Course Outcomes

This English grammar course will:

  • Explain the essential rules of English grammar workplace writers must understand to communicate accurately.
  • Explore different kinds of sentences and the use of each.
  • Highlight common grammatical errors and suggest tips for avoiding them.

 Course Overview

If you have ever admired a beautifully landscaped yard or bountiful vegetable plot, what you appreciated was the end result of careful planning and planting, strategic weeding and pruning, knowledge of the right amount of water and sunlight, and patience. Accurate writing is not unlike successful gardening; both require thought and application of rules that net positive results.

While Business Training Works’ other writing courses focus on the process of composition, this program reviews English grammar. Through a series of interactive exercises, the course explores rules that govern how words should be chosen, arranged, and punctuated to best convey a writer’s ideas to an audience of readers. It is designed for those who may have forgotten or never fully understood the principles of grammar.

Although knowing these rules is no guarantee someone will become a brilliant writer, such knowledge will certainly lead to error-free writing on a sentence level. Those who struggle with knowing which word form to use, which punctuation mark to insert, or which kind of sentence might provide structural variety will find this program immediately rewarding.

For a comprehensive day of English review, this program may be combined with Business Training Works’ punctuation course.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Identify the parts of speech in the English language.
  • Locate specific parts of speech in sample sentences and in self-generated sentences.
  • Know the difference between parts of speech and parts of a sentence.
  • Demonstrate variety by crafting each of the four kinds of sentences that are considered grammatically correct in English.
  • Locate and also create phrases and clauses within a sentence.
  • Recognize each of four sentence functions (declare, ask, demand, exclaim) and choose the appropriate end mark to use in each instance.
  • Understand and avoid the mistakes that lead to grammatically incorrect or incomplete sentences (fragments, comma splices, run-ons).
  • Know how to avoid misplaced or dangling modifiers.
  • Explain the math of subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.
  • Recognize and correct shifts in tense, person, tone, and so forth.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of how to create parallel structure in a sentence.
  • Identify the most frequently needed punctuation marks required for grammatically correct sentences that make the writer’s intention clear to the reader.
  • Understand and avoid the most common mistakes in English usage by careful proofreading.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of participant materials prior to the session(s).

Workshop Outline

Prepping for Planting: Know the Resources

Before presenting ideas in writing to others, it’s necessary to think, plan, and amass what you’ll need to make yourself understood. In the initial segment of this workshop, we will dig into the “tool bag” of information writers must have in order to construct grammatically correct sentences. Our discussion will include a review of both the parts of speech and the parts of a sentence. Participants will see samples of other writers’ texts before generating their own sentences to reinforce their understanding of these two broad terms.

Assemble the Necessary Tools: Consider What’s Best for Each Task

Following the discussion of how words function by themselves and when combined with others to form sentences, we will examine four kinds of grammatically correct sentences that crop up in writing (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex). Some are rows of words that yield one single thought. Others begin on one path and suddenly direct the reader toward a mixed bed of ideas. Participants will learn the benefit of knowing how to write each type of sentence and how to correctly incorporate phrases and clauses in those sentences for the purpose of maintaining their readers’ interest.

Plant with a Purpose: Know the Effect You Want to Create

Beyond knowing sentence structure options, participants must also understand the connection between what words mean and how their placement and punctuation in a sentence can be multi-functional. Depending in part on how a sentence ends, writers indicate whether they are making a statement, asking a question, giving an order, or expressing intense emotion.

Get Rid of Those Weeds: Stop Common Grammar Problems Before They Multiply

With an understanding of what should be done to construct grammatically correct sentences, participants will examine some of the most frequent mistakes writers make. We will consider such problems as sentence fragments and run-ons, misplaced modifiers, and a lack of parallel structure for the purpose of knowing what these are and how to avoid them.

Stake Your Ideas: Use Punctuation for Support

In addition to knowing how combined words serve to convey a writer’s thoughts, it’s also necessary for participants to understand the importance of punctuation marks. Without them, readers can’t “hear” the writer’s voice or know whether to take a breath or stop reading completely. When used accurately, punctuation marks clarify the writer’s intent.

Harvest the Rewards: Proofreading Tips for High-Yield Benefits

The final segment of this program will be spent on identifying and knowing how to correct the most common English usage mistakes writers make. Such errors are frequently caught when writers take the time to distance themselves from what they have written before they proofread.

At the end of this active session, participants should have a better understanding of the rules of grammar and how they apply to the field of writing.