Grammar 101

original image via

I see so many bloggers breaking simple grammar rules everyday. So I decided to make this post that shows examples of bad grammar and how to fix them.

First of all, why is grammar important? I’ll tell you: not only will your blog be easier to read, but I will respect you more.

 Punctuation

Sometimes it seems like bloggers will deny the existence of punctuation. Maybe they think they just don’t have time to add any, but really, if you’re going to take the time to write a post, take the extra seconds to add punctuation.

One of the punctuation errors that annoys me the most is when a blogger writes with tons of exclamation points. Now, when I write, I generally only use our friendly little “!” in dialogue. Why is that? Because I can convey excitement, suddenness, and action through my words.

Here’s an example of misused punctuation that I wrote for your benefit.

Clara picked up the brown kitten! Aw!!! she said it’s so cute Mom can we keep it??? Sure honey!! Mom said let’s go buy it some food! Yay!! said Clara, squeezing the cat and skipping out the door!

I edited the above paragraph, making it readable.

Clara picked up the brown kitten. “Aw!” she said. “It’s so cute. Mom, can we keep it?”

“Sure, honey,” Mom said, “let’s go buy it some food.”

“Yay!” said Clara, squeezing the cat and skipping out the door.

Tell me, which one was easier to read? The bottom, am I right? I’ll show you why.

“Aw!” she said. “It’s so cute. Mom, can we keep it?”

When someone speaks, put quotation marks ( ” ) around the words they are saying. Notice how in the first version of the paragraph, there were no quotation marks. Also, did you see how many times I used both the question marks and the exclamation points in a row? You don’t need to do that. You can get your point across with just one of each.

Another thing. When a new character is speaking, give them their own line. Just press enter —

and it’ll take you to the next line.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

(This is hardly grammar; it’s more like online etiquette. But it’s important enough for me to put in this post.)

Go take a look at the photo I included at the top of the page. What do you see written directly under it? The word “via.” If you click on the word, it will take you to the page where I got the photo from.

Please don’t steal photos.

Every picture on the internet belongs to someone. A person found the time to take that picture and share it on the web.

Here’s the real question: how would you feel if someone posted one of your photos and didn’t give you any credit?

Not good, I’d imagine. So if you feel the need to share a photograph that was taken by someone else, please, please give them credit. It’s as simple as writing either “via” or “source” under their photo and linking the word back to whatever page you got the image from. Don’t write “From Pinterest,” OK? That’s not giving any credit to the owner of the photo. Take the time to find the webpage where that picture was originally posted.

Congratulations — you’ve officially reached the end of this post! If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to welcome you to put this picture on your blog’s sidebar.

original image via

Uh . . . yeah. Peace off.

What grammar mistakes bother you?

–Loren