If you want to share an original idea, create a fascinating poem or tell a great story, you are obligated to pay diligence to their creations as well and present it well so that your reader can understand them. While the content is paramount, the way a writer uses language and its vocabulary can be just as critical. Bad use of phrases and grammar is such a distraction and can make the reader lose interest in the content. Good writing skills involve more than knowing the grammar rules. It entails smart choices of words, construction of cohesive sentences and writing in a way that the reader does not get confused or annoyed.
To help you write amazing content pieces, here are the top 10 most frequently unknown or say ignored grammar rules that every writer should know:
Rule 1: Use of Comma
This is one of the popular and often misused punctuation marks. In bad writing, there are too many or too few commas. Be consistent in how you make use of commas and strike the balance.
Rule 2: Verb Tense:
Three forms of verbs are taught in school and yet many writers do not remember them when they start writing. It is important to learn tenses properly and use the correct form of verbs when required.
Rule 3: Homophones
These are no less than little devils since spell-check tools will not be able to catch them. In fact, too many new writers do not know the proper usage of homophones. From common sets such as ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’ to some complicated ones like ‘compliment’ and ‘complement’, it requires a lot of reading and attention to use these works properly. Meticulous proofreading is also essential to catch errors.
Rule 4: Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs can be useful if used smartly. However, too much or wrong use of adjectives and adverbs can make your writing appear sloppy. Understand this point with the following example. ‘People do not run quick’, ‘they run quickly’. Here ‘quick’ is an adjective while ‘quickly’ is an adverb.
Rule 5: Uncommon or Rare Punctuation Marks
If you want to use punctuation marks such as semicolons, colons or ellipsis (three dots), then take out some time to learn when, where and how to use them.
Rule 6: Agreement of Subject-Verb
To write correct sentences, it is important to match the subject with the verb. For instance, ‘she have two dogs’. It should be ‘she has two dogs’ because the verb ‘have’ does not go with the subject ‘she’.
Rule 7: Capitalised Proper Nouns
For some unknown reasons, many people have taken it upon themselves to capitalise words they think are crucial for their business, a practice that is out of control or say rampant in business writing. If you choose to do something like this for your business, make sure to be consistent and write the name of your business with capitalised proper nouns wherever you mention it.
Rule 8: Consistency of the Verb Tense and Careful Editing
These type of errors usually appears due to shoddy proofreading and editing. A sentence that was initially in the perfect past tense is changed to the simple past tense. But, one thing is always overlooked. This way you end up with something like – She went to the general store and had shopped for things.
Without a single doubt, this list is nothing but a taste of grammar and writing rules that are typically overlooked. Brush up your grammar to write amazing content pieces. What common grammatical errors you have observed or written rules do you know? Do you have anything to share with us? Leave your answer in the comment section!!
This post originally appeared on our earlier website: ihusresearch.com
