Many errors occur because some interference is keeping our "ear" from hearing. The following strategies remove the interference, allowing your native "grammar ear" to hear what is going on.

A fragment can be defined as something punctuated as a sentence that does not contain at least one independent clause.

A run-on can be defined as something punctuated as one sentence that contains two or more independent clauses improperly connected. (There are three proper connections: a period, a semi-colon, a colon, a comma+coordinate conjunction.)

Since a complementizer ("that") will embed any complete sentence in another one, the following may be used to let your ear test whether any assertion is an independent clause: "It is true that"... (fill in whatever is to be tested). If it sounds like English, it contains at least one independent clause; if it sounds strange, it does not. The above test will work for any assertion. To test commands, use I command that [you]..."

Qualification: Coordinators(e.g. and, but) can be omitted when applying the test. Nothing else may be omitted, though words and phrases may be moved to sound better (e.g. therefore, on the other hand, and prepositional phrases)

There are 3 uses of the apostrophe, 2 common and 1 not common:

1) To make nouns possessive (possessive pronouns like his and its are already possessive)

2) To show contraction (one or more letters omitted, as in haven't)

3) Uncommon: To make symbols and numbers plural (so that "A's" does not look like "As")

To tell where the apostrophe goes in the possessive, convert it to an "of the ..." phrase. The apostrophe will follow the last letter in the base word and an "s" will be added if that last letter is not already "s")

Ex: The Jacksons House !The house of the Jacksons. (therefore Jacksons +' !The Jacksons’ House.

Case indicates whether the pronoun is a structural subject or object (ex: He [subject case] hit him [object case]) What goes in front of an action verb is subject case, what goes behind is object case. Errors usually occur when words get in the way of hearing crucial parts together.

1. Drop out the second name if there are two: He gave the money to Bill and I/me ! He gave the money to me. An alternate strategy is to replace the singular pronoun with a plural that covers both: Between you and I/me ! Between us. Since our ear indicates "us" (objective case), the pronoun should be "me." If the pronoun is with a noun (we/us women), drop the noun (leaving just we/us). Ex: We women or us women are planning the demonstration ! we are planning the demonstration (so the pronoun should be we).

2. Complete the sentence if the pronoun is at the end (and more is implied, but left out). Ex: No one understands as well as I/me ! No one understands as well as I understand (therefore I).

3. For who/whom problems, block out the sentence through the who or whom and read what is left, inserting he or him wherever it fits in what's left.(If he, then who is right; if him, then whom is right.) Ex: My first opponent was a fellow who/whom some think plays well ! Some think he plays well (so who)

4.To be is followed by subject case in formal writing because the complement refers back to the subject rather than being different from it: John is my brother vs. John hit my brother. Therefore "my brother is he." (This construction is so awkward, it is best avoided.

2 major Reasons:

1) Commas indicate joining transformations

A. In a series: In formal standard English, a comma will appear before the and (e.g. He bought potatoes, leeks, and cream).

B. Between 2 items if the items are independent clauses connected by a coordinator (e.g. He is seventy, but he still jogs).

C. Between two equal and separate adjectivals where the and has been omitted: It's a periodic, unpredictable relationship (where you do not mean that the unpredictable relationship is periodic; you mean the relationship is both unpredictable and periodic equally and separately).

2) Commas indicate embedding (insertion) that has added non-essential (non-restrictive) information to the rest of sentence. Such commas occur in pairs if the insertion is in the middle of the sentence, singly if the insertion is at the beginning or the end.

A. Adverbial information at the beginning is usually set off from the main sentence: "Yesterday, he went to work early." "Because he hates suspense, he left early." The same information at the end may or may not be set off at writer's whim.

B. Reduced relatives that are non-restrictive are almost always set off by commas wherever they occur (unless they are reduced to a single word before the noun).

Summary of comma duties

1) To separate items in a series

2) To separate equal adjectives

3) With a coordinator, to join independent clauses

4) To set off material that is non-essential (appositives and other non-restrictive phrases)

Weaver, Constance. Teaching Grammar in Context. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1996.

Weaver, Constance. Lessons to Share. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1998.

Barry, Anita K. English Grammar: Language as Human Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.