colon.
And I'm glad you use spell check and remember any kind of rule you can to help keep your spelling in check. It's better than not trying or putting forth any effort at all.
As for grammar and the placement of punctuation, I totally understand where you're coming from. I used to be like that. I didn't understand the difference between a comma, colon, semi-colon, and the long dash. Reading braille really helps to learn the placement of these things. While I do enjoy the convenience of audio-books, I, to this very day, still order braille books. Even though I excell in the area of grammar, I'd hate to lose that knowledge. It's very useful, and I value it highly.
Oops yes, a semi colon. We'll chalk that up to a typo. *grin*
Since you excel, do you have any internet resources? A good place to study? I use to have a great pocket book from college, but my cctv is not working, so the book is not very useful right now.
Well, the only website I can give you for now is freerice.com. It's an excellent site. It has different subjects that you can practice and choose from, and one of them is English grammar. It gets into some of the more difficult stuff, but not waist-deep in it.
Now that you bring it up, I'm going to search and see if I can find more sites, then I'll post them here.
All right! Here's another site.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/index.html
This is the greatest site yet! It teaches about everything from punctuation to suffixes.
There are even exercises to help you practice.
With this website, you won't need to check out any other. This one is the best I've found, and I don't think you can find a better site. I've explored it myself, and I love it!
Good luck, and I can't tell you how proud of you I am for desiring to better your grammar and punctuation usage. This is a beautiful thing.
Thank you for the website! It is fun and very accessible.
100% on the 2 interactive excersizes for commas vs. semicolons. *wooh-hooh!*
Good job! Keep up the good work. I'd like to believe my grammar is perfect, but I think I might use that site a bit for some of the more difficult stuff. It's amazing!
And I'm glad I could be of some help.
Maybe that's why I HATE grammar!! You may be onto something!
Now you hate grammar why? Because you find it difficult, or because you can't practice it enough?
Some subjects just aren't for some people. Me, I could be good at math, but I hate it more than there are dirt particles on this planet. And I'm sure there are people who feel the same way about language arts or just grammar..