Transcript Slide 1
Sacred Writings Skills and Explanations Day 1 Religious Terms Religious terms such as the Lord, God, and Savior are capitalized. Commonly Confused Words: Accept versus Except Accept means to receive something. Except means other than __________. Non-restrictive Phrases and Clauses This means that the phrase or clause does not add important information to the sentence. The sentence would retain its main meaning if the clause or phrase were removed. Put commas before (and after if they interrupt a sentence) nonrestrictive clauses. Day 2 Sequence of Verb Tenses In a sentence with two clauses, the verbs must show simultaneous occurance or sequence of occurance. If one verb is in the past tense and another verb occured before it, the verb that occured first needs to be in the pluperfect or past perfect tense (using the helping verbs had, has etcetera). If one verb is in the past tense and another verb that occured at the same time is in the present, you must change the second verb so that both verbs are in the same tense. Misplaced Modifiers Modifiers give additional information. They need to be close to the word or words that they modify. A misplaced modifier is one that is not close to the word or words that it modifies. A misplaced modifier can cause confusion for the reader and should be moved close to the word or words it modifies. A.D. and B.C. A.D. is a Latin abbreviation for Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. A.D. is used with dates in the current era. Although Latin is not a word order language, it is conventional in English writing for A.D. to precede (come before) the year (A.D. 2004). B.C. stands for Before Christ and is a way of dating events before the year zero on our calendar. B.C. is roughly the same as B.C.E. (Before the Common Era). B.C. follows the date (53 B.C.). Both are capitalized. Since both are abbreviations, they have periods after the letters. Day 3 Compound Modifiers When an adverb modifies an adjective, do not hyphenate them. Wordy Sentence Since writing is meant to communicate, sentences should do so in a clear way. Adding unnecessary words can confuse the audience. Thus, eliminate all words that do not add new meaning. Commonly Confused Words: fewer versus less The word fewer is used to modify things that can be counted. The word less is used to modify things that cannot be counted. I have fewer pennies than Highlands Union Bank. I have less sand in my shoes than you do. Day 4 Commonly Misspelled Word Accumulate has two c's rather than one. Its versus It's Unlike nouns, pronouns do not use apostrophes for possession. Its is the possessive case for it while it's means "it is." Commas in a Series When one has a group of elements that are coordinate and in series, there must be commas between the elements. The comma before the conjunction and the final element is optional. Parallel structure Parallel structure means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. Day 5 Commonly Confused Words: There versus Their versus They're The word there indicates a place. There is my favorite broken spatula. The word their indicates that they own whatever the pronoun is modifying. Their spatula is made of gold and rubber. The word they're is the contraction for they are. They're not happy with the spatula's performance. Doubling Final Consonant When adding a suffix that begins in a vowel, double the final consonant if the consonant ends in a stressed syllable or in a single syllable word if a vowel precedes the final consonant. Italics for Foreign Words When using a word from another language, italicize, if using a word processor, or underline, if writing by hand, the word. I hope to win mucho dinero. Numbers Over One Hundred Numbers over one hundred are written out as numerals and not words.