University of North Dakota

Writers at Work: A Review for Professionals - Part 1: Eliminating Common Grammar Errors

Course Name

Writers at Work: A Review for Professionals - Part 1: Eliminating Common Grammar Errors

Contact Hours: 10 (an estimated time frame devoted to a course of study from start to finish that can vary from student to student)

Course Description

Sentence mechanics are an essential foundation to good writing. You may have great ideas, but if your sentences are full of grammar errors, your reader may lose confidence in your professionalism, competence, and attention to detail.

Part I reviews the basic building blocks of good writing: understanding parts of sentences and speech, ensuring sentence completeness, and conquering common problems with subjects, verbs, and pronouns. Readings and exercises help reinforce your understanding of the concepts.

The instructor is available at all stages of the course for tutoring.

Outcome

Upon successful completion of this course, you will gain these skills:

- Identify and correctly use various parts of parts of speech.
- Recognize and revise fragments and run-on sentences.
- Recognize and correct common problems with subject - verb agreement and pronoun errors.
- Identify and correct dangling and misplaced modifiers.
- Proofread more effectively.

Assessment

You will complete self-check exercises and a mastery test (graded by the instructor) taken at end of the class.

Outline

  1. Week 1: Review the parts of speech including nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. and understand their functions.Review how different parts of speech are joined together to create grammatically correct sentences with special emphasis on verb tenses.
  2. Week 2: Learn how to recognize and revise fragments and run-on sentences.
  3. Week 3: Learn to recognize and revise common problems in subject-verb agreement and pronouns.
  4. Week 4: Learn to recognize and correct mistakes with adjectives, adverbs, and misplaced modifying phrases.