Confessions of a Grammar Geek

Spent yesterday in a proofreading class. Ninety percent of the class was grammar—and I LOVED it!!!! We took a quiz at the beginning of the class to see our areas of weakness and I only got 55%! Now this was somewhat of a shock to someone who considers herself bright and articulate. As it turns out, my intuitive grasp of prepositional phrases is less than adequate. I did score 99% however on a quiz of misused words—phew!

The 2 things that stand out from yesterday were a nifty tool that can be found in Microsoft Word that measures the grade level of your writing, and the lesson on “trimming the fat.” (Notice the period inside the quote—us Canadians and Brits have a slightly different rule—but I am now all sorted out, thank you very much!)

The trimming the fat section was on how to pare down the verbose bits—going to need lots of practice on that one! The readability bit—determining your writing grade level—can be found under Tools/Spelling & Grammar/Options then select the Readability box. Quite interesting for all you fellow geeks out there—I know you’re there!

Anyhoo, had a great time and am also grateful for the timing of the class, as it will help me to prepare for the GRE next month (shudder, shudder). More to come on that, I'm sure.