04:59
Faizan
An aspiring writer who endeavors to tap out article after article without acknowledging the basic rules of grammar is destined to remain an aspiring writer for a very long time. Let's face it; writing is hard work and part of the effort involves reading, re-reading, and editing your content. Over time, this process will improve and speed will increase, but if you want to improve your writing muscles, you are going to have to put in a little training time to develop some strength. Always remember that every writer needs to have his or her work edited. Professionals and beginners are all capable of offensive grammar errors so it is important to remember this very important point - everyone, EVERYONE needs an editor.
"Editor?" you say. "I use spell check and it catches everything", you say. There are a multitude of words called Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs and Heteronyms that can trip you up. Here is how:
Homonyms and Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and these are the real troublemakers when it comes to spell check because they can sound the same but they can be SPELLED DIFFERENTLY so spell check will not detect the error. Examples include SEE and SEA, PAIR and PEAR
Homographs and Heteronyms are less of a problem for spell check issues. These words have the SAME SPELLING but different meanings. For example, you can TEAR a piece of paper, or a TEAR can roll down your cheek. Homographs sound the same but TEAR and TEAR are called Heteronyms because they also sound different. An example of a Homograph is:
You told a LIE
Vs.
Please LIE down.
Here are some stand-by general grammar rules you should try to adhere to for your SEO writing.
Rules Can Sometimes Be Broken
This is often repeated by me on my blog and in my books, but it is important that your reasons for breaking a rule have relevance to your writing. If it is done to stress a point or to convey information in a way that could not otherwise be accomplished, then go ahead and break a rule if you need to, but breaking rules out of ignorance should be avoided.
One argument in support of ignoring the rules of grammar is that people will generally read your materials and that they won't pay attention to your grammar or spelling mistakes. That may be true much of the time, but why take the risk? If you can polish your work so it shines, you readers will be less likely to have been distracted by errors that you can easily avoid, and your message will be conveyed to your target audience in the way that you intended.
The most common rule to be broken by writers is to begin a sentence with a conjunction. Many argue that this can enhance the flow of the writing for the reader, particularly when the conjunctions "and" or "but" are used to begin a sentence. One thing you should never do is END a sentence with a conjunction.
Repeating Words
The laborious task of writing can often result in laborious sounding content that often does not help your writing.
The sentence above repeats the word "laborious", "writing" and "often" twice each and sounds horrible. Avoid doing this whenever possible. When I started my freelance writing gigs, I would often get requests to stuff content with keywords and quite often, it was requested that the same keyword be used twice in a sentence. While I made the customer happy, the result was garbage.
Prepositions
The origin of this rule comes to English from its Latin roots. "Pre" means before, so "preposition" means, "Pre-position". By this usage, a preposition should always come before the subject and not after, and because of this rule; we have been chastised for ending a sentence in a preposition. An example of ending a sentence in a preposition follows:
"Editor?" you say. "I use spell check and it catches everything", you say. There are a multitude of words called Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs and Heteronyms that can trip you up. Here is how:
Homonyms and Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and these are the real troublemakers when it comes to spell check because they can sound the same but they can be SPELLED DIFFERENTLY so spell check will not detect the error. Examples include SEE and SEA, PAIR and PEAR
Homographs and Heteronyms are less of a problem for spell check issues. These words have the SAME SPELLING but different meanings. For example, you can TEAR a piece of paper, or a TEAR can roll down your cheek. Homographs sound the same but TEAR and TEAR are called Heteronyms because they also sound different. An example of a Homograph is:
You told a LIE
Vs.
Please LIE down.
Here are some stand-by general grammar rules you should try to adhere to for your SEO writing.
Rules Can Sometimes Be Broken
This is often repeated by me on my blog and in my books, but it is important that your reasons for breaking a rule have relevance to your writing. If it is done to stress a point or to convey information in a way that could not otherwise be accomplished, then go ahead and break a rule if you need to, but breaking rules out of ignorance should be avoided.
One argument in support of ignoring the rules of grammar is that people will generally read your materials and that they won't pay attention to your grammar or spelling mistakes. That may be true much of the time, but why take the risk? If you can polish your work so it shines, you readers will be less likely to have been distracted by errors that you can easily avoid, and your message will be conveyed to your target audience in the way that you intended.
The most common rule to be broken by writers is to begin a sentence with a conjunction. Many argue that this can enhance the flow of the writing for the reader, particularly when the conjunctions "and" or "but" are used to begin a sentence. One thing you should never do is END a sentence with a conjunction.
Repeating Words
The laborious task of writing can often result in laborious sounding content that often does not help your writing.
The sentence above repeats the word "laborious", "writing" and "often" twice each and sounds horrible. Avoid doing this whenever possible. When I started my freelance writing gigs, I would often get requests to stuff content with keywords and quite often, it was requested that the same keyword be used twice in a sentence. While I made the customer happy, the result was garbage.
Prepositions
The origin of this rule comes to English from its Latin roots. "Pre" means before, so "preposition" means, "Pre-position". By this usage, a preposition should always come before the subject and not after, and because of this rule; we have been chastised for ending a sentence in a preposition. An example of ending a sentence in a preposition follows:
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