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 Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:16 am
● Guide to Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation ● After peeking around Barton Town and having my eyes burnt out by tons and tons of terrible grammar and unforgivable spelling mistakes, I thought it'd be a good idea to write this guide. Although most people in this guild seem pretty competent, it might be a good thing to have around. This guide is intended to help you prepare for a semi-lit/lit RP. ● Table Of Contents ●
1. The Very Bare Essentials
2. Common Grammar Mistakes/Apostrophe Wars
3. Common Spelling Mistakes/Tricksy Homonyms
4. Stylistic Tragedies To Avoid
5. So Why The Heck Should I Care?
6. More Resources
DISCLAIMER: I don't claim to be an EXPERT on spelling and grammar. I make mistakes and have some bad habits like everyone else. But I am always learning, and I'd like to share what I know! Also, remember that rules are there to be broken. However, to break the rules and get away with it, you have to know what they are first!
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:45 am
1 ● The Very Bare Essentials ● This section focuses on the most important and simplest things you can do to improve your posts! It doesn't cover everything in-depth (if it did, it wouldn't be bare enough! xD). ● SPELL CHECK. SPELL CHECK. SPELL CHECK!Seriously! It's not hard. These days, most browsers either have spell check built-in, or there are spell checker plug-ins available for them. Failing that, you can always paste them into something like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Works. Failing THAT, Google "online spell checker" and a plethora of options will magically appear! Isn't the internet wonderful? scream heart A word of warning, however: Spell checkers are also backstabbing bastards. They should never be completely trusted. Never, ever, ever just click through and let your spell checker change words without looking, lest they replace a word with an unfortunate homonym or something totally unrelated. ● Place capitals where capitals are due.Here's a basic list of things you should capitalize: 1. I/I'm. I is always capitalized when it's referring to the voice of the speaker. 2. The first letter of the beginning of a sentence. 3. The first letter of the name of a person, country, organization, chain store, etc. 4. Titles (any kind!) 5. Titles/Addresses for people such as Mister, Misses, Doctor (or Mr./Mrs./Dr.) ● Punctuate properly.Periods go at the end of most sentences. Exclamation points go at the end of exclamations! Where do question marks go? At the end of questions, of course! Don't forget the oft-ignored comma, seen in the middle of this sentence. The comma is used where you would pause while speaking, or to break up lists. if you ignore punctuation your sentences will all run together no one will be able to understand what you are saying very easily because they will not know where to start or stop reading this is incredibly frustrating to other role-players they will miss important details about your fabulous character because they are too busy being confused if you add all the other common mistakes into a punctuation-less post they may just flat-out ignore you ● Paragraphs are your friends.The art of paragraphing is a subtle one. The idea is to keep your posts from becoming a giant, impenetrable wall of text that no one will want to read. Breaking things up into paragraphs doesn't mean smashing the enter key willy-nilly. It means grouping sentences that are related. When you are moving on to a new subject, or discussing a different part of the same subject, make a new paragraph. ● Quotation marks are also your friends.This technically falls in with punctuation, but it's important enough to have its own section. "I was so terribly confused," said a role-player who wishes to remain unidentified. "I came across a post where the author didn't use quotation marks. His character's dialogue was just running right into the rest of the sentences! It was so hard to follow!" I sympathize, imaginary anonymous role-player. ● Read your post over before you hit submit!You will probably catch a mistake. I almost inevitably do. Better yet, hit the preview button. Now, get up and do some other short task. Take a bathroom break. Get a drink. Make a PBJ sandwich. Come back and look your post over one more time with slightly fresher eyes. This may be excess for shorter posts, but for longer ones, it can save you the pain of having to go back and edit.
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:47 am
2 ● Common Grammar Mistakes ● ● The comma splice.A comma splice happens when you take two or more sentences and run them together with a comma. For example: "Sadie opened the door, her heart nearly stopped, she couldn't believe what she was seeing." The sentence makes more sense and has much more impact when you switch out those commas for periods. "Sadie opened the door. Her heart nearly stopped. She couldn't believe what she was seeing." The occasional comma splice for stylistic reasons, usually in character dialogue, is not a deadly sin. However, repeated and unmeasured use of them will result in disjointed posts! ● Dangling particles.This is harder to explain than it is to show. Here, let me steal an example from this page." After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.Uhh… keep your decomposing brother away from me!" Be careful how you order your sentences. ● Beginning with "because," "but," or "and."Your teachers told you this over and over and over. You're not supposed to ever start a sentence with these words! EVER! God help you if you do. Well, actually, this rule can be ignored, with careful judgment. Because, really, it's mostly a stylistic gripe. And as long as there's proper context, it's unlikely anyone will even notice. But I'd still recommend that you be sparing in your usage of these as sentence-openers. Because it will quickly become conspicuous. ● Ending a sentence with a preposition.Your teachers probably railed against this one, too. Thankfully, it's another less-important rule. Often, you can ignore it for the sake of clarity and brevity. I call upon Grammar Girl to explain! ● Switching up your tenses-- or as I like to call it, time traveling."Sadie looked around the room. She walks gracefully up the stairs to the balcony. Sighing, she leaned over the balcony and stares at the floor. She wishes Charles were here." See what's wrong there? I'm switching between past tense and present tense. For more in-depth discussion on tenses, read here.● Apostrophe Wars ● Hang on to your keyboards, folks. First of all, apostrophes replace letters. They don't belong at the end of a word (except possibly names-- more on this later!). If you don't know where to put the apostrophe, think about what letters the apostrophe is replacing. For example, in "don't," a conjunction of "do not," the apostrophe is replacing an o.● It's/Its"It's" is a conjunction of "it is" or "it has." "Its" is possessive. This is confusing because it's completely backwards to the way we usually do possessives. Regardless, if you were to speak of a happy dog, you might say, "It's wagging its tail." The key to remembering the above is to break down "it's" in your mind when you write the sentence. Would you say, "It is wagging it is tail?" Nope. See, easy as pie. ● An apostrophe is not used to indicate a plural.You do not have a bag of donut's. You have a bag of donuts. Pretty simple. ● OMG, what do I do if I'm trying to make a word that ends in s possessive?! I'm so confused! FFFFFFFFFFFFF! scream I feel your pain. I struggled with this one for a long, long time. Basically, there are two accepted ways to do it. What matters is that you choose one and stick with it through whatever text you're writing. You can just stamp an apostrophe s on there. Charles's car was red and shiny. Or, you can simply throw an apostrophe there by itself. Charles' car was red and shiny.
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:50 am
3 ● Common Spelling Mistakes ● A spell checker will solve most of these. ● AlotPEOPLE. THIS IS NOT A WORD. gonk I swear. Look it up in the dictionary! It's not there. The closest thing we have is allot, which means something entirely different. Tragically, some people use "allot" where they mean "alot," which is where they actually mean "a lot." Even a spell checker can't help you there! ● Charcter/Charachter/Carachter/etc.Character. It's a tricky one. I used to always throw in that extra h. ● GrammerSome people think that misspelling "grammar" is the greatest of ironies. It's kinda not, seeing as grammar and spelling are two different things. It would be ironic if you misspelled "spelling" or something. Either way, this one causes some giggles. ● Mideval/Medivil/Midevil/etc.Medieval. I could never get this one right for the longest time. Here is a horrible and possibly facepalm-worthy way of remembering it: break it up into me die val. "Me die," because in the middle ages, there were plagues and horrible medical treatment and stuff. "Val" because... uhhh. Well, I never needed help with that part. Maybe it's short for Prince Valiant! His story is set in medieval times! ... gonk I tried. Please don't hurt me. ● SheildYour character cannot deflect attacks with a sheild. He or she might feel safer with a shield. I before E. 3nodding ● UA purposeful misspelling of "you". See the section on chatspeak in "Stylistic Tragedies To Avoid." ● WierdI don't blame people for writing "wierd" all the time. Considering the I before E rule, it's, well, weird. Here's an updated version of the rule. I before E except after C, unless you're weird.● Tricksy Homophones and So On ● ● They're/Their/There"They're" is a conjunction of "they" and "are". "Their" is possessive. "There" is a direction. For example: They're going to have their picnic over there. See, not hard at all! ● Too/To/Two"Too" means "also" or "excess," as in, "I ate too much ice cream," or, "I want some ice cream, too."To" is a direction. You go to the store for ice cream. Two is the number 2. Not so bad! ● You're/Your"You're" is a conjunction of "you" and "are." "Your" is possessive. You're not going to forget your lunch again, are you? ● Lets/Let's"Let's" is a conjunction of "let" and "us." "Lets" is a present-tense form of "let." Let's go to the movies. The boy lets go of the balloon. ● Effect/AffectThis one is really tricky sometimes! "Affect" is usually treated as a verb, while "effect" is usually treated as a noun. Your sore thumb may affect your ability to hold a bowling ball. This will have a negative effect on your bowling scores. Grammar Girl will explain it to you in depth. ● Then/Than"Then" concerns time. "Than" is comparative. For example: She picked up the ice cream cone, but just then, a giant moose crashed through the skyscraper behind her. It was bigger than any moose Sadie had ever seen on Animal Planet, that was for sure. ● Wear/Where/Were"Wear" is what you do with clothes (most of the time wink ). "Where" refers to your location. "Were" isn't even a homophone of these two, but is often used in place of them-- it's another form of "being" words. That'll be less confusing when I use it in a sentence... I wish it were summer, so I could wear this cute tank top. Wait a minute! Where is the thermostat? ● Break/BrakeYou break a vase. Your car has brakes. You might take a lunch break downtown. Don't forget to brake for pedestrians. It's good to break your lunch routine now and then. ● Sole/SoulSoles are on the bottom of your shoes. "Sole" can also mean "solitary." Souls are spirits. Some people's sole purpose in life seems to be to correct others' grammar. (Please remember that "soul purpose" would be incorrect in this sentence!) The soles of my shoes get worn down after a while. Art is food for the soul.● Bear/Bare"Bear" refers to the animal, or the act of enduring something. "Bare" means "unclothed." Or "nakie," if you prefer! 8D "Just then, a bear ripped off my swim shorts and ate them, leaving my bare unmentionables for everyone to see. The humiliation was too much to bear." ●Witch/whichA "witch" is a person who practices magic. "Which" means "what one?" "The witch couldn't decide which pointy hat she wanted to wear. ●Whether/weather"Whether" is a conjunction that sits between two or more choices. "Weather" is what affects your beach trip plans. "I'm going to the beach, whether or not the weather is sunny. ●Clothes/cloths"Clothes" are what you wear (not where or were!). "Cloths" is a plural of "cloth." "At the fabric store, I chose several cloths out of which to make clothes.
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:04 am
4 ● Stylistic Tragedies To Avoid ● Sometimes, people do things that they think is enhancing their writing, when it is really just making things unclear, annoying, or flat-out facepalm-inducing. A word of warning: This section is heavily influenced by my opinions, but also by my time reading TV Tropes and guides for writers. Some of your own judgment may be required. 1. Actually, "said" is a pretty awesome word.You know why? Because said is invisible. Even if you use it a lot, no one will notice it's there. It's like "the". I'm willing to bet that some of you just kept reading past the period and went, "The what, Pixie? The what? Where did the rest of the sentence go?" See how that works? It's one of those words that's functional, but unnoticeable. It's good to have your characters grumble, gasp, mutter, mumble, or shriek once in a while, but if you can get away with plain old "said," it won't hurt you. 2. I KNOW YOUR CHARACTER IS ANGRY!!!!!!!!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE ALL CAPS AND TEN THOUSAND EXCLAMATION POINTS AND BOLD AND UNDERLINED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Take a deep breath. Turn off your capslock and please apologize to your whimpering exclamation mark key. There are better ways to do this! Describe your character's rage. How are they expressing it physically? Have they taken an aggressive stance? Are they clenching their fists, gritting their teeth, flaring their nostrils? Describe it! If you simply must add some kind of visual emphasis to the text, make use of italics, but try to avoid the capslock key for the most part, and definitely stay away from multiple exclamation points. 3. Similarly... don't abuse... the ellipses... please...Ellipses are not a valid replacement... for normal punctuation... It is okay to use them... but... when you use too many of them... the paragraph becomes stop-and-go... and tiring to read... it's very irritating... so please... use them sparingly... 4. The thesaurus is a tool to be used wisely.The thesaurus is, for the most part, something you should go to when you're scratching your head going, "Hummm, I know there's a better word for this, but I'm drawing a blank." Making your writing more flowery does not necessarily mean you are making it better, so avoid the technique in which the thesaurus is applied to every word in a sentence to "spice things up." Similarly, avoid overusing a single word you consider flavorful. Don't be Stephenie Meyer. Seriously. 5. Sentence fragments.The above is a sentence fragment. A sentence fragment is a sentence that can't stand on its own. This guide explains better than I can. Fragments are not enemies. Much of normal, everyday conversation consists of fragments. They can be put to good use, stylistically, but if you construct a post made entirely of sentence fragments with nothing to hold it together, the post will be a total mess. 6. Sentences that are way too long, separated by multiple commas, and possibly dashes, colons, and semicolons, that run on forever and ever and are therefore known as run-on sentences, which can be very annoying since it is easy to get lost in them; much like a sentence without any punctuation, the reader does not get a chance to rest and can easily lose their place or become confu-- (gunshot)Er... you get the idea. If you don't get the idea, read basically anything by Charles Dickens. He is an unparalleled master of run-on sentences. There were pages in my copy of Oliver Twist that did not have a single paragraph break, simply because they were all one freaking sentence. gonk Granted, it was a good book, but I sure got lost a lot. Note that a run-on sentence can be used for effect, often to show something like desperation or a character's mind spiraling into hopeless confusion. 7. Chatspeak.If u cant b bothered 2 type whole words, y should I b bothered 2 read ur post? I mean wtf, lol! Stay away from this if you ever want to RP anything more interesting than, "lost in da woodz w/ werewolfs!" Chatspeak is seriously annoying because while it may be faster for you to type, (which it shouldn't be if you've learned how to type properly; I hang around 90 wpm a lot of the time and I use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation) it's slower for the rest of us to read. Much like too many ellipses, it slows the pace of your sentences to a crawl. 8. God ******** damn it, too much ******** goddamn sonovabitch swearing. ********, not for the reason you think. There are some RPs that don't allow swearing simply out of distaste for "bad words," which is within their rights. What I mean is, when you're allowed to swear, don't abuse the privilege.
Sometimes, it can be funny, but often it will come off as just... too much. Or possibly unintentionally hilarious. Curses are powerful expressions of anger and frustration. If overused, they become meaningless.
Many people have noticed the phenomenon where if you say a word enough times, it starts to not make any sense to you. It's kind of like that! Use swears sparingly, and they'll hit harder when they need to.
(See what I did there? I ended a sentence with a preposition and the world didn't end.)
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:22 am
5 ● So Why The Heck Should I Care? ● When I complain about others' lousy use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, I am often met with a defensive attitude. Let's turn the mic over to my imaginary recreation of every one of these people that I've ever met. I swear I could make a bingo card out of this stuff: scream "WTF, girl! You have no life! Why do you care? It's the internet! We're not in English class here! This isn't being published in a book! Just so you know, I CAN use proper grammar, I just choose not to because I don't feel like it! As long as you can understand what I'm saying, it shouldn't matter! Stop being so nitpicky!" Whoops, you got me. I don't have a life. xD Regardless, that doesn't invalidate what I'm saying! Writing is a system, one that is (obviously) intertwined with and inseparable from reading. When you learn to read, you are also learning to write. People who read a lot of books tend to have better grammar, because they pick up the rules. The rules become something you expect and follow unconsciously. This can lead to problems when people deviate from what is expected. Your sentence is a sidewalk for the reader, and every mistake in it is a crack. You don't want to trip the reader up or get them lost. Surprising them or taking them for a nice little curve here and there is fine, but you don't want to suddenly drop them face-first on the cement! Furthermore, if you think English class is the only place you need to write properly, watch out! Someday, you will probably need to write a resume, possibly with a cover letter. Your cat might get lost, and if no one can understand the Lost Cat poster, you're less likely to find him! You will need to write e-mails. You will need to write letters. You will need to write requests for technical support. There are a lot of things you are going to need to write. If you practice doing something right all the time, you will be able to do it faster and more efficiently when it's really, really important. Plus, the rest of us kinda need to understand what you're writing if we're going to RP with you. Just sayin'. When you're on the internet, most of the time, text is all you have to represent yourself. You will be judged by your typing. If you actively choose to misrepresent your intelligence by typing like a kindergartner, you don't have a lot of room to complain when people call you out on it. If you don't care enough to try to keep your posts readable, that tells us something: you, um, don't care.If you don't care, why should anyone want to RP with you? Why should we have to decode your posts in order to read them? RP is a hobby that requires you to put forth a little effort. If everyone does their best to make their posts flow, it's easier to just sink into the fantasy and have fun. That's really what it's all about, right? Fun!Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are important! Following every single little rule to a T is not necessary, and indeed, sometimes detrimental, but as I said in the introduction, you must know the rules before you can break them. Thus ends my little soapbox rant.
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:26 am
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:44 am
By the way, it's safe to post. I'd love to hear additions or suggestions. I'm not quite done with this yet, but one thing I do really need is suggestions for the common misspellings list. There are some that I see all the time, but I can never think of them all off the top of my head!
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 6:34 am
Some common misspellings? How about these:
Shield
They're/their/there
Too/to/two
Effect/affect
Then/than
You have already mentioned my personal favorite, 'I', so I shall bring up my other one. 'You'. Seriously, how can someone misspell one, two, and three letter words?
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Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:14 pm
Thanks for your suggestions, Feral Knight! I have incorporated all of them. C:
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Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:32 pm
The sad part is people on SECOND LIFE need this guide as well. How insane is that? We had a Midna player who plays her incompetently and when suggested she's behaving horribly out of character replies "That's how I'm making Midna". Right.
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:25 am
OWL is another good resource.
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Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 10:01 pm
Thanks for this guide. It was very informative. I have a question and two suggestions.
Do you capitalize ethnicities?
Here are a few misspellings that I see a lot:
Witch/which
Whether/weather
Clothes/cloths
I also recently learned a grammar rule about quotations that I found interesting. If you have the character ask a question or something that is worthy of an exclamation point and you want to put the he/she said after it, you put the question mark or exclamation point in the quotation marks and you don't capitalize he/she said. I'm sure that it's a bit confusing, so I'll give an example.
"Where are the oranges?" she asked.
Or
"I really need that!" he said.
I hope that that makes sense.
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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:17 pm
What is interesting Is I stumbles upon this just after putting massive grammar fix notes in a huge post. More than 50% is now my red text talking about what was wrong and why. the thing that made me want to cry about it, he called himself advanced-lit because he could write six paragraphs. You can't be lit unless you have good grammar and spelling! I don't care how long or short the post is. Grammar counts! D:
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XxXmarionette-unstrungXxX
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