Grammar

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

— William Strunk Jr.
Elements of Style

Parts of Speech

Sentences are made up various 'parts of speech'. Being able to identify these helps us focus on each element with a view to improving it.

The 'big four' are:

• Verbs - the 'activity' the sentence is telling us about (running, jumping, being, having, existing)
• Nouns - the things (common/proper, real/imaginary) that are performing the verb or having the verb done to them
• Adjectives - give more information about the nouns
• Adverbs - give more information about the verbs, adjectives or other adverbs in the sentence

There are also:

• Conjunctions - and/but/since/because etc - these join simple sentences together to form compound sentences
• Pronouns - I/me/you/he/she/it/we/us/they/them etc - these 'stand for' a noun previously mentioned
• Interjections - exclamations used to show emotion: Oh! Ouch! etc

Grammar Web Links

• English Grammar | http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar ] - University College London
• Writing Concise Sentences

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