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Infographic: The Ultimate Grammar Cheat Sheet for Writers

It’s not that I have bad grammar – I just follow unique rules that I make up as I go along.

I call it grammar freestyle, and you should try it some time. But if you prefer to follow the rules, the following infographic from Expert Editors is a handy cheat sheet that details many ways you can improve your writing.

Expert Editors

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Comments


AltWrite November 29, 2017 um 2:17 pm

I stopped reading at #6, which is absolutely incorrect. There might be some utility in some of this, but if your grammar is solid enough to know when to follow it or ignore it, you already have no use for it.

Trust me, I’m an editor.

Karl November 29, 2017 um 9:40 pm

And in "Confusing Words" part 6, an example of a "correct" sentence is "He said my glasses complements my eyes."
And in part 8 of the same section, the example of "affect" as a psychological noun is totally confusing, as it refers to a "book’s [as opposed to a person’s] affect."

… And that’s as far as I read. The folks at Expert Editors need to change the name of their company.


KS "Kaz" Augustin November 30, 2017 um 4:50 am

Really?? to both above comments.

#6 is absolutely correct, and a mistake that USians (for example) make All The Time. To use a CompSci example, "In binaryspeak, 0 is the complement of 1" vs "I compliment you on your taste in music." Yes of course those spectacles complement your eyes…I’ve had such said to me personally and it is absolutely correct English. Only a fool would use "compliment" instead. ("Hi, I’m your new glasses. I must say that your eyes are a divine shade of blue!")

#8 is also correct. "Your speech about limbless orphans scavenging for scrap was very affecting *sniff* *sniff*" vs "The effect/s of music on the brain is/are currently being studied."

Additional: Only today I read a N American so-called writer/editor stating: "It will effect you. It will affect every place that you go…" Bwahahahahahahaha. Needless to say, I won’t be buying any of his books.

Then again, I actually studied English grammar in secondary school. 😉 Thanks for this, Nate. I’ve saved it and will refer to it as and when need arises.

PS Despite the above, I still need my editors! 🙂


Harvey Stanbrough November 30, 2017 um 7:18 am

I thought this was pretty good, except that calories are quantifiable, as evidenced by people counting them every day. To use the example, it should be "The smaller the slice of pizza, the fewer the calories." Try something like this: When a pizza is cut into fewer slices, eating it takes less time.

Tried to leave this at the OP, but couldn’t get past their CAPTCHA.


Karl November 30, 2017 um 7:32 am

Kaz:
1) The problem with “He said my glasses complements my eyes.” is not complement/compliment, it’s complements/complement (subject-verb agreement). "glasses" is plural, so the "correct" sentence was incorrect. You corrected "complements" to "complement" in your example.
2) Similarly, you changed the graphic’s use of "affect" as a psychological noun to the verb "affecting," ignoring the point the graphic was trying to make. At best, it’s confusing to refer to a book having an "affect" (noun, psychology; emotion or desire, especially as influencing behavior or action), whereas referring to a person’s affect would be clear to anyone familiar with that definition of the word.


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