Grammar Wars, Episode I: The Sentence Menace
Original image: Moargeek.com
If you're wondering why I'm basing these grammar posts off of the prequel trilogy instead of the original episodes IV, V, and VI, it's because the Internet hates the prequels nearly as much as it hates using proper grammar. By the time you're done reading these posts, you should at least have a leg-up on sounding like an educated human being instead of a tumblr troll.
This post covers two main issues: capitalization and sentence structure. Huzzah!
Capitalization
Okay, let's be real. You've known about this forever. This is one of the first things they teach you when you show up bright-tailed and bushy-eyed for your first day of first grade (which, if you're wondering, is a lot like college in that nobody has any idea what they're doing and nobody cares if you eat during class), so you shouldn't die of shock when I tell you something like, say, you need to capitalize the first word of a sentence.
That said, there are times when it can get a little shaky what should be capitalized and what shouldn't be. Hopefully I can clarify some of the things people commonly get wrong, but when in doubt, look it up. The Google Machine is wonderful for things like this.
Always capitalize:
First word of the sentence
First word of a speaking quote in a sentence (e.g. I told him, "Don't worry about it.")
Titles (e.g. Doctor Bob and Captain Jack Sparrow)
Names of people
Names of places
Names of businesses and organizations
Names of planets (technically still a place)
Names of days and months
Names
Just names
Anything a quick Google search reveals to be a proper noun
Do not capitalize:
Everything else
Note 1: When dealing with directions (north, south, east, west, etc.), capitalization can get a little tricky. Directions should not be capitalized; however, if a direction is being used as the name of a region, you capitalize that sucker. Take "northeast" as an example: Just drive northeast for two miles should not be capitalized, whereas I'm from the Northeast should be. The word "the" is a good indicator as to which is correct.
Note 2: Only capitalize a person's title if it comes immediately before a name, as in Doctor Bob and Uncle Frederick. If it doesn't come right before a name, or if the name is in an aside, leave it lowercase, as in The doctor took my temperature or My uncle, Frederick van Madeupname, does not like Kanye West.
If you're not certain whether something should be capitalized or not, I recommend looking here. Grammarbook.com has all 100 bazillion rules about obscure capitalization issues that almost never come up, along with plenty of examples.
Most of this probably isn't news to you. Like I said, you've been doing this since before Adele ever rolled in the deep--you know the deal. What you probably don't realize is how important it is to apply this knowledge in your writing. Why? Because not using proper capitalization gives the impression that you don't know what you're doing. Imagine if you went on America's Got Talent with a rock band, but instead of an electric guitar, you brought the guitar from Guitar Hero, and instead of a microphone, you brought one of these:
Photo credit: Walmart.com
Do not.
They'd reject you faster than you could sing the first verse of "The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round" into your tiny fake microphone.
Don't sing nursery songs into a tiny fake microphone. Capitalize.
(There's also a more immediate motivation for you to capitalize on your assignments--the more you don't do it, the more your teachers will think you can't do it, the more homework your teachers will give you. I think we can all agree that homework is no bueno.)
Okay. That's that. Time for part two.
Fragments
You might see me using sentence fragments in these posts. In fact, you'll see them in a lot of published writing and media. So if we can get away with using them, why do they make teachers want to quit their jobs and become vagabond hobos? Well, while it's true that a fragment can be useful as a stylistic element (read: it sounds good), that only works if it looks like you did it on purpose. If you use a fragment on accident, people will be able to tell, and they will not be happy about it. That's why most people think it's best to avoid them altogether, at least until you grow in your abilities as a writer enough to not look like a dunce using them. (It's okay, everyone looks like a dunce at some point. That's the fun of being a human being.)
A typical sentence has two major parts: a subject and a verb, almost always in that order. This goes for short sentences and long sentences alike.
The cow farted.
The cow, a bovine esteemed above all in the land, and whom many a bull had unsuccessfully tried to court (for she was a very independent cow, and saw no need for any sort of relationship at this point in her life), farted.
Each sentence has the same subject and verb: cow and farted, respectively. A sentence fragment is missing either the subject or the verb, and therefore can't be called a real sentence. It's a poser. It's a scam, a con, a fake, a cheat, a dupe, an impostor.
A Batman in disguise.
(Okay, that might be stretching it.)
FYI, "A Batman in disguise" is a sentence fragment. There's no verb, only the subject. An example of a fragment with a verb but no subject might be "Ripping the mask off."
A third type of fragment is sneakier because it has a subject and verb in it, but it doesn't have a complete thought. Examples of this include things like "After the movie gets out" and "Whenever you're ready." Though these have both a subject and a verb, they're not complete sentences because they're dependent on something else, e.g. "After the movie gets out, then what?" or "Whenever you're ready, we can do what?"
Fragments are easy to do on accident because you're writing and writing and suddenly you end up with one because gosh darn it, it feels like there's supposed to be one there. This is why it's super important to go back and check your work. Just because something sounds good. When you're writing. It. Doesn't mean it holds. Up when you read it. This is also how you end. Up with run-on sentences--you just want to keep. Going even. After you should've stopped.
The key to all of these things is re-reading your work. Read it out loud. Read it to your mom, your brother, your dog, a particularly attentive-seeming fern or dandelion. Reading things out loud is usually the best way to figure out when something's wrong because it forces you to slow down. If you find yourself pausing in the middle of a long sentence, it might be a run-on. If you get to the end of a sentence and want to keep going, you might have a fragment. When in doubt, double-check with whoever you're reading to. (If you're reading to the fern, you may want a third opinion; ferns are notoriously bad grammarians. The dandelion isn't so bad.)
If you're looking for practice in figure out where a fragment is, I'd suggest heading over to chompchomp for some interactive exercises that at least try to be clever. Otherwise, keep an eye out for Episodes II and III in the trilogy, and happy grammarizing!*
References:
"Capitalization Rules." Grammar Book. Grammarbook.com, n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.
"Fragments and Run-ons." The Writing Center at UNCChapel Hill. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.
*Do not say grammarizing. It's bad grammarization.
