Becoming better at grammar and writing.

Depending on what you're reading online, you may not be getting terrific examples.

Did you start your serious reading as an adult? Then it's going to take you longer.

Are you writing fiction or non-fiction? Are you reading in the genre in which you're writing?

It can take a long time to internalize language usage. In general, it sounds like you're doing the right things - but as I said, I'd be wary of what you're finding at web sites. Even the most reputable sites, I find, often suffer stylistically, just because of the need to churn stories out quickly.

Look at some of the software tools to correct your grammar.

For what it's worth, I never think that people with unconventional grammar are stupid. Usually I imagine it's one of these things:

- They don't read a lot. (Clearly not always true, as your case shows).
- They have dyslexia, and just don't have an eye for these kind of patterns.
- They were in a hurry. (I like to think my grammar is decent, but certainly not when I skip the proofreading).
- It's a stylistic choice, to convey a more colloquial tone. (The pronoun "I" is usually capitalized, but I assume you chose not to do that in casual conversation, to make your writing seem less formal. Some people never capitalize anything in online communication).

But I admit, for someone who _does_ have a bit of an eye for that kind of thing, unconventional usage can be hugely distracting, so I get why you would want to fix it, if you want people to focus on the substance of your words rather than their presentation.

In that case, asking someone for proofreading and feedback is the way to go. Honestly, I'm fairly optimistic you might even find volunteers. Just mention that grammar corrections are welcome whenever you post something, and someone out there will likely be itching to point out your mistakes.

For instance, I'm feeling a very stronge urge right now to tell you that "its a weak criteria" is wrong because
1) it should be "it's", because you want the abbreviation for "it is", not the possessive pronoun "its"
2) it should be "criterion", because you need singular here, and criteria is plural.

I've trained myself out of pointing out these things, because it's immensly obnoxious when unsolicited, but since you said you wanted to improve this aspect, I hope it's okay.
Just start all of your written communication with that disclaimer, and you'll be swamped in corrections in no time.

The next step would be to apply your knowlege, by proofreading stuff for others and pointing out their mistakes, if they want you to. (Seriously, with grammar as with anything else, it's often easier to spot other people's mistakes. When proofreading your own stuff, you are way more likely to be too focused on the content to see the grammar mistakes. I don't think grammar is my greatest weakness, and I'm often asked to proofread by people who seem to trust my skills in that regard, but I'm bad at spotting my own mistakes too).

gimli said:

When i learnt music, i thought theory wasnt important if you had a good ear. Similarly in school when i wrote, i though more about what my story was trying to say rather than the grammar.

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What's interesting is that you have this exactly backwards.

With music, you can indeed get further with no theory and a good ear than the reverse. (I sing, so I have a wee bit of experience in that area. ) But with writing, it's the grammar - or, more accurately, the use of language - that's more important than the story itself.

Think of it more like a tone-deaf singer trying to sing a beautiful song: it doesn't matter how lovely the song sounds in the singer's head, they don't have the skills to communicate it properly to the world.

In writing, grammar and structure are your "ear."

Having said that - there was another thread here last week in which people pointed out that a lot of what we're taught as "rules" of English are really the rules of formal business writing. Beyond that, things get rather squishy, and it's all in what reads smoothly.

When I was a kid, I used to take stories I thought were beautiful and pull the sentences apart, trying to figure out what made them resonate with me so much. But that method didn't work. When you pull a sentence into its component parts, it becomes nothing more than a mundane collection of words. The magic is in the rhythm, the pacing, how the sentence fits into the surrounding prose. You can't dissect that surgically.

I'd say you're on the right track with reading everything you can, but I'd definitely change your material. If you're writing fiction, read fiction - in your chosen genre, if you can, although I'd argue that good fiction writing is good fiction writing regardless, so don't limit yourself (but I would suggest books written in the last several decades, so you're exposed to modern usage). If you're writing non-fiction, find books that are similar structurally to what you're trying to write (self-help, travel writing, etc.).

There is, unfortunately, no shortcut for practical usage. Read and write. Sub your stuff for crit, and ask questions. Everyone is different in how long it takes them to learn; there's no right or wrong timeframe.

gimli said:

Maybe its a attitude adjustment that i require more than anything else.

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That's a lot of it, yes. Perhaps you might have better luck focussing on learning to revise than on "grammar."

Don't post or use your first draft. Write then revise until it's the best you can present. Details actually matter in writing. Anything that causes your reader to pull back is a traffic obstacle; it's like a syntax error in code; the script stops running.

If you're looking for an attitude adjustment, I recommend David Foster Wallace's essay "Democracy, English and the Wars over Usage". (Just look for it in google scholar and you'll find a link to the pdf). It's about the war in lingustics between prescriptivists ("there is such a thing as right and wrong in language, and bad grammar is bad and wrong, logically, aesthetically, and probably morally too, if we're truly honest") and descriptivists ("language rules are arbitrary, nothing more than fashion, and as such ever-changing; we don't care about "right" and "wrong", but about describing language as it is used at any given point in time").

Wallace makes a fairly good-faith effort to give both sides a fair shake (although personally, I think he doesn't entirely understand descriptivism; you can tell that his academic focus was on literature, not linguistics), but he's a prescriptivist at heart, and it's clear that he'll never be able to shake that off, even though he sees the dangerous follies of elitism inherent in this approach.

As I said, I think he's ultimately wrong. (You can read a lot of take-downs of this essay by ardent descriptivists, should you ever find yourself terminally bored). But that's the purely intellectual take-away. I recommend this essay anyway, because it's written by someone who cares about grammar very deeply, and tries his best to make you, the reader, care as well. Like, I'm usually team descriptivism all the way, but I'm also a bit of a David Foster Wallace fangirl for all my sins, and should he ever be very bored in heaven and find himself reading something written by me (it's not impossible! Eternity is very long!), I'd want him to smile upon me mercifully, and that can be a good motivation to not skip the proofreading after all.

Gimli wrote: I do alot of reading, mainly because i am a wannabe know it all and well many topics interest me.

I understand your interests have been the subject matter. Nothing wrong with it, but as you're also concerned with spelling, punctuation, and grammar, then it's time to pay attention to well-edited works.

For instance, better writers capitalize "I" as a personal pronoun. Most learn early there's no such spelling as "alot." If we pay attention to the mechanics of writing we respect, our own will soon reflect it.

I don't see many grammar mistakes in your post, but there are a number of punctuation mistakes. Maybe that's where you need the most work. However, to understand the rules of punctuation, you need some formal understanding of grammar, such as subject and predicate, dependent and independent clauses.

As someone who has struggled with grammar and punctuation (more punctuation), I totally understand where you're coming from. I found this book to be incredibly helpful. It's out of print now, but you can get it used for cheap online or at the library--that's where I found it.
It explains the rules in simple, clear terms and was super easy to read. It helped me a ton. I highly recommend it.
My Dog Bites the English Teacher

morngnstar said:

I don't see many grammar mistakes in your post, but there are a number of punctuation mistakes. Maybe that's where you need the most work. However, to understand the rules of punctuation, you need some formal understanding of grammar, such as subject and predicate, dependent and independent clauses.

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I was thinking the same.

If you are going to be writing in British English, I recommend any year 6 SATS SPAG revision guide. SATS are standardised exams done in year 6 and 9 - year 6 seems to be where kids get hammered to death with SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) presumably in preparation for secondary school, but as my daughter (now in year 7) also had to learn things like subordinating conjunctions and stuff I'd never heard of in my life before, it seems to include a lot of extra grammatical stuff) hence the recommendation. The revision guides are aimed at 10-11 year olds therefore make an effort to explain things clearly, simply and to try to make it fun. It covers everything you need to know for good writing and a lot of extra stuff you probably don't actually need to know but hey, it's there if you want to look it up. The revision guide by CGP is particularly good.

Lots of good advice here, I think! I'd just like to chime in and add a very enjoyable book recommendation that might help you begin to see some of the ways in which good grammar can make your writing come alive. The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark shares a lot of concrete information about grammar in an engaging, memorable style. I usually hate grammar books because I have a short attention span, but this one was great.

morngnstar said:

I don't see many grammar mistakes in your post, but there are a number of punctuation mistakes. Maybe that's where you need the most work. However, to understand the rules of punctuation, you need some formal understanding of grammar, such as subject and predicate, dependent and independent clauses.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same.

If you are going to be writing in British English, I recommend any year 6 SATS SPAG revision guide. SATS are standardised exams done in year 6 and 9 - year 6 seems to be where kids get hammered to death with SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) presumably in preparation for secondary school, but as my daughter (now in year 7) also had to learn things like subordinating conjunctions and stuff I'd never heard of in my life before, it seems to include a lot of extra grammatical stuff) hence the recommendation. The revision guides are aimed at 10-11 year olds therefore make an effort to explain things clearly, simply and to try to make it fun. It covers everything you need to know for good writing and a lot of extra stuff you probably don't actually need to know but hey, it's there if you want to look it up. The revision guide by CGP is particularly good.

I don't have any recommendations for American English or other dialects. Your location says South Africa and I don't know if South Africa has its own English rules or follows either British or American. But the recommendation remains in case anyone reading this wants a recommendation for a straight-forward SPAG book for British English.