Lesson 1

Assignment: 1

PART1:

1. We hurried to the airport, but we still missed our flight. Compound Sentence

2. If I ever meet the President, I will be sure to get his autograph. Non-essential phrase

3. I picked up the book that was on the floor. CORRECT essential phrase: shows where the book was

4. Sara bought a new car, and drove it home.

5. Mark liked the concert, but he felt the music was too loud. Non-essential phrase: sentence doesn’t need the volume of the music to be understood.

6. I bought a new towel, which was purple with yellow flowers. Non-essential

7. While driving to work, I saw my neighbor in his new car. Dependent clause

8. Carol picked some flowers, so she could decorate her living room. Independent clauses

9. I met the woman who was teaching my son’s class. CORRECT

10. I went home, where I decided to take a nap. Compound sentence

PART 2:

The two spinster sisters shared all of the chores of the household. Megan who was older liked to run the dish washer, which had been bought the year before. Kara who was younger preferred to wash the laundry that piled up each week. When they were done with their separate chores, they would often work together on the yard work. Megan would weed the garden and Kara would plant tomato seeds. When they were tired, they would go inside for some tea and crackers. Megan always wiped down the table after their snack, so they wouldn’t leave any crumbs. She liked to keep the kitchen tidy, and have it ready for dinnertime. When the day’s work was done the two women would sit in the living room together and Kara would pull out a book to read.

PART 3:

1. Compound Sentence Rule:
a: Jonas went to the diner, where he ate until he was full.
b: The car was shiny red, and it was as fast as it looked.

2. Dependent (Subordinate) Clause Rule:
a: It was a beautiful morning, then the rain came.
b: Thinking I understood it, I found I still had to re-read the lesson.

3. Essential/Restrictive Rule:
a: Rita jumped from the noise that surprised her.
b: Rita started laughing at Jimmy who was standing there.

4. Non-essential/Non-restrictive Rule:
a: Jimmy raced his motorcycle on the track, which was only a quarter mile long.
b: Fred raced his bike there, but didn’t do as well as the others.

What made you decide to take this class?

When I first join up here, I was fortunate to meet some people that were in fact real authors. These folks read my portfolio. They recognized straight away that I had little formal training in grammar and punctuation with comma errors being the most common. My placements of these little rascals were as pauses I would tend to make in an oral presentation. This, as I am learning, is not how to place correctly. There are rules to follow, who knew? These same folks seemed to think I had some little measure of talent in writing, and I would benefit from a little education, and who would not benefit from learning? Wisely and gently, they suggested that I take some classes. I am glad I did, but my fear is that with life’s schedule I may now have really discipline my time, which for that last few years has been of little concern to me. I am suspecting that this discussion is a way to test our new comma placement skills, so I have written this in a somewhat different voice, in order to utilize the opportunity to place them and test my ability.

What would you like to get out of it?

The major achievement would be gaining the confidence that I am placing commas correctly. Now let’s face it, properly placing commas outside of a launch memo or treaty document may not bring or maintain world peace. However, I can see where it may very well bring me a little more on a personal level, and I’ll take what I can get in that area, The stress level over comma awareness is now slightly above the ‘should I have a Latte or Mocha level’. In seriousness though, I feel that as in any trade or craft, unless you know how to use the tools and techniques properly, you can never achieve professional results. I hope one day to actually sell a piece I have written, that by definition would take me to a professional level, so I had better give them their monies worth.