Grammar Refresher
Whatever your goals, a grasp of English grammar is important if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills. This course will help you gain confidence in your ability to produce clean, grammatically correct work. You'll explore the basics of English grammar—like sentence structure and punctuation—as well as more sophisticated concepts—like logic and clarity. A patient instructor, memorable lessons, vivid examples, and interactive exercises will give you ample opportunity to put what you learn into practice. Reacquaint yourself with old, forgotten rules, meet some new ones, and discover your own grammatical strengths.
To enroll in this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Requirements:
Internet access, e-mail, and the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser. Please note: this course teaches American English grammar. Also, this course is not designed for ESL students. If you are an ESL student, please consider enrolling in Grammar for ESL Students with Sabri Bebawi.
Syllabus:
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two
lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do
not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each
lesson within two weeks of its release.
A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each
month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space
the start date for each course at least two months apart.
| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
| Which Is Which? - In this first lesson, you'll
start by meeting your instructor and getting comfortable in your new
online classroom. Then you'll learn about some tricky words that sound
alike yet often get confused in writing. You'll begin to spot mix-ups
such as have/of, lie/lay, and there/their. This will pave the way to
learning which is the right word for the sentence you want to write. |
| Friday - Lesson 02 |
| Its or It's? - In this lesson, you'll master
the mighty apostrophe, a tiny punctuation mark that has a big job to do.
We'll look at how it's used to combine words and express ownership.
Building on what you know about mix-ups, you'll find out when and where
the apostrophe belongs and why it sometimes doesn't. |
| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
| I Am and You Are - You might have heard that
every sentence needs a subject and a predicate, but do you have any idea
what those two things are? In this lesson, you'll reacquaint yourself
with parts of speech. (What is an adverb, anyway?) Then you'll learn
what's required to organize a bunch of words into a complete sentence. |
| Friday - Lesson 04 |
| As You Were Saying - In this lesson, you'll
see how bits and pieces can masquerade as a whole. You'll learn to
recognize when a collection of words doesn't quite measure up to a real
sentence. Then you'll be able to attach those words to their missing
part or find a way to rewrite them so they can stand up on their own. |
| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
| On and On and On - Some of us just like to
keep going and going and going. In this lesson, you'll learn how to
stop. You'll learn a variety of ways to keep one sentence from running
into another and give your readers or listeners a chance to catch their
breath. |
| Friday - Lesson 06 |
| They Write, Not Writes, Right? - It's time to
make sure you're the boss of your verbs. You'll see how the concepts of
yesterday, today, and tomorrow can change a verb. Once you know your
past, present, and future, you'll take a look at some other things that
shape verbs, like voice and mood. |
| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
| You Are You - They're small in size but large
in number. Get ready to put you and me and he and she and this and that
(and lots more) under a microscope. You'll learn about the different
kinds of pronouns and how some of them change depending on what they're
doing in a sentence. |
| Friday - Lesson 08 |
| Let's Agree - It's time to take the argument
out of your grammar. In this lesson, you'll apply what you've learned
about subjects, verbs, and pronouns and find out how to make them all
agree with one another. Only then can you create grammatical harmony. |
| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
| Along the Same Lines - In this lesson, you'll
learn how to stay on the straight and narrow grammatical path. You'll
begin to recognize inconsistencies. You'll learn how to create a steady
narrative system by choosing a person, time, and method to organize your
words. |
| Friday - Lesson 10 |
| Say What You Mean - Everything you've learned
in this course has been leading to this lesson. Now you're going to
ensure that your writing comes out the way you want it to. You'll learn
how to express yourself in the appropriate language, with no wasted
words. You'll use logical thinking to inspire your own good grammar. |
| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
| Why Stop at a Period? - Every work, great or
small, needs its i's dotted. At last, the colon will be distinguished
from the semicolon, parentheses from dashes, and the often-misnamed
backslash from the forward slash. You'll also spend some time refreshing
your memory on those long-forgotten rules of capitalization. |
| Friday - Lesson 12 |
| To Err Is Human - We won't say goodbye until
we've done a sweeping review of the previous lessons. Then, we'll go
over a checklist and do some editing practices. You'll take one more
step toward grammatical empowerment by learning independent proofreading
and self-checking methods. |
To enroll in this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
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