88thth Grade Grammar Review Grade Grammar Review

Mechanics

MechanicsMechanicsCapital rules• First word in a sentence• First word in dialogue (inside quotes)• Proper nouns & adjectives• Title of people & things (except prepositions and conjunctions)

Abbreviations• Always use all caps and periods (where necessary)

– Titles of people, time and historical dates, geographical names, measurements

Punctuation• End marks

– Period– Exclamation point– Question mark

(All end marks are placed INSIDE of quotations; quotes finish off)• Connectors

– Commas used with conjunctions– Semicolons (NEVER use a conjunction with a semicolon)

• Others– Commas– Colon– Quotation marks– Hyphen– Apostrophe

CapitalsCapitals• First word in a sentence

– Ex: There were many flavors of ice cream. I like them all.• First word in dialogue (inside quotation marks)

– Ex: Jim shouted, “What did you say?”• All proper nouns & adjectives

– Ex: CeCe and Jim went to the Science Center of Iowa. (CeCe and Jim are people; SCI is a place)

• Title of people & things (except prepositions); only capitalize titles in direct address (except government officials; they are always capitalized)– Ex: Mr. Swensen was *president of the American Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). (Mr. is title, Swensen is proper noun, ASPCA are all the non-preposition or conjunction words) *president is his position in this case, not his title

– Uncle Harold and Aunt Mary live in Arizona. She is my *aunt. (Uncle Harold and Aunt Mary are directly addressed; titles after possessive pronouns are NEVER capitalized

AbbreviationsAbbreviations

Always use all caps and periods (where necessary)• Titles of people

– Ex: Mrs. Mr. Ms. Dr. Fr. Bro. Sr. Mme. • Time and historical dates

– Ex: A.M./a.m. P.M./p.m. B.C.E. A.D.• Geographical names

– Ex: (mailing addresses) Ave. Rd. St. P.O. Box– Ex: (states/districts) Ia. / IA D.C. B.C.– Ex: (countries) U.S.A.

• Measurements (must be with number in order to use the abbreviation)– Ex: in. (inches) yd. (yards) c. (cups) gal. (gallon)* METRIC measurements use NO PERIODS

• L (liters) C (Celsius) kg (kilograms) m (meters) cm (centimeters)

PunctuationPunctuationEnd marks• Complete a statement; exclamation point may end a non-sentence

as well (interjection) & question mark is ONLY used to answer questions.– Period

• Ex: Our dog is Moose. “Yes,” she said, “we want that one.” – Exclamation point

• Ex: You did not! “Holy Cats!” – Question mark

• Ex: “Are you sure?” he asked. Where are we?* All end marks are placed INSIDE of quotations; end quotes are ALWAYS last

Connectors• Commas used with conjunctions

– Ex: Marcie was right, but she didn’t rub it in.• Semicolons (NEVER use a conjunction with a semicolon)

– Ex: Kaylee’s favorite subject is math; Jake’s is history.– Ex: We carried in all our food; there are not supply stops out on the trail.* Use of a semicolon shows higher writing skills; this is looked for in

testing

PunctuationPunctuationOthers - comma• Commas in a listing:

– Ex. Kelly, Josh, and Hank went on the trip.• Appositives (non-essential information about the subject

or object; separated for clarity)– Ex: Tony, our best player, had just fouled out.

• Dates and places• Ex: January 31, 2009 Des Moines, IAOthers – colon• Used to set off lists

– Ex: I still need to pack: clothes, books, and my laptop.• End a salutation in business letters

– Ex: Dear sir:• Writing time

– Ex: We have practice from 4:30 – 6:00 tonight.

PunctuationPunctuation

Others – quotation marks• Always in direct quotes; should be first and last items written around

spoken words. – Ex: “We did it!” they hollered.

• Split quotes should end first item with a comma and the last item with an end mark– Ex: “Nate,” she called, “Could you let the dog out before you

leave?”• In references: short stories, articles, episode of TV show, title of

song, chapter of book, visual aid.– Ex: I enjoyed “Shame” in Boom! By Tom Brokaw. (“Shame” is

title of chapter; Boom! is title of book)

Underlined in references: title of book, title of play, name of TV show, name of journal / magazine, title of website.– Ex: I used Education Today, TIME, and The Greatest

Generation and History.com as references in my research paper.

PunctuationPunctuationOthers – hyphen• Within written numbers / fractions

– Ex: seventy-five three-fifths• Compound nouns

– Ex: great-grandmother sister-in-law• Dividing words in writing: split on the syllable

– Ex: We are in mid-dle school* With formal writing, DO NOT use hyphens in place of commas• Others – apostrophe• Possessives all end in “ ‘s” (EXCEPT its); if the word ends in “s”,

you only need to add an apostrophe after that “s”– Ex: Colleen’s book boys’ shoes Kris’ sled its side

• Contractions: apostrophe shows where letters were removed to combine words– Ex: They’re going to town. It’s my party. I’ll take that bet.

• Pluralizing letters, numbers, and symbols– Ex: You need to roll your r’s in Spanish.