grammar graphic novel handout

8/2/2019 Grammar Graphic Novel Handout

1/13

Pete the Programmer and Eddy the Editor often

chit-chat at the water cooler in the afternoon to

see if anything new and exciting has happened.

Eddy the Editor was about to ask Pete the

Programmer what happened to his friend Anna theAssistant. She recently applied for an

Administrative Assistant position at the Noun

Company where they both work. Pete beat Eddy to

the punch and started complaining about the new

system memo.

Noun Company Employees;

Implementation of the new HR

system will be depleated January 7th.

DO NOT USE PRIOR SYSTEM AFTER

JAN. 6th. Be sure to take online

training prior to accessing the new

system into our learning managemen

system. The Red Word system will

increase efficiency, taking processes

further, and communication. You're

pleasant cooperation is grately.

Michael Manager, VP

Atthewatercooler...Hey, man.

what's up?

EddyPete

If the

vicepresident

doesn't takethe time tolook at hismemo, whyshould i?


2/13

Thinkabouthowyouraudienc

e

willperceiveyou

rmessage.

Emphasizewords

withstyling,

suchasitalicand

bold,andavoid

usingallcapital

letters.

usedincorrectpreposition(MichaelManagershouldhavewrittenviaourlearningmanagementsysteminste

adof

"into")

failedtouseparallelstructure,whichcausesconfusion

usedthewordYourinsteadof"You're,"whichisacontractionofyouare

misspelleddepletedandgreatly

Emphasis

Eddy'sNotes

he shouldn't haveused all caps in

that one sentencethat tells us not to

use the old systemafter january 6th. itmakes me feel like

he is yelling atme!

as an editor, iknow how you feel,

pete. plus, He shouldnot have used a semicolon(;) in the greeting of thememo. You always use a

colon (:) at thebeginning of a

business letter.

i wonder ifthe VP knew how

people wouldreact to his

poorly writtenmemo.


3/13

it goes without saying thatyou should always use spellcheck in your email or word

processing software...

...but you haveto be extrasmart when

using grammarcheck!!In the "For PC" example below,

grammar check has marked anerror with a squiggle underline.

grammar check says the phrase is asentence fragment although it isactually a complete sentence.

So, why did grammar check get itwrong?


4/13

Sentences that tell youto do

something, such as "Press Enter on

your keyboard," are commands.

Command sentences are also known

as imperative sentences. They give

instructions or requests. When you

are telling someone to press the

Enter key, you do not have to say

"Youpress Enter on your keyboard"because the listener or reader

alreadyunderstands that youare

speaking to him or her. This is also

known as the Universal You because

it could refer to anyone who is

currently reading the sentence.

With You Understood or Universal

You, there is not a thirdperson

involved in the conversation orwriting.

You Understood/Universal You

thesubject is

the personor thing that

the sentenceis about.

thepredicate isthe rest of

the sentencethat describes

what thesubject does

or is.

grammarcheck thinks

the subject ismissing!

{Eddy} {likes to wear ties.}

SUBJECTPREDICATE


5/13

Contractionsaretw

owordspushedtog

ether.

It'slikewhenanat

hleteflexesorcon

tracts

hismusclestobrin

gaheavyweightcl

oser

tohim.Withcontra

ctions,wecanbring

wordstogetherand

makethemshorte

r.We

pushtwowordstog

etherandthensho

wthat

somelettersaremissing

byinsertingan

apostrophe.Inhism

emo,theVPwrote

You're,whichmeans

youareinthesen

tence

You'repleasantcooper

ationisgrately.Hedid

n't

meantouseacontr

action.Hemeantt

o

writeYour,whichis

apossessiveprono

un

showingthatsome

thingbelongstosom

eone.

TheVice Presidentalsohadamajorparallel

structureissue.Itisdifficulttounderstand

whatthefollowingsentencemeans:TheRed

Wordsystemwillincreaseefficiency,takingprocessesfurther,andcommunication. Itis best to

usethesameverbformswhenlistingactions.

Forexample, Juanlikesswimming,running, and

skiing.The sentencehasparallel structure. This

sentencedoesnot:Juanlikestoswim,running,and

toski.Thissentenceisawkwardbecauseitdoes

not haveparallelstructure.Wecouldalso

rewriteitasJuanlikestoswim,run,andski.If

wewere correctingtheVP'smemo,wecould

writeTheRedWordsystemwillincrease

efficiency,extendprocesses,andfacilitate

communication.

ParallelStructure

Contractions

whatelse could

we fix?

keep allitems in alist in the

same form tavoid

awkwardnesand

confusion.

somedayi'll have

muscles.

can + not =can't.

rememberthe

apostrophe!

WOULD + HAVE =WOULD'VE


6/13

In the VP's memo, he could have

chosen abetter preposition forhissentence about taking online training.Which prepositionwouldyouuseinstead ofinto? Be sure to take online

training priorto accessing the newsystemintoour learning management

system. Wouldthrough, by, in, orsince be the best preposition?

Be sure to take online training prior

to accessing the new systemthrough

ourlearning management system.

Picking the correct preposition is

not always easy, and sometimes

more than one choice is

appropriate. Here is adefinition of

preposition from dictionary.com:

any member of a class of words found in

manylanguages thatare usedbefore

nouns, pronouns,or othersubstantives

to form phrases functioning as

modifiersof verbs, nouns, or

adjectives, and thattypicallyexpressa

spatial, temporal, or other relationship,

as in, on, by, to, since.

Water flows under bridges.

Prepositions

Whatwould we do

withoutprepositions? We

wouldn't knowwhether to go

through or aroundor to or

beneath!

they don't call meeddy the editor

for nothing!


7/13

AnnatheAssistantappliedfora

greatjobattheNounCompany

whereEddyandPetework.She

wouldhavebeenagoodcandidateif

shehadbeenmorecarefulaboutthe

grammar,usage,andpunctuationin

herresumeandcoverletter.Ifthe

hiringmanagerhadn'tbeendistractedbyerrors,hewouldhave

interviewedher.

pete, are youfeeling any better

now? I don't think thevp meant to make you

feel like he wasyelling.

AnnatheAssistant

i'll beokay.

when annaapplied for the

job, herwritten

communicationwas so riddled

with errorsthat the ceosaid he didn't

want to talk to

her!

so what everhappened to

anna?


8/13

that'sterrible!

i know. i feelbad. i guess itmade a badimpression.

what can we do to help?

write tips onyour eddy the

editorblog, andI will point anna

to it.

greatidea!


9/13

i'll tell her aboutsubject-verbagreement...

...andmisplacedmodifiers.

youmisplaced

what?

if you are writingabout a single

object, you must usea singular verb.

for example,the red tulipgrows. growsis the singular

form of the

verb.

misplaced modifiers

cause confusion. theydescribe the wrongthing when they are not

in the right spot in asentence.

let's getinto more

detail aboutsubject-verb

agreementand misplaced

modifiers.


10/13

if you are talkingabout multiple

objects, you needthe plural form of

the verb.

for example,the white tulipsgrow. grow is

the plural formof the verb.

when you use theconjunctionor

ornor, singularsubjects remain

singular. forexample, neither

the red tulip northe pink grow.

it also helps to know which pronouns are singulareach, everyone, somebody, anyone, and anybody are

few examples of singular pronouns. don't befooled by what comes after the pronoun.

For example, each of the girls picks flowers.the singular form of the verb is needed because it

belongs to the pronoun each, which is singular.


11/13

now, what dowe do when

the modifiersget lost?

we mustplace them

properly sotheir meaning

is clear. Whenanadjectiveormodifieris

inthewrongspot,itcanmakea

sentencesoundveryfunny!Here

isanexample:Mariafounda

pinkdog'scollar.Thissentence

makesitsoundlikethereisapinkdogrunningaroundwithout

itscollar.Ifwerepositionthemodifier/adjective,thenwecan

tellthatthecollarispink,not

thedog.Mariafoundadog'spinkcollar.

how cute!

MisplacedModifier


12/13

Adangling modifier is aphrase orclause that is not clearly andlogicallyrelated to the wordorwords it modifies (i.e., is placednext to). Unlike amisplaced

modifier, a dangling modifier cannotbe correctedby simplymoving it toadifferent place in a sentence.Usuallythe dangling modifierappears at the beginning ofthesentence, although it can also comeat the end. Here is an examplesentence: Yawning from exhaustion,the grapes dangled from her hand. Itseems like the grapes are verytired,but we know that grapes don't yawn,

so who is yawning?

Yawning from exhaustion, Lauralet the grapes dangle from herhand.

DanglingModifier

it's difficultto tell whois doing what

with adangling

modifier.


13/13

great! i thinkthis will

really helpanna.

AWESOME. DO

YOU THINK ISHOULD TELL THE

VP TOO?

SURE, ASLONG AS I'M

NOT THERE!

LOOKS LIKEWE DRANK ALLTHE WATER!!!

BACK TOWORK!

grammar graphic novel handout

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