How to Learn About Parts of Speech & Punctuation
If you are trying to become a better writer, or even just studying for the essay portion of an important exam, learning about parts of speech and punctuation is essential. Without solid grammatical structure and properly used punctuation, your writing will seem unprofessional and may reflect poorly on you. These subjects are complicated and will take some time to master, but fortunately there are plenty of resources at your disposal.
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Instructions
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Learn your basic parts of speech. These include: the verb, an action or state, ("walk" or "dance"); the noun (a person, name or thing); the adjective, which describes a noun ("big"); the adverb, which describes an adjective, verb or another adverb ("very" or "quickly"); the conjunction, the little words that join clauses or provide transitions into sentences ("and" and "but"); the pronoun, which replaces a proper or specific noun ("I," "you," "he," "it"); the preposition, which places a noun in relationship to another word ("to" or "at"); and the interjection ("Wow!").
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Understand sentence structure. Knowing the parts of speech won't be of any use until you understand how to build a sentence. Sentences are made of clauses: small grammatical units with a subject and a predicate, which modifies that subject. For instance, in "The dog got wet," "the dog" is the subject, while "got wet" is the predicate. An "independent" clause is a phrase that can stand alone as a sentence, while a "dependent" (or "subordinate") clause cannot. Many sentences include more than one clause. "The dog got wet, so I ran away," is an example. There are many ways to build more complex sentences, but these are the basics.
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Know when to punctuate. Some types of punctuation are easy to learn. For instance, it's fairly obvious when a question mark or an exclamation point is called for. Other punctuation marks, like commas, single and double quotation parks, parentheses, the semicolon and brackets tend to be confusing. Some punctuation marks, like the dash, are more flexible in their use. Learn what each piece of punctuation is used for, which rules are hard-and-fast, and which can be broken for the sake of style.
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Choose a good style guide. If you are writing in an academic or professional setting, you may have to work within the constraints of a particular writing and citation style, such as MLA, APA, CSE, Chicago or AP. The finer points of punctuation and some grammatical norms may be determined by the preferences of that style. Style guides are available for purchase as hard copy or ebooks at many online and offline book vendors. Many abbreviated free versions are also available on the internet.
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