The lesson plan for eighth-grade school teachers called for the teachers to help their students understand names stemming from their ethnic origins. In this particular class period, one of the teachers was concentrating on the term “African-American.”

After she explained to the class what it means to be an African-American, a fair-skinned girl in the class with long blond hair by the name of Angelina said, “I am African-American.”

The teacher was somewhat taken aback by a white girl with blond hair thinking she was African- America, especially after she (the teacher) had just explained what it means to be African-American.? She gathered her wits and replied, “I don’t think so, Angelina. What makes you think that?”? Read more…

Do you know someone who is working on essays for college applications?perhaps a member of your family?? Or you may know a young man or woman who is completing applications for that first full-time job after graduating from college.? Or how about that man or woman who is being considered for a promotion, or the seasoned business executive who is responsible for preparing executive summaries? ??In some of these situations correct grammar is an absolute necessity; in others using correct written grammar will definitely give you a leg up.

In my book, The Big Ten of Grammar, I deal with what, through research, I believe are the ten most frequent grammatical errors that people make on a pretty regular basis.? Without question, the most common grammatical error many of us make when writing is getting mixed up with whether commas and periods go before or after quotation marks.

There are three basic rules you need to remember when using quotation marks with other forms of punctuation.? There are absolutely no exceptions to these three rules in American English. Read more…