-ing Words: Gerunds and the Passive Voice

EnglishClub.com has a thorough section on gerunds that, perhaps unintentionally, highlights some passive sentences. This is useful because it can help you figure out which of your own gerunds need to go.

One of their examples is, “I have a boring teacher.” While that’s not strictly passive like, “My teacher is boring” it’s still pretty blah. How can we spice it up? Try, “My teacher bores me.” I realize that, as an active verb, bore is an absurd choice but I can only work with what I’m given. Please ignore the fact that I gave it to myself.

For another glimpse of why ESL sites are excellent sources of grammar theory, check out EnglishPage.com and their gerund and infinitive tutorial.

When you learn a new language you come at the grammar from a logical perspective rather than the intuition-based, “it just sounds right,” school of thought. The explanation of language and form usage on ESL pages, thus, clarifies more than the way students learn grammar rules in elementary school.

Part 2 of the tutorial includes a few examples of passive sentences. For example, change “Sandy is scared of flying” to “Flying scares Sandy”. Thus you save a couple of words, change the gerund from the object of a preposition to the subject, and change the wimpy “is” to the more vivid “scares”.

Not all gerunds are passive. Their use determines whether you should reword your sentence or not. But look for them in your writing and judge them on a case-by-case basis.

Grammar for All and Article Writing Tips

I can admit to being a total grammar geek. In an attempt to persuade you to become one as well, I offer the following gem. The page about conjunctions in the Guide to Writing and Grammar fascinated me for half an hour. It’s clearly written and offers great examples.

They also have a fantastic article on writing introductory paragraphs. While it is directed at students writing essays and papers, the advice applies perfectly to writing articles. I plan to spend a fair amount of time digging around their pages, so don’t be surprised if they pop up again.

I also came across englishclub.com, an ESL site that is about to turn 10 years old. They had information by the bucket-load, but I got a kick out of the term Uncountable Nouns.

I finally got my behind out of an article slump and submitted two to Helium yesterday. The benefit of doing so there is that I get them up instantly. The drawback is that I get paid squat for them. My highest-paying article to date there (of the now-77 published) has earned $1.49.

Then again, one of the articles I posted yesterday was for a Marketplace topic on buying 80’s music. The hook is that it may get picked (from the existing 3, although I don’t know what the time-line may be) to get published and I’ll get paid $16 for it. That would put me over $30 through Helium. I need the writing exercise to get back in payable shape after my maundering on here, so I’ll probably tuck a few more in there when I find topics that interest me.

More Food for Thought and Free Learning

I wandered across a fun site today called The 11 Rules of Writing. While I can’t say that they are the only 11 rules, they are definitely excellent rules of thumb.

Number 11, “Omit extra words,” is one that writers struggle with constantly. It goes along with my recent post about keeping it short. I tend to pack as much into each sentence as possible and then create dependent clauses hanging from completely independent (and often parenthetical) thoughts. Knocking out all of the decoration keeps the focus on your point. Flowery phrases are a joy to create but, unless you're looking to be the next James Joyce, they are a waste of space on your page and a waste of your readers' time. Keep them for brain warm-ups like writing exercises. That way you can get them out of your system without inflicting them on innocent passersby.

Back to the subject: Rule number 6 is my food for thought today – using a colon versus a comma for dialogue in a sentence. I hadn’t thought of doing it that way, but it makes a lot of sense after reading the examples. All of the pages about the rules are quick reads, like grammar flash cards. There is also a list of other writing resources including Strunk’s ubiquitous Elements of Style.

Unfortunately, I can’t link to specific pages in the 11 Rules site because they are all in a frame with the same web address. You’ll have to poke around for yourself. There’s even a discussion forum for questions, although it looks pretty quiet.

I followed the lovely breadcrumb trail from there to the ESL handouts at the Purdue Online Writing Lab. There is an amazing array of topics there, all of which can be useful to writers. The handouts are accompanied by exercises and quizzes, too. These help to carve those crazy rules into your resistant brain.

I’m so glad to have discovered that many ESL sites are devoted to the oddities of English grammar that trouble nearly everyone attempting to compose in this complicated language. I'm getting an excellent review, as well.

You Learn Something New Every Day - Phrasal Verbs

Having been a student of English and Latin my whole life, it's always fun to discover something new. For instance, I'd never heard of phrasal verbs until today. But in my perusal of ESL pages in search of excellent tips, I ran across this page at englishpage.com. Of course, I use them, but I never really considered that they were a grammatical construct with rules. Thus, this page is my food for thought today.

You may notice that I've started a blog roll in the ol' sidebar. I've been meaning to do so for a while, and I finally got a start on it. I intend to list only blogs that I visit on a regular basis and that relate to writing, promoting, or freelancing.

If you've visited before, you probably notice a lot of changes. Look for a few more. I am working on getting some sort of header image that says, “Legbamel can help you write better and earn money!” Shockingly enough, I've not found something that really says that to me. I downloaded GIMP for my freshly-wiped laptop today, so I'm excited to start playing with some of the ideas I've got. The focus on designing "brand me" has been taking time away from blogging and writing but it's all fodder. I intend to write some articles for Associated Content on being a beginner trying to develop branding for myself for free and from scratch.

Branding 's an important facet of getting people to remember you and to come back to you for more. Most articles I find on it refer to relatively expensive software or businesses to do it for you. My plan is to spend nothing but time on it and in 5 years to be ready to go full-time. I may not be setting the freelance or blogging world on fire, but I'm sticking to the plan. Actually, I've made about $150. Maybe once I get my image settled (and change my avatars in 27 different place) I can get back to writing and earning. Until then, at least I am compiling all of the resources here so that I can find them again!

An Unexplored Goldmine for Grammar Tips

Sometimes, it helps to get another take on a subject. I wandered by Lisa Q’s site for learning English as a second language (ESL) on-line. It’s just starting out, but the first few posts seem to indicate good things coming. The language is clear and the examples concrete. It looks like there are a couple of layout problems, specifically the overlapping posts which make the headlines difficult to read. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

I hadn’t thought of using ESL sites as resources for grammar and syntax explanations but this one makes me wonder why not. It seems so obvious, now that I think of it. Where else would you look for understandable explanations of bizarre grammar rules? I will find and post more good ones.