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Advanced grammar
Most of us write competently without being aware of the rules we are following. But sometimes we come across grammatical problems or can't see how to write clearly and concisely. Knowing how words fit together in sentences can help us write, and edit other people's work, with more confidence.
This course is about the grammar of standard English, the language of print, education, business and the professions. We’ll touch on the way knowledge of grammar can help you write clearly, but this course is about grammar rather than plain English. It should build on what you already know, and fill in some gaps.
Like any other technical subject, grammar has its own jargon. We will explain it clearly when we use it.
The course covers the following.
- Basic grammatical ideas-number, person, inflection, agreement
- Parts of speech-summary
- Nouns-proper, common, concrete, abstract, countable, uncountable, collective, compound
- Verbs-conjugation, tense, aspect, finite, infinite, formation, transitive, intransitive, mood, voice
- Clauses-subject, predicate, object, complement
- Conjunctions-co-ordinating, subordinating
- Subordinate clauses
- Pronouns-personal, possessive, relative, demonstrative, antecedent
- Relative clauses-defining, commenting
- Phrases-adverbial, adjectival, participial
- Adjectives-comparison, possessive
- Adverbs-comparison, particles
- Building sentences-simple, compound, complex
- Punctuation-full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, colons, semicolons, inverted commas, apostrophes, brackets, dashes, hyphens
- Layout and presentation-paragraphs, lists, headings, emphasis, alignment, justification, fonts, print size
The course is very intense – it’s not for the faint-hearted. But there will be plenty of time to practise what you are learning and to discuss problems and some of the changes to standard English happening at the moment.
We run this course at your offices, over one day.
If you have any questions about this course, or you want to make a booking, please phone Terri on 01663 744409 or email inhousetraining@plainenglish.co.uk.