Joann Lee Ayres Honors World Literature3

(31, 32, 34, 35) 9/6/11Today I reviewed subject-verb agreement. It wasnt until today that I realized I had made many grammatical errors in my essays before. The website informed me which pronouns are singular and plural, such as the indefinite pronoun everybody. Despite it referring to more than one person, it is singular. An example: Everybody has already left. I also learned that phrases such as well as or along with do not necessarily substitute for the word and. The difference can be further illustrated in the following: The hiker, along with his equipment, is tumbling down the mountain path. The hiker and his equipment are tumbling down the mountain path. The phrases do not conjoin the two, making the subject singular and not plural. When I took the quiz, I had some minor setbacks due to hurried reading, but the major points of the lesson were still absorbed.

(38, 39, 41, 47, 68, 69) 9/7/11Today, I furthered my knowledge of subject-verb agreement along with pronoun and tense consistency, conditional verbs, run-on sentences, and sentence fragments. I had exhausted subject-verb agreement from yesterday, so the quiz went well. My tenses in essays are generally consistent, so the quiz that concerned tenses went along smoothly as well. It was the same with sentence fragments and run on sentences. However, I had a bit

of trouble with conditional verbs. The folk tune If I had a Hammer confused me greatly with all the ifs and double words like If I had had a hammer. I learned the difference between present-true, present-untrue, and past-untrue and what hypothetical statements were. Both those quizzes were passed without any trouble.

(70, 71, 73, 74, 81) 9/18/11Today, we looked at sentence fragments again as well as comma splices and introductory phrases to the comma splices. The sentence fragments were fairly easy to spot. When the comma splices had introductory phrases, it was easy to tell where the comma belonged. It was difficult, however, to fix comma splice sentences. I wasnt sure how to exactly repair the sentence, and it showed a different answer for every sentence. For example, the sentence would be My father is chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he also heads the Warrant Commission, Id fix it by typing in My father is chair man of the Committee on Foreign relations, and he also heads the Warrant Commission. The correct answer, however, would be My father is chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations; he also heads the Warrant Commission.

(82, 83, 85-89) 9/12/11Today we looked at more commas and general punctuation. When we were taking notes, I noticed that I had been using my semicolons and my colons incorrectly. Most of the time, the answer would be right anyway, but they got mixed up quite a few times. Colons are to be used preceding a list or an explanation that follows an independent clause. Semicolons are to be used before a rather long list of things. The

commas were much improved from the day before. Only a particular pair of sentences had made me think for a few more moments before I got it right. Heather Hardy, Ph.D., is the director of undergraduate studies in our department, versus He had only one desire in life: to catch a ten-pound bass. My mindset was that only one could be right, and it turned out to be that both were correct. (90-93, 95, 96) 9/13/11Today we learned of more punctuation as well as capitals, plurals, and possessives. Punctuation consisted of apostrophes and question marks, both of which I was familiar with. Because I already knew the difference between Mrs. Hills and the Hills, the quiz went by without anything noteworthy. Capitals, plurals, and possessives were equally as easy. The quizzes for those subjects were hardly any trouble at all. The only thing I took note of was the fact that things related to the internet are not capitalized (email, the web, etc).

(99-101, 103, 104, 108-110, 118, 121, 125-132) 9/14/11We covered a lot today in class. We went through s endings on words, pronoun usage and pronoun cases. The endings were all elementary things, such as knowing when to put an s on the end of a word, such as play versus plays in the sentence Marianne ______ in the sand while her brother _____ in the water. Pronoun usage was mostly about which pronoun you use when linked to another person: Tabitha and ___ got matching shirts. Obviously, in this case, itd be I. This is because when you eliminate Tabitha from the sentence, you would get I got matching shirts, which makes sense. Me got matching shirts would not make sense. Pronoun cases went over what

would be used when it is a personal, interrogative, relative, or indefinite pronoun. I had a bit of trouble on choosing cases after linking verbs, and had to spend a few more minutes reviewing it after taking the quiz.

(125-132) 9/16/11Today was all about notorious confusables; the difference between sit/set, lie/lay, effect/affect, and accept/except. Notorious confusables were generally easy except for sit/set and lie/lay. I kept forgetting which one meant to be at rest and which one would be the active one because set and lay seemed like past-tense, so it would already be done and at rest. However it was just the opposite, because set and lay were the active ones. Set the table so the dishes are sitting when she comes in, and Lay the blanket on the ground there so it is lying down when she comes in illustrate the differences more clearly.