I always forget how important grammar is, not only in every day life but definitely considering we are in a writing course that predominately requires it! There are so many things that I always get grammatically incorrect, however when I write I never realize what they are, it’s not until I get it edited by a peer or Alexia that I realize them.

 

This class was super important, helpful and refreshing to go over some basic and confusing grammar elements.

 

 

The first one we dived into was the difference between a column and semi column. This one always gets me. I always find myself overusing semi columns, even when I’m not 100% sure they fit.

Semi columns are used to break up a sentence, and are stronger than a comma yet not as strong as a full stop.

Columns are used when it’s a factor relating to the previous sentence (e.g. a list) rather than an opinion.

 

The next one was the difference between a hyphen, en dash and em dash. I honestly had no idea they had different names. I knew what a hyphen was and used for, but had no idea what en or em dashes were.

So the hyphen is used for compound words.

En dash is the less used, is used in bibliographies.

Em dash is used to fill in information into a sentence.

 

This was interesting as usually I thought brackets did this job of inserting added information, a side note, into a sentence that was still important but not as important. Brackets tend to ‘whisper’ the content out, as if it doesn’t really matter but is just thrown in there. Instead, em dashes are for similar purpose however keep the same importance the whole way through.

For example: When the car finally arrived¾three months after it was ordered¾she no longer needed it.

In this sentence the ‘three months ordered’ part is a valid piece of information in order for the readers to understand more of the story, however if it was in brackets it would have the potential to be read as a whisper therefore not as important or valid.

 

I surprisingly loved this grammar session. It was really interesting and gave me a much better understanding of when to use particular symbols.

 

I’m excited to apply my new knowledge into next reviews and pieces of writing I do over the rest of the semester; not only in this class but other classes too!