Sunday, October 16, 2011

Stop! Grammar Time!

There are several common grammatical mistakes that haunt everyone: even writers. In order to overcome this grammatical wasteland, you have two choices.
1. You can spend endless time studying, learning and relearning in order to become the world's next great grammarian... OR
2. You can take a look at this quick and easy cheat sheet whenever you have doubts about the the way you've used the words which, that, who, whom, its, it's, whos, or whose. Or if you an unsure about one of those pesky semi-colons

Graphic created and compiled by Stacy Tritt, Brigid Cain, and Kate Scott.


Included in the graphic above are some of the most common grammatical mistakes that people make in writing everyday, and was created and complied by a group of English 304 (Technical Editing) students at West Virginia University.

3 comments:

  1. Hard to read against that red background!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, it is. Sorry about that. We'll re-post it soon. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry for the hard to read content! Here is the content of the graphic in plain text:

    What is the difference between...

    ...Which and That?

    “Which” is used when:
    Essential to definition
    Can use a comma
    Follows a proper noun

    "That" is used when:
    Nonessential to definition
    Cannot use a comma
    Refers to a person

    ...Who and Whom?

    “Who” is used when:
    Refers to subject

    “Whom” is used when:
    Refers to object

    ...It’s/Its and Who’s/Whose?
    Comma when contraction
    No comma when possessive

    When do I use a semi-colon?
    When multiple clauses are complete sentences
    but more closely related than periods allow.

    ReplyDelete