Grammar

Semi-Definite Rules for the Indefinite Article

Technical writing–perhaps more than any other sort of writing–gets read and used by people from every corner of the Anglophonic world. And people don’t get less sensitive to perceived slights or the appearance of cultural insensitivity because it’s a manual or help page. If anything, they’re more sensitive in such a circumstance.

Rhetorical Grammar, 5th Edition

Throughout the book, Kolln works to build the readers' confidence and encourage them to think of grammar as a tool. Rhetorical Grammar is a textbook for undergraduate students, and Kolln keeps this target audience in mind by making the 322- page book user-friendly.

Every Noun Can Be...

When is a noun not a noun? When it's been verbed. A lot of verbing is going on, as you've probably noticed. In fact, it's happening so frequently that I think we'd better come up with a name for the part of speech produced by verbing a noun.

Nancy's Wordsmithy: Rules You Don't Have to Obey, Part III

The funny thing is, this rule should be running out of steam, because certain standards of written English have changed in ways that make the rule at least partly obsolete. Learning it is kind of like learning to change a cloth ribbon on an old manual typewriter.

More than "Correct"

I think it can be dangerous for a technical writer to be a grammar expert.

To Err is Human, But Can It Be Forgiven?: Effects and Economics of Typos

Technical communicators dread typos. A piece of work that contains one or more typos is seen as shoddy, not something to be proud of. Finding and correcting these errors, however, takes time and costs money. Might there be a better way to spend resources?- ways that might produce more usable information.? Effects of errors, value added by correcting them, and the economics of error detection will be discussed.

Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings

Active voice is best for most Web content, but using passive voice can let you front-load important keywords in headings, blurbs, and lead sentences. This enhances scannability and thus SEO effectiveness.

Assembly Instructions for a Correct Sentence: The Sentence Diagram

This workshop explores the whys and hows of sentence diagramming. Knowledge of the time-honored technique can aid editors, writers, and instructors in preventing and correcting pesky errors in sentence structure, including dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers, and faulty parallelism. Diagramming offers the familiar look of technical drawings, the comforting feel of pencil on paper, and unmatched analytical potential.

Emphasize This!

Technical communicators tend to be problem solvers. We ask ourselves, 'How can I make this better?' We don't want our instruction material to simply be serviceable; we want it to help make our readers' lives easier. One way we do that is by anticipating mistakes that users might make if they don't read carefully. We use various techniques to emphasize material that could otherwise be overlooked. Some effective means of drawing the reader's eye to important material are presented below. Note that this article doesn't address safety messages. For proper use of safety messages, consult your corporate guidelines and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Some Thoughts on Teaching Grammar to Improve Writing

The conviction that writing can be improved with a knowledge of grammar has prevailed for quite a long time. But research has shown no correlation between grammatical knowledge and writing ability.

Double Take

When I peer-review a four-page document and insert the word the seventeen times, I wonder: Is this what my company is paying me to do? Am I truly adding value for my customers?

It's All Relative

When it comes to relative pronouns, incomplete knowledge may lead to frustration and confusion. The pronouns that, which, who, and what serve as relative pronouns when they introduce a relative (or subordinate) clause.

Sentence Diagramming: Making Sense of Sentences

Sentence diagramming is an important tool for technical communicators to use in analyzing their own writing and editing. Sentence diagramming is also a neutral basis from which to discuss and evaluate technical documentation with colleagues and with other co- workers, such as subject-matter experts, who are not professional communicators. Through visual examples, this paper illustrates how to diagram three types of sentences (simple, compound, and complex), how sentence diagramming shows an objective view of three common syntactical errors (misplaced modifier, lack of parallel structure, and dangling modifier), and how the revised sentences make sense as sentences and as diagrams.

Ten Grammar Mistakes That Make You Look Stupid

These days, we tend to communicate via the keyboard as much as we do verbally. In general, we can slip up in a verbal conversation and get away with it. A colleague may be thinking, Did she just say 'irregardless'?, but the words flow on, and our worst transgressions are carried away and, with luck, forgotten. That's not the case with written communications. When we commit a grammatical crime in e-mails, discussion posts, reports, memos, and other professional documents, there's no going back. Catching typos is easy (although not everyone does it). It's the other stuff -- correctly spelled but incorrectly wielded -- that sneaks through and makes us look stupid. Here's a quick review of some of the big ones.

Equal Time: Grammar and Composition: Myths and Realities

Let's resist seduction by the mythologies of teaching and keep our grasp on the realities of learning.

America the Beautiful

Writers of English have choices. Most every word we commit to paper (or its electronic equivalent) has a synonym

The Indefinite "We" (Het "Wij"-Gevoel/Le "Nous" Indéfini)--Sender and Receiver References in Top-Down Communication: A Text Type-Based Approach

In studies of political communication the use of personal pronouns is often put forward as one of the strategies for influencing sender-receiver relations (e.g., De Fina [1], Haverkate [2], Zupnik [3]). As Rogers and Swales [4] among others have demonstrated, similar techniques can be detected in corporate communication. In this article, the use of French and Dutch personal and possessive pronouns in the first person plural is examined in internal communication documents. The focus is on the link between text types and the use of inclusive, exclusive, or ambiguous we. First the research material is described; then a concise overview of the literary sources is given; finally the results of the research are discussed. It will be demonstrated that managers can exploit personal pronouns strategically and that the use of we is a parameter for identifying text function.

A New Look at Infinitives in Business and Technical Writing

This article begins by arguing that the infinitive phrase has not been taken seriously in writing because writers have been too concerned with Bishop Robert Lowth's proscription against the split infinitive. However, careful examination of three types of technical prose (instructions, annual reports, and 'junk mail') reveals that more than one sentence in four contains an infinitive phrase. The article then argues that two linguistic theories do not adequately explain the overwhelming presence of infinitives in the three types of prose. The reason for the presence of infinitives seems to be that they fulfill several rhetorical purposes, including vigor, symmetry, emphasis, variety, economy, and depersonalization. Implications for writing and teaching are also discussed.

The Passive Voice and Social Values in Science

This article claims that two social values in science--falsifiability of science and cooperation among scientists--determine use of passives in scientific communication. Scientists do not always develop valid theories, so scientific experiments must be amenable to being repeated and found invalid. This requires that the experiments must not be discrete events. Science is also a cooperative enterprise. As an integral part of science, scientific writing employs more passives than actives to focus on materials, methods, figures, processes, tables, concepts, etc. Use of passives to focus on the physical world helps de-emphasize discreteness of scientific experiments. Besides, it also helps remove personal qualifications of observing experimental results. Finally, it enhances cooperation among working scientists by providing a common knowledge base of scientific work--things and objects. Looked at in this way, the passive voice in scientific writing represents professional practices of science instead of personal stylistic choices of individual scientists.

"Unattached" Clauses in Technical Writing

The views concerning "dangling participles" of grammarians, usage experts and authors of books on technical writing are reviewed and compared. Although many unattached clauses are clearly unacceptable, some are less objectionable and still others are acceptable practice. Absolute constructions and other clause-relational participial, infinitival and verbless clauses need no attachment to a proximate noun or noun phrase, and logical clauses that are not attached to a noun are shown as normal, acceptable use. Even clearly adjectival clauses are often unattached when followed by the passive voice, intransitives and several other grammatical structures; clauses between the subject and verb and at the end of the sentence are also often not attached to the immediately preceding noun. Cultural (perhaps also gender) differences between humanistic teachers and task-oriented engineers are noted as possible causes of different viewpoints regarding the use of unattached participles, and greater acceptance of the many acceptable forms of unattached clauses is argued. <em>Suggested Reading Approach</em> The first three sections (on principles, authoritative views and theoretical background) could be skimmed if you are already familiar with the background.

It's All Relative

Dangling for Position

Dangling modifiers can be humorous for the reader, but humiliating for the writer. They're insidious, creeping into our prose and undermining our sentence structure. But they're easy to find if you know what to look for.

Double Take

If you write documentation for products that can be dangerous if misused, ambiguity is scarier than rush hour traffic on I-40. If you already know what the sentence means, it's difficult to perceive that it could be taken to mean something else. By stringently applying rules of grammar, you help eliminate potential ambiguity even when you don't perceive it. Technical content is difficult enough to navigate; give the reader a clear path so he can focus on the journey instead of the road.

The Humble Hyphen

The hyphen serves a single function. It joins things together: syllables of a word separated at the end of a line; two words used as a compound; or a modifier and the word it describes (when the combination itself is used as a modifier). But for the latter two functions, a hyphen isn't always needed. So how do you decide?

Squiggles

Thomas Mann described the writer as somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Nowhere is this truer than for comma use: while most folks float along blithely putting commas in or leaving them out at whim, we agonize over every squiggle. Why? Because we understand that the presence or absence of a comma can change the meaning of a sentence. In our line of work, unclear sentences can have dire consequences for our readers. So we worry.

The Wicked Which and Other Fairytales

Popular culture is filled with myths about grammar. Taught by generations of English teachers, these stories admonish little children to cling to the straight and narrow path, rather than venturing into the woods of creative communication. Some of these stories are usage guidelines rather than rules, but others are pure fantasy, the flight of some pedagogue's imagination.

Write Right

When you scan job postings for technical communicators, you'll find prospective employers seeking candidates who have an understanding of current technology, working knowledge of publishing tools, and time management skills. A bullet may ask for 'excellent writing and editing skills,' but that bullet rarely appears at the top of the list. Not for me.

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

If you are still struggling to decode the complex jargon and structure of English grammar with a long list of reference books, relax. The long wait for a reader-friendly book on English grammar is over. With her straightforward and perfectly-logical approach, Jane Straus reveals the mysteries of grammar and punctuations in her book The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. The book is extremely well-organized, allowing readers to quickly locate the required topics. Concepts are described in clear and simple phrases, backed with examples from everyday language usage.

Writing Technical Specifications in the Present

Technical specifications are improved in several ways with one easy procedure - writing them in the present tense. That is, rather than trying to specify constraints on a product that does not yet exist, describe the product as though it already existed.

Fear Not the Long Sentence

Everyone fears the long sentence. Editors fear it. Readers fear it. Most of all, writers fear it. Even I fear it. But...

Control the Pace

Control the pace of the story by varying sentence length.

Period As a Stop Sign

Place strong words at the beginning of sentences and paragraphs, and at the end. The period acts as a stop sign. Any word next to the period says, 'Look at me.'

Tech Writers, Grammar, and the Prescriptive Attitude

Many tech writers do not see grammar as a set of conventions to help them write clearly. Instead, to judge by the wording of the questions and responses, they see grammar as a set of unchanging rules that can provide definitive answers in every situation.

A Critique of Grammatical Coverage in Business-Communication Textbooks

Business English (BE) and business communication (BC) overlap. English handles linguistic mechanics and style, whereas communication holistically discusses the movement of a message from one person to another. The BC discipline, unfortunately, allows language basics into its pedagogy like a statistics course teaching fundamental mathematics. From the other side, some English courses teach BC before their students are able to handle that material. A subject teaches prepared students. If they are deficient, they are either kept out or the subject matter suffers.

The Not-So-Able able

The suffix -able can be very useful in the English language because it helps us to express capability or worthiness. However, it's often bad form to pick any verb, slap -able on the end of it, and try to make a valid adjective.

Punctuation, Punctuation, Punctuation

A light touch with punctuation has always made sense, whether you're scratching out a sonnet on velum with a quill pen, or texting a mate on your mobile. It's meant to enhance communication, not hinder it.

Punctuation by Languages

Not too long ago, I was managing a translation project in Access (English to Greek) when I discovered that the translator hadn't used question marks similar to those used in the English source. Instead of question marks, he was using semicolons. I was sure that this was a mistake and that the computer was acting strange again. But it wasn't a mistake. In the Greek language, the question mark is like a semicolon, and the semicolon is instead a raised period. I've started to check on other projects as well, and I've learned quite a few interesting things about punctuation and their separators.

Dodge the Grammar Traps

You don't have to swallow a grammar book to write correctly. If you can just avoid ten serious and very common traps, your chances of making a grammar mistake drop dramatically.

Sentence Types and Sentence Structures Revisited

Before we discuss sentence types and structures, let us regard writing as a donut. When talking of sentence types, we will consider four building blocks of the donut.

How to Write Good

Fifty-two humorous rules about how to write well (each of which is broken).

Fear of Punctuation

So maybe you do know how to add memory to your computer or program your cell phone, but do you know where to put a comma in a sentence? If you have a sentence followed by a list, do you use a semicolon or a colon? Does the period go inside or outside of quotation marks? How do you keep up with changing rules of grammar and punctuation when you can't remember where to put the apostrophe? People often fear punctuation because the rules have changed and they continue to do so.

GrammarNOW

This site is dedicated to answering grammar, composition, or formatting questions.

Gender-Free Legal Writing: Managing the Personal Pronouns

Where a statement of any complexity is made about a person, the maker of the statement may face decisions about how further references should be framed.

Collecting Books about Editing

Intercom's 'friendly editor' discusses his extensive collection of dictionaries, grammars, and other books of interest.

Reconsidering Some Prescriptive Rules of Grammar and Composition

Technical writers and editors are beset with rules. As authoritative as they are, published style guides such as The Chicago manual of style, MLA, APA, and Gregg do not address reading theory but hang their prescriptions on the flimsy mantle of tradition. This article challenges some putative rules of grammar and mechanics in an effort to improve technical texts for the people who read them.

Style, Grammar, and Usage

Information on style, grammar, and usage.

The Use of Capitals

The question to the list-subscribers was I am looking for studies dealing with the difference between small letters and capitals. Are small letters easier to read? In France, road signs are written in capitals but it is not the case in the US or Canada.

Workshop: English Grammar

A slideshow that presents some often-confused elements of English grammar.

Grammar Stammer

Don't you think that it is a tragedy that 95 percent of the people who desire to be technical writers have a poor command over the language? I am sure all of us make a mistake or two, once in a while. But to make it in every sentence and paragraph shows utter disrespect for readers.

One Hundred Simple Tech Writing Errors

Here are the 100 writing errors that the author has encountered in his experience. (Followed by the subsequent article 'Ten More Errors in Technical Writing.')

Ten More Errors in Technical Writing

So, well, here are 10 more errors. This time we will focus on grammar and punctuation. Most of these are simplistic and obvious. But then they are too common. As usual, I have slipped in some content for the advanced writers too. (This article is a follow-up to 'One Hundred Simple Tech Writing Errors .)

Stressing What is Important in a Sentence

In addition to expunging the usual collection of wordy phrases from documents, editors commonly attempt to tighten up writing to make it more direct, clear, and concise. For example, when editing business and technical material, I frequently change sentences containing 'it is,' 'there is,' and 'there are.' Writers often ask me 'what was wrong with that sentence?' I reply that although the sentence wasn't wrong grammatically, such phrases distract the reader from the important part of the message.

Use of Hyphens

This page collects a series of notes from readers of my newsletter, and my responses to those notes, arising from an article in issue 60, 13 May 2002. I thank those who took the time to write and explain why some hyphen usage is considered to be correct or incorrect.

Style Sheets and Grammar

A collection of online resources about style guides and reference sites about grammar.

Caught in the Active

Have you been told, perhaps by your computerised grammar checker, that too many of your sentences are passive? Have you heard the rule of thumb that at least 80 percent of the sentences in any passage should be active? If you've had the problem or heard the rule, and wonder what the terms active and passive mean, and why one is good and the other frowned on, this article is for you.

Creative Indents

Indenting the first line of every paragraph is a habit most of us acquired in grammar school. However, for those daring souls who have always insisted on coloring outside the lines, it’s time to consider using a different style paragraph indent. There are more options than you might have realized!

Hyphens, En-Dashes and Em-Dashes

Hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes are frequently used punctuation marks that are just as frequently misunderstood. All three marks are essentially horizontal lines, though their lengths vary (as do, occasionally, their designs – see figure 1). However, these three different marks have very different purposes, and using a hyphen to do an m-dash’s job is just as much of a punctuation error as using a question mark in place of a comma.

Participles Becoming Prepositions--Some Arcane Information for Editors

A presentation that accompanies the paper of the same name at http://webhome.crk.umn.edu/~mpringle/UsingPaper.rtf.

Participles Becoming Prepositions--Some Arcane Information for Editors

In English, some participles have already become prepositions. The author noticed in her work as a technical editor that most of her writers seemed to perceive the participle 'using' as a preposition already although it is not listed as such in the dictionary. The paper gives the evidence and rationale for making such a claim. It offers a window on written language change in progress and celebrates the language user’s ability to make the stolid dialect we call technical writing more vigorous and efficient by turning a participle into a preposition.

Dr. Grammar

Dr. Grammar may provide help with your grammar questions.

Escape From the Grammar Trap

Too many editors focus on the details and don't pay enough attention to the bigger picture. Editors can--and should--add even more value through substantive, technical, and usability editing. Copyediting is important, but the details are only part of what an editor can and should be reviewing. After all, a document can be correctly spelled and punctuated, grammatically correct, use only approved terminology, and follow the style guide perfectly--and still not serve the audience's needs. This article covers some reasons why editors focus on details and not the bigger picture; describes how much attention technical communicators should pay to formal rules of grammar, punctuation, and usage; and describes how we can distinguish between essential and nonessential rules of grammar, punctuation, and usage.

The Passive in Technical and Scientific Writing

Almost every discussion of technical or scientific style mentions the passive voice, usually as a stylistic evil to avoid. While I doubt that many of us would endorse such extreme prescriptions as 'Always use the active voice,' or 'A writer will almost automatically improve his style when he shifts from passive to active constructions,' we may be more ready to accept Freedman's position in 'The Seven Sins of Technical Writing.' His Sin 6 is 'the Deadly Passive, or, better, deadening passive; it takes the life out of writing, making everything impersonal, eternal, remote and dead, but he adds that 'frequently, of course, the passive is not a sin and not deadly, for there simply is no active agent and the material must be put impersonally.'

Exercise Central

Exercise Central is the largest collection of editing exercises available online that provide practice for mastering the skills of editing grammar, style, punctuation, and mechanics.

Nominalizations and Their Impact on Readers

The study presented here examined the effect of nominalizations in technical documents on readers’ recall and comprehension. Subjects read one of two technical passages in either a nominalized or denominalized form, and took recall and comprehension tests. Results indicate that denominalized passages can help readers retain more information when the original nominalizations are critical to the readers’ understanding of the passage.

Teaching a Workshop on Sentence Diagramming

Demonstrates how sentence diagramming can be an effective writing tool and offers tips on how it should be taught.

Breaking the Rules

In our early writing years, many of us toiled under strict teachers who drilled the rules of English grammar into our collective consciousness. We sweated drops of blood on our pristine paper as we tried to craft perfect sentences for that much-desired 'A.' We prayed that we didn’t leave a word or clause misplaced or dangling for the teacher’s angry red pen to mark. Yet pick up a work of modern fiction, and you might notice that the writer has broken many of the rules that were drummed into our impressionable heads. These days, fiction often resembles the casual style of postmodern poetry, with sentence fragments and punctuation sprinkled about like seasoning. But in technical communication, we can’t be so casual. We must adhere to those rules of grammar our English teachers upheld— at least, for the most part.

The Good Grammar, Good Style™ Pages

Do you have a question about style, grammar, or mechanics? Find the answer to your questions in the Good Grammar, Good Style Archive — over 100 pages of useful articles and frequently asked questions!

Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

A guide on punctuation, capitals, spelling, sentence construction and parts of speech.

Conquering the Comma

This presentation introduces your students to the rules of comma usage, including placement in compound sentences, after introductory elements, with dependent phrases and clauses, around non-essential elements, in a series, and with adjectives. This presentation also covers methods for avoiding a common comma error--the comma splice. This presentation is ideal for the beginning of a composition course, the assignment of a writing project, or as a refresher presentation for grammar usage.

Commonly Used and Misused Punctuation Marks

Defines the functions of several punctuation marks and provides examples of their correct usage.

Grammar: A Handy Guide

Normal rules of English grammar are often violated in technical writing, sometimes with good reason. However, writers are often not aware of these violations. This guide identifies some of the rules that are most commonly violated.

The Online English Grammar

Explains English parts of speech and gives several usage examples.

The American Heritage Book of English Usage

This book is designed to inform you about current problems in English usage so you can make intelligent decisions when communicating. When confronted with a choice about a usage, you may ask yourself a number of questions: Has this usage been criticized for some reason in the past? If so, are these criticisms substantial? What are the linguistic and social issues involved? Have people frequently applied this usage in the past, and for how long? What do well-respected writers think of the usage today? You will find answers to these and many other questions in this book.

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

Jane Straus' easy-to-use reference guide and workbook is now available as an online resource. This popular book is an indispensable and entertaining guide for writers, proofreaders, editors, managers, clerical staff, teachers, and students. Use this site to find the answers to your questions concerning proper English grammar and punctuation.

Common Errors in English

Offers an extensive list of commonly confused words, their definitions and the correct way to use them.

Grammar

A website about English grammar for students.

Guide to Grammar and Writing

A web-based complete guide to English syntax and grammar.