Grammar and Style Flashcards
What is punctuation about?
It is about awareness of grammatical chunks and using symbols to represent them. It can change sentences’ meanings
What is style?
Style is heavy or lights, and it depends how much punctuation there is in a piece of text or how much break you give the reader.
How should commas be used?
You can use them to separate clauses, to separate items in a list, to separate adjectives, after introductory words and before a quote instead of a colon.
What are the four categories of sentence?
The are statements, questions, commands and exclamations.
What is a simple sentence?
It is also called an independent clause and it contains a subject and a verb. The subject tends to precede the verb.
What is a compound sentence?
Where two independent clauses are joined together using a conjunction (in longer sentences with a comma before).
What is a complex sentence?
It is a sentence with an independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
What is a subordinate conjunction?
It is a word that comes at the beginning of a dependent clause.
How can you vary sentences?
You can change the order of the clauses. You can start with a present participle or an adverb. You can also put the subject late in the sentence.
What is an appositive?
A noun or noun phrase that renames the noun next to it.
What is comma splicing?
It is when you use a comma where a full stop, semicolon or conjunction is needed. This is mainly between two independent clauses.
How do you use the word However?
It is a conjunction adverb. Therefore, a full stop or semicolon precedes it and a comma follows after it.
How are semicolons used?
They can be used firstly to link two independent clauses, and secondly, it can be used in very complicated lists.
What is the passive voice?
The active voice has a clear subject, verb, object formation. On the other hand, in the passive voice, the object becomes the subject.
What are apostrophes used for?
They are used for contraction (shortening words) and for possession, before or after the s depending on if the original word ended with an s.
