Fix 50% of Your Grammar Problems
1. Learn what makes a sentence. A sentence is a group of words containing, at the very least, a noun and a verb. (Read some William Faulkner to see a sentence at its very most).
So, a sentence is this: John ran. Here is another sentence: John fell.
2. Here are four major ways to combine two sentences correctly with two subjects and one way to combine them using one subject:
3. If you begin a sentence with an introductory clause, you need a comma. Notice that the previous sentence with if (a subordinating term). Other words to look out for: When, After, Before, While, Since, Once, Whenever (note these have to do with time) and Because, Although, Though, As if, While Wherever, Unless. That's what you should do, but why? The easiest way to think of it is that you need to tell the reader that the subject of the sentence, the focus of the thought, is coming up.
Continuing our previous examples about John:
a.) If John runs, he falls.
b.) John falls if he runs.
When beginning a sentence with a subordinating term, a comma is used before the subject of the portion that could be a sentence on its own. “If John runs” by itself cannot be a sentence, but “he falls” can.
When the subordinating term appears in the middle (attached to the second phrase), no comma is needed. Please note: these words cannot be used the way “however” is used to introduce a sentence. If your sentence begins with “Although” followed immediately by a comma: “Although,” this is an error.
4. The word affect is a verb; the word effect is a noun. Think of this: "The effects of the test will affect thousands." I always pair effect with "the" to remind me: The effect. I just remember those e's next to each other. Beware that this rule usually works; there are a few exceptions.
5. Check the spelling of these words: cannot, a lot, too/two/to, their/there and its/it’s.