Category Archives: Grammar and punctuation

Our team’s favourite writing resources

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, Dissertation writing, EAL graduate students, First year in graduate school, Grammar and punctuation, Literature review, Transition, Tutoring, Writing resources

September 14, 2022

By the CAC Team

Hello, returning and new graduate students. We know that graduate school involves lots of reading, writing, listening, and presentations. We offer one-to-one assistance with your academic writing challenges in three modes: Zoom appointments, in-person appointments at the Centre (in the Mearns Centre for Learning) and in the form of same-day written feedback. Create an account and make an appointment here: https://uvic.mywconline.com

As you embark on your courses and start researching and writing assignments, theses, and dissertations, we’d like to share our team members’ favourite writing resources. Perhaps one or more of these resources will provide knowledge or perspective that makes a difference to you.

Please leave a comment for us, letting us know your own favourites. We wish you well as you embark on your studies.

Emily’s favourite links 

For graduate student writers 

University of Minnesota “Graduate Student Writers” Resources:  

The Center for Writing at the University of Minnesota boasts numerous “quick tips” resources for graduate student writers, including how to write thesis/dissertation/conference proposals, as well as how to organize, write, and present a thesis/dissertation, with specific emphasis on compositional cohesion and self-editing strategies:

http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quickhelp/graduate.html 

For undergraduate student writers and for everyone 

 “EAL Learner Agency” WordPress Blog: 

 Below is a link to the WordPress blog I co-created with Jing Mao’s thoughtful input. The blog contains helpful information for EAL students on how to exercise greater learner agency by leveraging available academic supports as well as concrete tips for communicating effectively with course instructors and peers:

https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/eallearneragency 

University of Minnesota “Student Resources” Site: 

The University of Minnesota has produced a high-quality repository of resources for EAL learners including practical tips for improving speaking, listening, confidence, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar:

https://ccaps.umn.edu/esl-resources/students 

  

Kaveh’s favourite links 

For graduate student writers

Writing Resources for Graduate Students (Yale University) 

Yale University’s Graduate Writing Lab has a series of writing resources for graduate students  on topics such as “Dissertation Writing” to “Prospectus Writing” that can help guide new graduate students navigate various forms of academic writing. 

DoctoralWritingSIG Blog 

From their own site: “DoctoralWritingSIG is a forum where people who are interested in doctoral writing can come together to share information, resources, ideas, dreams (perhaps even nightmares!) in a spirit of building knowledge and skills around higher degree research writing.”

https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/  

For everyone

Purdue Owl 

There are few students who do not know about this huge repository of information on general writing and grammar support. This is exactly why I make sure those few students also know about the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University.  

Writing Advice (U of T) 

A great collection of writing advice on fundamental questions about academic writing such as “how to overcome a writer’s block?” or “how to write an abstract?” These “advice files” are created by writing instructors at U of T based on the most common questions students have asked over the years and so cover a wide range of writing issues. The site is organized in a few categories, such as “Planning,” “Researching,” “Using Sources,” and so on.  

 

Gillian’s favourite links

For graduate student writers

Carlton University’s Online Writing Resources for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Carlton University’s graduate writing resources page is home to a comprehensive repository of resources for writing, from guides on work-life balance and common problems in thesis and dissertation writing to video workshops and blogs like The Thesis Whisperer, Three Month Thesis, and more.

https://carleton.ca/gradpd/writing/humanities-and-social-sciences/

For undergraduate student writers and for everyone

English Use for Academic Purposes (EUFAP)

EUFAP is a long-time favourite, despite its somewhat basic and outdated appearance. It’s a site dedicated to everything related to English for Academic purposes (EAP), which is typically an area of instruction for English language learners, but this site really has information that can benefit writers of all backgrounds and skill levels. It addresses the “four skills”: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

http://www.uefap.com/

The University of Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank

The Academic Phrasebank provides the “nuts and bolts” of writing a research paper, organized by function. It’s a great resource for when you need to make a connection between ideas or argue a point and you’re at a loss for words.

https://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

Madeline’s favourite links

For graduate student writers 

The thesis whisperer – salty language, tells it like it is, great information for students in the middle of a graduate degree.

 https://thesiswhisperer.com 

Helen Sword hosts writing retreats and workshops that focus on enjoying academic writing, being productive, and writing with style. Her books are helpful as well, particularly, The Writer’s Diet and Stylish Academic Writing. 

https://www.helensword.com

I also recommend her short video on nominalization – it’s fun and educational:

https://youtu.be/dNlkHtMgcPQ

Pat Thompson’s website has fresh posts coming all the time about timely topics for grad students: how to write the literature review, how to start a doctorate, how to manage your time effectively, and much more.  

https://patthomson.net

Wendy Belcher is another writer on academic writing for grad students and faculty. Her writing advice webpage has links to some valuable material, such as how to write a journal article (she wrote the book on it!), how to write a book review, and how to read journals.  

https://wendybelcher.com/writing-advice/ 

For undergraduate student writers and for everyone 

I don’t know, maybe it’s the silly video with the guy playing a guitar and singing about transitions? Or maybe it’s because this is where I learned about “adversative transitions.” In any case, this is my go-to for transition information and suggestions. 

https://blog.wordvice.com/common-transition-terms-used-in-academic-papers/  

For overall grammar instruction, I refer students to Grammar Bytes because it’s light and fun. Additionally, the quizzes help to consolidate skills.  

https://chompchomp.com/menu.htm

I like using our own CAC-created flowchart for article problems:

https://www.uvic.ca/learningandteaching/cac/assets/docs/cac-articles.pdf 

Nancy’s favourite links

For everyone

Writing a location statement (positionality statement)

This 6-minute video provides a very helpful overview of what to include in a location statement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpcIVzGYhVs&ab_channel=meganleanne44

Writing a literature review

Monash University offers some very helpful tips relating to literature review writing (if you’re OK navigating the “cookie” pop-up on your screen):

https://www.monash.edu/learnhq/write-like-a-pro/how-to-write…/literature-review

University of Sydney’s “The Write Site”

For a fantastic review of writing fundamentals, check out the nifty modules developed by the University of Sydney:

https://canvas.sydney.edu.au/courses/12076

Happy writing this semester!

Why Grammar Matters in Academia

Academic Writing, EAL graduate students, Grammar and punctuation, Grammar checkers, Learning

By Hossein Ghanbari (Odivi)

Whether it is a prescriptive or descriptive approach, grammar has proved to be an indispensable part of language learning and acquisition. Grammar is defined as a set of forms/rules for how words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and meaning in a language. For instance, in an English sentence, the subject usually comes first, followed by the verb and the object while it is subject, object, and verb in a Japanese sentence. Thus, having a knowledge of grammar helps build clear and comprehensible sentences.

When I started my journey as a learner of English, I bet my teachers did not even consider not emphasizing the importance of making grammatical structures. They would rather go to great extents to make sure their students had followed the rules to craft grammatical sentences, the prescriptive approach of grammar teaching. It must have been an achievement on their part when we had learned “simple present” and “simple past” tenses, to name a few. On the other hand, it is also believed that grammar should be learned and taught as it is used by its native speakers, the descriptive approach of grammar teaching. As the proponents of each approach advocate their favourite philosophy of grammar, I would like to slightly change the discussion and state that these two approaches are different and should be kept that way.

Prescriptive grammarians present various reasons about the importance of grammar in learning and teaching languages. So, it is typical to hear that grammar shows how to make comprehensible and acceptable sentences and bad grammar could mean lack of a proper education. Having said that, learning and following grammar is not always easy. This resonates with many writers who write for academic purposes as they must follow the rubrics of academic writing; formal and grammatical sentences. Descriptivist grammarians, on the other hand, argue in favour of learning a language based on how it is used. They focus on how a language is and how it is used by a native speaker of that language, and not how they should go about producing that. In other words, they describe how it is and not how it should be.

In my personal life, I would travel to the touristy area in my hometown and would look for a willing tourist to speak with me so that I could improve my “Spoken English.” It was then that I appreciated how different these two variations of English are, spoken and written/formal English. That is because my tourist friends seemed reluctant to follow the rules of English grammar as much as I expected them to. What should I have done? Should I put on my wise glasses and reminded them of their grammar errors and mistakes? Well, guess what? I did not!

With that being said, I would like to say that although no variation of a language is better than the other, some of these other forms are not used in academia, unless for specific reasons. As university graduates and students, we have heard that writing grammatically is important because grammar helps writers to write comprehensibly and be assessed accordingly. I mean, anyone in academia can attest to the times they had to write and re-write their work to make sure it follows the grammatical rules. However, what if no one follows the rigid set of rules for pluralizing nouns in English, for instance. One of the consequences of that would be an array of different forms crafted at the whim of their authors, which at the same time may confuse and fail readers to follow their authors’ messages. At the same time, one may wonder what the point of writing would be if no one could read your mind because you wished to voluntarily walk away from the writing rules. Thus, rules in general and grammar rules in particular provide guidance for readers to follow your thoughts and respond to them appropriately.

To wrap up, I would like to reiterate that there are two distinct approaches toward teaching and learning grammar, prescriptive and descriptive. While proponents of these two philosophies advocate their approach of choice, perhaps they should consider looking away from this dichotomy to see the differences of each approach and the appropriate contexts in which they are accepted.

About the Author:

Hi. My name is Odivi. I recently graduated from my PhD in Educational Studies here at the University of Victoria. My dissertation topic was on the concept of success in language revitalization program for the W̱ŚÁNEĆ community. Before that, I wrote my MA thesis on the study of moves and steps in Farsi and English Academic Recommendation Letters.

I am passionate about language teaching, language revitalization, and writing. Before I came to Canada, I had been living in Turkey and Iran, where I taught TEFL/TESOL to non-native speakers of English. Here at the CAC, I help students with their sentence structure, paragraph development, and grammar.

Getting Excited about APA Style is not an oxymoron

Academic Writing, APA, Citations, Dissertation writing, Grammar and punctuation, Posts by Madeline, Style guides, Writing resources

By Madeline Walker

Are you a graduate student in Business or the Social Sciences, such as Psychology, Linguistics, Sociology, or Economics? Have you bought your new edition of the APA Style Manual? No? Well, to be honest, neither have I. Officially published earlier this year, the entrance of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association’s Seventh Edition was overshadowed by the chaos accompanying the Covid-19 pandemic. I have just had a chance to review the changes from the sixth to the seventh edition, summarized in this document, and I’d like to tell you about five changes that stood out for me. I’m sure you’ll have your own favourites.

photos of the new edition
Image from https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition/

First, The 7th edition acknowledges the difference between preparing a professional paper for publication and a student paper for a course. In Chapter 2, they provide a sample professional paper and a sample student paper (p. 1). In 2.18, they note different page header elements for the professional paper and the student paper (professionals: page number and running head; students: page number only). (Yay! Finally, we’re getting real—no running heads for student papers!) In 2.3, they describe a title page for a student paper v. a professional paper—also reflecting the reality of the classroom (why do you need an author’s note for your unpublished class assignment?). These changes come as a relief to many instructors who have spent years struggling to modify the professional guidelines to suit the classroom: Finally, it’s been done for you!

Second, I was thrilled to see in Chapter 4, on writing style and grammar, that APA has endorsed the singular use of “they,” explained in this blog post on the APA style blog. You can safely banish the awkward “he or she” and the dreaded “s/he” from your writing. With APA’s blessing, you can use “they” in those instances, as this pronoun is inclusive of all people and helps to avoid making assumptions about gender. When to use “they” as a singular pronoun? Chelsea Lee (2019) explains that “Writers should use the singular “they” in two main cases: (a) when referring to a generic person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant to the context and (b) when referring to a specific, known person who uses “they” as their pronoun.”

Third, all of the old-school “two spaces after a period” folks who started their typing life on typewriters (including me) can embrace the new rule: “Use one space after a period (or other punctuation) at the end of a sentence” (p. 4) (from Chapter 6, Mechanics of Style).

Fourth, Chapter 8 has some guidance about how to cite recorded or unrecorded Traditional Knowledge and Oral Traditions of Indigenous Peoples (see Section 8.9). This guidance is a much needed addition to the style guide, as post-secondary libraries decolonize and researchers draw on Indigenous knowledge.  Also in this chapter is new guidance on how to format quotations from research participants (see Section 8.36).   I’ve worked with so many students doing qualitative research using some form of narrative inquiry—now there are guidelines about how to work with the rich data from their participants’ voices.

And finally, I am delighted to see that the font-mantra—”you must use Times New Roman 12”—has been relaxed with this edition, with an emphasis on accessibility rather than homogeneity: “Font guidelines are more flexible. This revised section notes that ‘APA Style papers should be written in a font that is accessible to all users.’ Section 2.19 provides the following font recommendations: a sans serif font such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode or a serif font such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (the latter is the default font for LaTeX)” (p. 2). According to Wikipedia (I know, not a definitive source), for the first time, APA Style’s team worked with accessibility experts to ensure accessibility in APA writing/reading (shortened in-text citations are another change).

These are just a few of the exciting transformations the APA Style Manual has undergone to keep pace with our rapidly changing world. I am looking forward to owning my own copy of the 7th edition. (And no, I’m not kidding.)

Finally, if you don’t have a copy of the manual yet or don’t plan on buying one, the APA style blog continues to be a great resource for answering your APA questions:

Archived sixth edition blog

Current blog

References

Lee, Chelsea. (2019, October 31). “Welcome, singular ‘they.’” [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2020)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Online Grammar Checkers: Friend or Foe?

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, EAL graduate students, Editors and editing, Grammar and punctuation, Grammar checkers, International graduate students, Posts by Gillian, Tutoring, Writing resources

By Gillian Saunders

Gillian and Buster

Grammar not your strong suit? You’re not the only one. At the Centre for Academic Communication, almost half of those who use the centre identify “writing grammatically correct sentences” and editing their own work as a challenge, and some variation of “grammar help” or “grammar checking” is one of the most common requests our tutors receive.

With the rapid expansion of technology available, I wanted to know if there was a tool that could help writers identify their errors and fix them. I knew already, from over 10 years of teaching English as an additional language, that translation programs and other tools have come a long way, and I set out to find something that might at least act as a complement to the instruction and feedback that a tutor or instructor can provide. It’s not usually possible for a human to read and give feedback on an entire thesis, and the limit for tutoring at the CAC is 50 minutes per week. Might there be a miracle product out there that could alert writers to at least some of their most common mistakes, so that tutors and professors can focus on higher order concerns and content, instead of nit-picking at punctuation and missing plural “s” issues? I submitted a proposal about online grammar checkers for the Vancouver Island BCTEAL conference, and began my research. What follows is based on my conference presentation from February 2018.

First, I made a list of the most widely referenced grammar and writing checkers available, and eliminated any that weren’t free or suited to academic writing. My final list included Ginger (http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck), Scribens (https://www.scribens.com/), Virtual Writing Tutor (https://virtualwritingtutor.com/), PaperRater (https://www.paperrater.com/), and, of course, Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com/). I also tested the advanced functions of Microsoft Word. In order to get an idea of the types of writing that might benefit from use of these tools, I tested them using two writing samples: one was a former student’s TOEFL writing test (good overall, with some grammatical issues), and one was my own proposal for the BCTEAL conference (graduate-level writing, I hope!).

Did I find what I was looking for? Well, yes and no. I did find a few useful features that I hadn’t previously known about, but I didn’t find anything that would accurately flag or correct a lot of the types of errors in grammar and punctuation that many writers tend to make. In high-level writing, too, the tools tended to introduce more new errors than they caught existing ones, which is a problem I had anticipated.

Among the most useful findings was Virtual Writing Tutor’s “Check Vocabulary” feature, which identifies and lists words that make your paper seem “academic” or “conversational.” This might be a good option if you’re struggling with finding an academic tone or your writing is too informal. The “Check Grammar” tool also caught a number of errors in the EAL student writing sample and suggested mostly accurate revisions, but could not distinguish between the word “style” as a verb and as a noun in my writing and offered a revision that would have been incorrect. I had high hopes for this tool’s “Paraphrase Checker,” but it was completely useless: two 100% identical sentences were only identified as being 68% the same.

Paper Rater also revealed a few interesting features: It can be adjusted for the type of writing you’re doing and for grade level, and gives a “grade” and some feedback. Although I wouldn’t recommend relying on this as an indicator of the grade a professor would assign, Paper Rater gave my writing 95% and my student’s writing 75%, and I thought these grades were more or less appropriate. Ignore the letter grades though! They don’t seem to correspond to any grading scale I’m familiar with. Paper Rater is also great for assessing the variety in your sentence beginnings, telling you if your vocabulary is “academic,” and reporting on use of the passive voice. Overall, I can see this tool being useful for high-level writers who want to get a sense of the general quality and patterns of their work.

As for the others, Ginger was pretty useless and introduced errors that weren’t there to begin with. It doesn’t do much if you don’t pay to upgrade it, and based on what I saw with the free version I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Scribens was able to do a few basic tasks, such as identify long sentences, but did the most ridiculous things with vocabulary suggestions. Should I change “communicate with different people and use modern technology” to “communicate with peculiar people and exploit modern technology”? These were options suggested, and I think this feature would be potentially catastrophic to writers without an unwaveringly confident grasp of English vocabulary and usage.

Grammarly is also available in a free and paid version. I used the free one and installed it in Word, and relied on Grammarist’s (http://grammarist.com/articles/grammarly-review/) review of the paid version as a comparison. Although Grammarly is probably the best-known and most widely used grammar checker available, both Grammarist and I found it limited for a number of reasons. Grammarly’s rigorous testing revealed a 72% accuracy with 43 items of grammar and style. It scored very highly for style, but not grammar, and I also found that it introduced errors and could not assess words that functioned as two different parts of speech, like “style.” Its plagiarism checker was also useless: although it knew that two identical pieces were identical, it gave the same paragraph a thumbs-up when just a few words were changed.

Grammarly’s assessment of EAL student writing (when installed in Microsoft Word), with examples of incorrect suggestions for revision.

And finally, although I love Word’s ability to check (very accurately) for passive voice and long sentences, and to assess readability, it isn’t good for many grammatical issues. The advanced checking tools can be activated in “Proofing” options. Word’s default is usually to check only “grammar” and not “grammar and style,” which is easy to fix.

In the end, then, while I did find some options that I might recommend to students with specific issues (e.g., sentences beginning with “It is…”, non-academic tone, or overuse of passive voice), for many writers I think better options include peer review or a visit to the CAC for an assessment of most frequent errors. Once you know what you’re looking for, “Find and Replace” can work miracles! For writers who wish to improve their grammatical accuracy, some of these tools might be a good place to start, but be careful not to get overwhelmed. If you can, focus on just one or two types of errors at a time, and remember that good writing skills take time to cultivate and lots of dedicated practice and feedback.

Gillian is an English as an Additional Language Specialist at UVic and a PhD student in Education. Her background is in English literature, and she has been teaching English, first in South Korea and now in Canada, for over ten years.

Lessons learned from my first year in graduate school

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, Citation management tools, EAL graduate students, Feedback, First year in graduate school, Grammar and punctuation, Productivity, Time management, Transition, Tutoring, Writing groups

By Cindy Quan

photo of the author, Cindy

Technically, I’ve only concluded the first two terms, but I have yet to grow out of the undergraduate mindset of April signaling the end of a school year. Now that it is May, I have had the chance to reflect on the many types of writing that I completed since September. In this blog post, I hope some of my reflections may be of relevance to incoming graduate students, especially clinical psychology students.

Many types of writing

There are many types of writing to learn in graduate school. In the first year, there is a great demand on time: the course load is high, you must learn psychological tests, get familiar with the research in your advisor’s lab, and write literature reviews. This can distract from other types of writing, especially mastering the writing of assessment reports and scholarship applications. Yet both these types of writings are essential for long-term success as a clinical psychology student and deserve dedication of time and effort. During the first two semesters, I allocated little time to learn these skills, and becoming more proficient at both is one of my goals for the summer months. I have found plenty of resources in the library about both types of writing. This site has a lot of specific suggestions for proposal writing that I adopted for writing my tri-council scholarship application.

Extensive feedback from your advisor

If your advisor is anything like mine, you might be surprised and even feel a bit startled the first time you open a review paper or a research proposal with feedback. The many comment boxes may be unnerving, but they are actually great news. (At least, that is the perspective I have chosen.) First, they indicate that the advisor took time to read the text closely. In other words, your advisor cares about the work you do. Second, the comments are useful. I recognize that this might not always be the case, especially for “senior” students who have committee members who may provide conflicting suggestions or students who have developed a sufficient foundation in the area and their informed opinions differ from their advisors’. As a first-year student, I have always found adopting the suggestions improves my research. Third, the advisor may provide grammatical corrections and editorial comments. This brings me to my third realization.

Compensatory strategies for being a non-native English speaker work

As a non-native English speaker, I believe I spend more time revising than peers who are native English speakers. This habit partly stems from a lack of feedback on papers submitted during my undergraduate years. Not knowing why I received a better grade on one paper than another encouraged my neurotic and perfectionist tendencies – I just kept revising until a deadline. This is not necessarily a bad habit; it helped me improve the clarity and conciseness of my writing. As Gillian wrote in a post a few months ago, good punctuation and grammar requires practice. But in reality, as a graduate student there is little time for extensive rewriting. When time permits, I now try to read a style guide or visit the CAC experts who can efficiently point out recurrent grammatical errors I make. Also, simply incorporating the comments my advisor provides on my work improves the quality more than trying to revise on my own and it saves time! When revising, I now stop at the point of diminishing returns. A great law…

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com

Experiment with writing

Since I had to do a lot of writing this past year, I experimented with systems of organization and writing settings to see how to become more productive. I finally started using a citation manager. Since I do my work both on a Mac and a PC I use Zotero; it syncs the information seamlessly. There are many other citation tools. You can find a nice comparison chart for what suits your needs here. Some people enjoy writing in groups, finding the presence of others to keep them accountable. Writing in a group did keep me from browsing online shopping sites and checking emails, but I also felt awkward. I tried writing in cafes, but the noise was distracting and the cost of snacks adds up quickly. Ultimately, I found that home is the best place for me to work – I can drink my weight in coffee and tea for free, and there is silence.

Somewhat surprising to myself, I find that my confidence in writing increased after the first year and the writing process is easier. I am looking forward to writing the introduction to my thesis over the summer. Anyway, happy writing!

Cindy Quan is a Master’s candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Victoria. Her research interests include the intersection of culture and mental health as well as risks and protective factors in vulnerable families. When not working, she loves spending her time playing racquet sports, travelling and cooking.

Comma chameleon: Transforming punctuation and grammar in your writing

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, Editors and editing, Graduate student writers, Grammar and punctuation, Posts by Gillian, Reading, Tutoring, Writing resources

By Gillian Saunders

It wasn’t so long ago when I found out that I didn’t really know how to use a comma. I mean, I knew how, but I didn’t really, really know. I could put them in the right place about 95% of the time, but not explain why I was adding them or choosing not to. Sound familiar?

I wasn’t a poor writer, making word salad with a careless handful of commas tossed in; I’d been admitted to a graduate program in English Language and Literature. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix this problem. At this point, the finer points of punctuation seemed mysterious and probably unlearnable.

As an English as an Additional Language Specialist at UVic’s Centre for Academic Communication and as an instructor, I meet a lot of students experiencing this same frustration. Writers who learned English as an additional language may be at an advantage: for the most part, they have been “taught” a lot of what they need to know to be able to master the use of commas and other fun and useful things like colons and semicolons with relative ease. In order to know whether you need a comma in any given situation, you need a functional range of metalanguage: relative clause, dependent clause, conjunctive adverb, etc. Native English speakers under a certain age, however, were mostly just told to throw a comma in when they “felt like they needed a pause,” which, unfortunately, isn’t a real rule of comma usage. As adults pursuing graduate degrees, not having been taught real rules isn’t doing us any good now. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing.

“What am I supposed to do about it now?” you might be wondering. Here’s the abridged version of how I’ve filled my own vacancies in the punctuation and grammar puzzle: first and foremost, my education is in a very reading- and writing-heavy field. I studied writing and linguistics with some very inspiring and knowledgeable instructors, and then I started teaching grammar and composition myself. At that point, I had to learn everything there was to know, or else risk being shown up by students who had mastered not only their own first languages, but mine as well, and better than I had. I completed a Certificate in Editing by distance. I read books like Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage, Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, and everything by Kate Turabian and Diana Hacker. I Googled. A lot. “Which vs. that?” “What is an appositive?” I tugged at the knots of obscure grammar forum threads until I was satisfied that I could explain when and why you need a comma before “such as.” I started reading my work, and the work I edited, aloud, with verbalized punctuation: “The semicolon has two main uses COLON it separates long items in a list COMMA which may also contain commas COMMA and it joins two independent clauses that are closely related PERIOD.” I questioned my identity as a writer, as a native English speaker, and in other areas of my life. Had I also been singing the wrong words to my favourite songs at the top of my lungs in the car all along? (I had.)

Learning the “right way” to use punctuation (and the correct lyrics to all my favourite 80s and 90s songs) clearly took time and the kind of dedication that may not be available to you when your literature review is due next week. Thankfully, there are other options available. First, get a diagnosis from someone who knows a lot about these things. Maybe you’re guilty of conjunctive adverb abuse because you’ve got them confused with subordinating conjunctions. Maybe you’ve never thought about restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. Half the battle is just knowing what to Google.

It may seem painful at first, but picture yourself at some point in the future when it pays off: your perfectly punctuated cover letter just got you your dream job. You didn’t have to hire an editor before you submitted your article for publication. You’ve met the girl of your dreams online; her profile said she only dated people who texted with correct punctuation, and she really meant it. Good punctuation matters to a lot of people, more than you might think, but at the end of the day it’s up to you how accurate you need your writing to be and how much you are prepared to invest in your writing practice. Like doing yoga or learning how to knit a sweater, it takes time and dedication to develop the skills and ability you need in order to have a practice you’re satisfied with. A good practice requires a good instructor that you trust, clear instructions, the ability to detect errors, the skills to be able to fix them, the confidence to take risks, and the humility to ask for help when you’re not sure what you’re doing. Who can you ask? The CAC. We’re here to help!

Gillian is an English as an Additional Language Specialist and Business English and Communications instructor at UVic, and has taught in Canada and South Korea. In her spare time she can be found reading about grammar and English language teaching and patting herself on the back for not pointing out every single writing error she encounters during her day.