Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Grammar

I'm at the half way point of my grammar class, and I've noticed a significant improvement in my writing already. Or perhaps it's best to say that I'm been able to find numberous mistakes in my recent writing that have now been corrected.

It's amazing how easy it is to make minor mistakes. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the English language, but looking back at my writing I've found verb tense errors, comma splices, and a host of other minor problems. Many of these mistakes aren't obvious, and readers, for the most part, would not even notice them, but sometimes of course the errors can cause confusion.

I think my favourite exercise is correcting adjective placements. One we looked at last night for example was this sentence: "When nine years old, my father took me on a camping trip." Most people are just going to make the logical connection and understand what was meant by this sentence, but it actually means that a nine year old person took their kid on a camping trip. Fun stuff indeed.

I know I still have much to learn, but the progress I'm making is surprising and welcome. I'm avergaing about 85% in the class, and I had the top mark on the last assignment. My current assignment consists of rewriting paragraphs to make them consistent and grammatical. It's much tougher than some of the other things we've been doing, but it's also exactly what I want to practice and learn.

I'm also volunteering for Habitant for Humainty as a writer. So far I've only written a press release, but there is talk about a website and a newsletter, which I will be responsible for. I look forward to the challenge and the responsibility.

I also have a new article coming out in the next issue of Pucklife magazine. I posted my first article on my other blog wheresthepuck.blogspot.com, and I will post my most recent article there once the new issue has been released.

So that's the crap I've been doing of late, and I should have another update soon.