03/04/2024
Happy National Grammar Day!
Being Rogue Owl’s managing editor involves many roles, one of which is to help authors with developmental edits for submissions. For the most part, our authors present clean, tight pieces, but occasional errors do get through.
Three common grammar mistakes I see are:
Comma splices – Due to the bad rap that semicolons have received over the years, writers tend to shy away from them. However, a well-placed semicolon can be a beautiful thing. If you still are afraid to try it out, go ahead and use a conjunction or just make two sentences.
Subject and pronoun agreement – Fairly recently, the Associated Press accepted “they/them/their” as singular pronouns, and writers everywhere rejoiced. When a character is non-binary, or if their gender is unknown (perhaps an unidentified suspect in a mystery), then having the green light to use “they” for a single person allows for cleaner, smoother writing. However, when the gender is known, and when the character is not non-binary, then using a “they” pronoun can lead to sentences that are confusing and clunky. Consider: “Each of the boys grabbed their gym bag.” If there is one gym bag, and they share it, then using “their” is correct. If there are two boys and two gym bags, then it is cleaner to write: “Each of the boys grabbed his gym bag.”
Dangling modifiers – We all probably remember our sixth-grade teachers giving us hilarious examples showing how dangling modifiers could lead to misunderstandings. “Driving down the road, the dog ran through the intersection.” We all pictured dogs driving, windows down, tongues hanging out, recklessly running red lights. Beginning sentences with -ing words is the biggest culprit behind dangling modifiers.
The good news is that these mistakes are fairly easy to fix once you have identified them. Using the spelling and grammar checker in your word processor is a great place to start to look for errors. Careful proofreading should be your next step. Reading your work aloud often makes blunders obvious. If, after doing these steps, you still don’t feel confident that you have caught all of your mistakes, consider asking a competent friend for help or hiring a reputable proofreader.
