English Composition

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I'm not 100% sure anyone else really sees this the way I do. Please understand I don't exempt myself from it either, in fact the reason I'm posting it is because I recognize I have issues with communicating both well and correctly.

I mean, when to use there, their, to, too, a, an, is, are, accepting, excepting, is irregardless even a word?? Let me be completely honest, I use semi-colons when I feel like I'm supposed to and just go with the flow tossing in comma's and apostrophes where I believe they are supposed to be. Yes I had English Comp. I and II in college, but still feel like I'm a light year away from being able to communicate both well and properly using the English language.

One day I'd actually like to really write something if an opportunity ever comes up and I'd like to be able to do it without getting my coordinating conjunctions all discombobulated.

Anyone got any resources they use? Any books they've used? Have you ever struggled with it, besides just checking your spelling and grammar using the built-in tools in word, what have you done to make your written word as professional as possible?

No more dangling participles,

J.

 

I recommend the Gregg Manual as well as the APA Manual. Both of these will help improve your grammar and sentence structure as well as aid you in citing resources for professional and scholarly documents.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding.

I don't use much of anything... we wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote so much in high school and college that it just comes as second nature to me now. So if you want to learn how to write well, I would recommend that you learn by doing: write. Additionally, read as much as possible; the more you read well-written books, the better you will write.

The things I miss are caught by our excellent editing team. Here at Boson, we use Gregg, but I'm not sure I agree with some of their suggested grammar practices... particularly with regards to rules I believe to be optional that are hard-and-fast rules in Gregg.

Hope this helps.