It's sad but true. There is no magic wand (or computer program) that will ensure that your written grammar is correct every time. Unless you have a basic understanding of the rules, you CAN be led astray by the tools developed to help you.
My Word program automatically tells me (or corrects automatically) when I write something like "teh," and it alerts me when it thinks I've made an error in grammar. Sometimes it's right – most times it's wrong. In fact, some of the "suggestions" are downright funny.
More help - perhaps
Last week I read about a program called "Grammarly" and installed it on my computer to help catch the mistakes I make on Active Rain and Wordpress. But again – sometimes it's wrong.
This morning it told me to insert a comma in the middle of a sentence where no comma belonged. Yesterday it couldn't understand the term "community pages" and did its best to turn "community" to "communities" and (among other things) make me use a singular verb where a plural belonged. Had I not KNOWN that it was wrong, I'd have ended up with a confusing mess.
So if you're still struggling with grammar what's the cure?
Keep reading. Keep studying. Pay attention when other bloggers write about the grammar errors they see here in the Rain. When you see yourself in their posts, make notes or copy and print their advice.
Create "cheat sheets" for yourself and make up tricks to help you remember.
For instance, if you're still confusing "there" and "their" remind yourself that "there" is a place, and so is "here." And speaking of "here," if you confuse it with "hear," remember that you hear with your ear.
Now if I could just convince people stop writing "advise" when they mean "advice." That one, for me, is like fingernails on the blackboard. (Do schools still use blackboards?) If that one confuses you, try the trick in this post.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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