REVIEW: Quarter 1 Grammar

Commas

Read the following sentences with commas. The words highlighted in blue explain the rule that you will need to remember for the exam.

1. Even though Mom wouldn't let me use the car, she said she would drive me to Dan's house. (the first part of the sentence is an introductory clause, so it needs a comma after it)

2. Sam slammed on the breaks without warning, and it was a good thing I was wearing a seat belt. (This comma is optional)

3. For my birthday I asked for a bike, a skateboard, and lots of treats. (Use commas in a list)

4. Her sister, Mitsue, who was nine, put the sheets in the closet. (Use commas around appositives, or parts of a sentence that "rename" part of another sentence. "who is nine" in a sense renames "Mitsue." Also notice that if you were to take out anything in between commas, you would still have a complete sentence: Her sister put the sheets in the closet. This is still a complete sentence, which tells us that everything else needs to be set apart by commas.

5. Celeste's long, bouncy hair was a pain when it came to sports. (Use commas to separate adjectives)

Commas continued

First, lets review the difference between an independent clause and a dependent clause:

Independent clauses can stand on their own; in other words, they are complete. Example: After the dance last night I went straight to bed.

Dependent Clauses cannot stand on their own; in other words, they are only a fragment of a sentence, and therefore express an incomplete thought: Example: After the dance last night. This sentence leaves you wondering, after the dance, what happened?

So what? You can NEVER put a comma between two independent clauses. If you do this, you create what we English nerds refer to as a comma splice.

In the paragraph below, BLUE signifies a comma splice, and YELLOW signals the need for a missing comma. To fix a comma splice, you can either replace the comma with a semicolon, add a conjuntion (such as "and") or replace the comma with a period.

The Oglala used to thrive in that country because it gave them the richness of the prairie, they lived where the buffalo lived. And the buffalo gave them food robes a fierce and exciting occumpation and a spiritual connection to the land. Others killed off almost all the buffalo and with their guns squeezed the people into a small corner of the buffalo range, the land was amputated and the heart torn out. Now the people live on the body of a corpse, how can we restore the spirit of the buffalo? Perhpas we should restore the buffalo.

Here is how the paragraph should be written:

The Oglala used to thrive in that country because it gave them the richness of the prairie. They lived where the buffalo lived, and the buffalo gave them food, robes, a fierce and exciting occumpation, and a spiritual connection to the land. Others killed off almost all the buffalo and with their guns squeezed the people into a small corner of the buffalo range. The land was amputated and the heart torn out. Now the people live on the body of a corpse. How can we restore the spirit of the buffalo? Perhpas we should restore the buffalo.

Elipses

Elipses can be used to show omission, which is especially helpful when you want to include a quote in your paper, but not all of the quote.

Elipses look like this: ...

Example:

Adamson explains that "the trickster figure, while crucial to Native American mythos, also surfaces in African-American mythology...this figure also presents itself in most modern literature of today" (137).

Notice that the elipses (...) are included in this quote to show that some of the quote has been omited, as it was irrelevant to the argument. Also notice that the elipses only uses THREE dots--no more and no less.

Dashes

Dashes show dramatic emphasis and can also add clarity when commas are already being used.

1. They fled through the woods, and then George--dear, sweet George the accountant--jumped out from behind a tree and stabbed them.

--dear, sweet George the accountant-- needs to be emphasized because it is unexpected that someone so innocent would be murdered.

2. There was only one thing missing from the pirate ship--pirates.

This dash adds dramatic emphasis.

3. Abby gave me a terrible haircut--and expected a tip.

Use a dash because it shows that the fact that a tip was expected was suprising.

4. All of my schoolwork--English, History, Biology--got washed away in the flood.

As you learned in previous weeks, commas could be used to separate this information; however, since commas are already used to separate items in a list, it is better to use dashes in this instance to add variety and make it easier to read.

Complete sentences

A complete sentence MUST have both a subject and a verb. In other words, there must be a "something/someone" in your sentence that is doing something. You can't have an action that isn't attached to an actor, or vice versa.

Complete sentence: Jack woke up at 6am.

"Jack" is the subject, "woke" is the verb.

Fragment: Because of the snow.

There is not an verb in this sentence, so it is not complete.