Grammar refers to the rules that we follow to ensure that the language we use, whether spoken or written, makes sense. Punctuation helps to make these rules work.
1. Parts of speech: Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, articles (and more!).
- Nouns are names of things. book, pen, cup are nouns. People's names are proper nouns, and they start with a capital letter: Ben, Saffiya, Yiu. This is true for organisations too: British Broadcasting Corporation; National Health Service.
- Verbs are action words: write, run, eat. Your Learning Outcomes include verbs that will tell you what your assignment needs to achieve: describe, discuss, analyse, evaluate.
- Adverbs describe how the verb is being carried out: sitting quietly, eating noisily, writing angrily.
- Adjectives describe nouns: a ginger cat, a large leaf, an upbeat rhythm.
- Articles are words that go before nouns: a car, an opinion, the government.
Watch the video at the bottom of this box which explores all eight parts of speech. Recognising and understanding the parts of speech will help you to better understand how to use grammar in your writing.
2. Sentence structure. Most sentences will have a subject, an action and an object.
The subject is the noun that does the action.
The action is a verb carried out by the subject.
The object is the noun that the verb happens to.
- My colleague (subject) lent (action) me their pen (object).
Read more about this on this Grammarly page.
The subject might be singular (one person or thing) or plural (more than one person or thing). The subject and the action need to 'agree'.
- The cat goes out through the cat flap.
- The cats go out through the cat flap.
The subject of the sentence is the cat or cats, and the verb (go) changes depending on whether the subject is singular or plural. Read more about this on this page by Grammarly.
3. Connectives and conjunctions. These are words that join phrases to make more complex sentences. There are several of them: For, And, Not, But, Or, Yet, So. These can be remembered by the acronym FANBOYS. Read more about how to use them correctly on this Grammarly page.
4. Tense. Sometimes you might be writing about something that has happened in the past, but you also refer to the present time or even suggest what might happen in the future. You need to be aware of the whether the verbs you are using are in past, present or future tense. Read more here and watch the video below on different tenses.
5. Resources to help with grammar.
SAGE SKILLS: Student Success has information on using correct grammar for your academic subject at University.
There are also many videos on YouTube that help you to understand specific grammar errors and how to avoid them. For example, explore English with James' grammar playlist, and English with Lucy's channel to look for tutorials on the grammar issues you would like to work on. Two of Lucy's videos are shared below - on the parts of speech, and tenses.
