Good grammar is an asset for your work and social life. It sends a clear message about who you are and how much you care about the quality of your writing. In this article, we offer three tips that can help improve your English grammar. Read on to learn how to recognize sentence fragments, use pronouns correctly, and avoid misusing idioms.
#1 Recognize sentence fragments: A sentence fragment is not a complete thought in itself so it cannot stand as a single sentence. It also cannot be attached to the previous sentence to make a larger sentence. Examples of this include:
One day I became very sick. I stayed home from school.
Past, present, future. People are complex.
These sentences can easily be made into complete thought units by adding a subject and verb: I became very sick one day; I stayed home from school that day; People are complex in the past, present, and future; etc.
The thought units can then be combined into a complete sentence: I became very sick one day and stayed home from school that day. People are complex in the past, present, and future.
There is an exception to this rule. One-word fragments — fragments consisting of a subject alone or verb alone — are acceptable in informal writing:
I won’t tell you.
There will be trouble. Trouble could start now or later.
#2 Use pronouns correctly: Pronouns are words that stand in for a noun. In the following sentence, the nouns have been underlined and the pronouns have been italicized:
The man saw his wife with another man. He became very angry and punched them both in the face.
#3 Read Out Loud
How you comb your hair in front of the mirror and notice a part of your hair going berserk. And instantly, you set your hair again. Similarly, reading out loud a book, a novel, or a paragraph, will reveal mistakes you’re making, with pronunciation and grammar. Therefore, self-analysis proves to be a useful method to learn and improve English grammar.
