College Writing

College Writing Study Guide adverbs, always ask yourself if you can choose a better verb that wouldmake the adverb unnecessary. For example, if you have a sentence with the phrase “look closely,” perhaps changing that phrase to “scrutinize” would better serve your meaning. Finally, prepositions , like conjunctions, are grammatical connective tissue, describing the relation- ship – or the position – of each element of the sentence. “With,” “of,” “upon,” “over,” “between,” “in- stead of,” and “because of” are common prepositions. This lesson isn’t a comprehensive discussion of grammatical rules, but nevertheless, nouns, verbs, conjunctions, adjectives, and adverbs are the main parts of speech that you will need to understand in order to get a workable grasp of grammar. 2.4 Punctuation – Periods, Commas, Semicolons In order to make your writing understandable, you need punctuation, which gives the reader clues about how to read your phrases and what those phrases modify. Imagine reading an entire book without commas, periods, quotation marks, semicolons, or question marks; it would be one big block of text. Also, commas have been so important that they have been at the center of court cases; missing commas have cost companies millions. And there are embarrassing misunderstandings like the dif- ference between “Let’s eat, Grandma” and “Let’s eat Grandma.” So here are the most common punctuation rules. Periods end complete declarative sentences. Question marks end complete interrogative sentences. Exclamation marks should be avoided in formal writing, but they convey excitement and enthusiasm. Semicolons usually separate two independent clauses. They function similarly as periods, but they convey a closer relationship between the two independent clauses. Colons are used after an independent clause and sets off a list. Dashes or hyphens are often used stylistically in place of commas, colons, or semicolons. Commas are governed by several rules, but here are the most common: • When you link two complete sentences with a conjunction, a comma goes before the conjunc- tion. For example, “I walked to the park, and there were four of my friends.” • A comma goes after every item in a list of three or more. For example, “ the American �lag is red, white, and blue.”

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