Minimum Requirements to Improve Writing Skill

Minimum Requirements

When you write (and speak) English, you must check to make sure that you do not make any of the grammar mistakes listed below. Freedom from these mistakes is the lowest possible standard which will be accepted.

Note that the asterisk or 'star' (*) means that sample the word, phrase, clause or sentence in double quotation marks ("") is ungrammatical according to standard English grammar.

1. Concord/Agreement
a. You should make sure that you use the feminine and masculine pronouns correctly.
"My sister goes to school and *he is in the second grade".
b. You should make sure that you use the correct singular and plural forms for verbs and pronouns.
"Things which *interferes ..." "A teacher *want ..." "Tell the waitress to put *their bag on ..."
c. You should make sure that you use the correct forms of the nouns after the following words.
 one, a, an, each, another and every are followed by singular countable nouns.
"*Each trees ..." "*Another music ..."
 both, these, those, many, few, a few, two, three and other bigger numbers are followed by countable plural nouns. "*Many pencil ..." "*Those bicycle ..." "*Three elephant ..."
 this and that are followed by uncountable and countable singular nouns (not plural nouns). "*This houses ..."
 much is followed by an uncountable noun. "We saw much *stars in the sky last night".

2. Finite Verbs
You should make sure that every simple sentence and the main (principle or independent) clause in every complex sentence, each has a finite verb. "*We happy". "*She written a letter". "When they arrived, *Trat reading".

3. Tenses
You should make sure that you do not change the tense from present to past or from past to present unless you have a good reason for doing so. "All participants were ready. The instructor then *begin the training session".

4. Verb Groups
You should make sure that the verbs in questions (interrogatives) and negative constructions have the correct form.
"He does not *allows ..." "Did they *liked fishing in the river?"

5. Articles/Determiners
a. If you use a singular countable noun, you should make sure that you put a, an, the or a similar function word (for example, this or that) before the noun. "My friend put *book on *chair".
b. If you use an uncountable noun or a plural countable noun, you should make sure that you do not put a or an before the noun. "They gave me *an information". "Did you see *a children in the street?"
When you write English, you must check to make sure that you do not make the mistakes in punctuation and spelling listed below.

6. Punctuation
a. You should use a capital letter (upper case) at the beginning of every sentence, a full stop or period (.) at the end of every statement, and a question mark (?) at the end of every question.
b. You should use a capital letter to begin the name of a person, town or country.
c. You should make sure that you use the possessive apostrophe (') correctly.
"The swan is cleaning *it's wings". "They found a *students bag".

7. Spelling
a. You should make sure that you correctly use the words their, there, then and than.
b. When a word ends in p, t, d, m, n and l and has a short vowel in its final (stressed) syllable, the consonant should be doubled when the suffixes -able, -ed and -ing are added. Note that in some contexts, the doubling of the letter l does not apply to American English, which spells traveling and traveled, for example, with a single l. In British English, a double l is used, as in, travelling and travelled.

(By courtesy of the English Language Education Study Programme of Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. Indonesia. These MR's are (re)adapted from An English Language Course for First Year Students of English at the IKIP by RL Fountain (nd))

Note:
A finite verb may be defined as a verb which changes if the subject (singular or plural, for example), the tense (present or past) and/or the form (positive, negative or interrogative) of a sentence changes. BB 3/10/2011