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Last Grammar Post YAY!

I have lots of trouble dangling modifiers. I never knew what they were but i have seen that in a lot of my papers this is what I get marked for. In my papers I always have sentences that are not complete that are just "dangling" there like the phrase suggests.

A dangling modifiers is a word or phrase for which the logical headword cannot be found within the sentence.

Ex:

After reading the chapter, the author seemed to have a sound argument.

Many useful techniques are learned attending this seminar.

Correct Way:

"After reading the chapter, I believed that the author had a sound argument."

"Attending this seminar, you will learn many useful techniques."

For further explanation for the reason of the use of dangling modifiers use this website:

http://www.geocities.com/athens/aegean/6354/grammar.html#Modifiers

Oh Beautiful

For me I feel like most of the people that lived in America, blessed, thankful, and lucky. In D'Souza's essay its says that most people in America believe that this is the best country in the world and that is true. Most people love the fact that they are living in America and are truly proud to be called "An American." There is a lot of " American exceptionalism," in this country we believe that there is no better life than the one that we live here in America.Sometimes a lot of us take what we have for granted though living in this nation. Many other countries do not have what America has and we do not knowledge that enough, that could be one of the reasons why we did not see 9/11 coming.

Many other countries wish that they had what our country has, freedom, a better government and liberties. I did not really realize that by having all of these amazing things that everyone else would hate us.

common words that sound alike

On problem that I encounter in my writing is that i tend to get words confused that sound the same but are spelled differently. I bet that this happens to everyone. I get to these words and I just cant see which one sounds best and I don't even bother to look them up. In this class I have learned that I can't be lazy and that I need to look up the words that I don't know.

Some of these words are like:

except and accept

affect and effect ( this one kills me)

advise and advice

conscience and conscious

and there are much more...


For more of these words and how to tell them apart visit this website:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelhomo.html