Beowulf Skills and Principles

Day 1

Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adjectives

Comparative Form and Superlative Form (-

er

/-

est

) one-syllable adjectives two-syllable adjectives ending in

-y

or

-er

Comparative Form and Superlative Form (

more/most

) adjectives of three or more syllables (and two-syllable adjectives

not

ending in

-y/-er

) Do not double up (use both the

-er/-est

form with

more

or

most

)

Titles of Book-length Works

The titles of books or book-length works (such as novels, epic poems or full length plays) are italicized if word processed or underlined if written by hand.

Relative Pronouns

When referring to people, use

who

,

whom

or

whose

. Use

who

to refer to people

who

are subjects of sentences and phrases,

whom

to refer to people who are objects of sentences and phrases and

whos

e to refer to people who are possessing something.

When referring to things, use

which

(preceded by a comma) in clauses that are not important to the main meaning of the sentence. Never use

which

to refer to people because this implies that the person is an object rather than a human being. When referring to things, use

that

(not preceded by a comma) to refer to things in clauses that are important to the main meaning of the sentence.

Use of a Colon before a List

Day 2 One use of a colon is to introduce a list. Make sure not to use a colon directly after a preposition or a verb. If you wish to use a colon, add the words

the following

after the verb or preposition.

Coordinate Adjectives

If two adjectives modify a noun

in the same way

, place a comma between the two adjectives. These are called

coordinate adjectives.

There is a two-part test for coordinate adjectives: meaning? (1) Can you replace the comma with the word

and

? (2) Can you reverse the order of the adjectives and keep the same If you can do both, then you have coordinate adjectives. Coordinate adjectives require that you place a comma between them when they appear in a series.

Pronoun Case: Subject of a Sentence

When the pronoun is the subject of a sentence, use the subjective (nominative) case:

I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they

.

Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adjectives

Comparative Form and Superlative Form (-er/-est) one-syllable adjectives two-syllable adjectives ending in

-y

or

-er

Comparative Form and Superlative Form (more/most) adjectives of three or more syllables (and two-syllable adjectives

not

ending in

-y/-er

) Do not double up (use both the

-er/-est

form with

more

or

most

)

Day 3

Commonly Confused Words: Past versus Passed

Past

is either a noun that refers to a time period or a preposition modifying where something is located.

Passed

is the past tense of the verb

to pass

, meaning

to move beyond something

.

In order to stop genocide, the scientists decided to go into the past with their time machine.

I walked past the store that sold instruments of torture.

I passed the store that sold instruments of torture.

Subordinating Conjunction: So That

A subordinating conjuntion connects two parts of a sentence where the clause that follows is subordinate (requires the main clause to make sense) to the main clause of the sentence. When used as a subordinating conjunction,

so

should be

so that

.

Sally hid the glue gun so that her brother would not glue his fingers together again.

Compound Sentence

A compound sentence is a sentence comprised of two complete independent clauses joined with a comma and a coordinating conjunction.

Use of a Specific Noun to Replace Thing

The word

thing

is vague to the point that it doesn't really add information to a sentence. Rather than use

thing

, figure out the specific noun that

thing

refers to and use it instead.

Day 4

Absolute Phrase

An absolute phrase is a phrase made of a noun/pronoun and a participle (with any related modifiers). They are not a clause because they do not have a true verb. Absolute phrases modify the whole sentence. They are set off from the rest of the sentence with commas or dashes.

Non-restrictive Phrases and Clauses

This means that the phrase or clause does not add important information to the sentence. The sentence would retain its main meaning if the clause or phrase were removed. Put commas before (and after if needed) non-restrictive clauses.

Commonly Confused Words: Lay versus Lie

lie, lying (to tell a falsehood) I lie all the time.

I lied to my mother. (past) I have lied under oath. lie, lying (to recline) I lie down at three o'clock every day.

I lay on the bed because I was tired. (past) He has lain in the grass.

lay, laying (to put, place) I lay the murder weapon in the drawer after using it.

I laid the baby in her cradle. We have laid the dishes on the table.

Participles

A participle is a word created from a verb that is used as an adjective.

There are two types of participles--the present participle that end in -ing and past participles that end in

-ed, -en, -d, -t

or

-n

.

Present participle

singing

as in "the singing nun"

walking

as in "the walking dude"

Past participle

squandered

as in "the squandered money" eaten as in "the eaten soup"

Participial Phrase

A participial phrase is a phrase made up from a participle plus modifier(s)/nouns/pronoun(s)/or noun phrase(s). It needs to be near whatever it is modifying.

Irregular Verbs -ought Ending

Some verbs have

-ought

as their past and past participle ending. The following are some of the verbs that follow this pattern: bring buy catch fight seek teach think brought bought caught (

-aught

) fought sought taught (

-aught

) thought

Periods with Initials

Day 5 When using initials, put a period after each letter.

Capitalization of Words in Titles

Main words of all titles are capitalized. Capitalize the following: the first word, the last word, the first word after a colon indicating a subtitle, and the word after a hyphen in a compound word. Do

not

capitalize the following: articles (

a, an, the

) , prepositions (

before, of, between, under,through,

etcetera) , conjunctions (

and ,but, for,

etcetera) , and the capitalize

run

and

eat

).

to

in an infinitive (

to run

,

to eat--

you would If the author of a work has used capital letters or used lower case letters for something that one would not normally use them, retain his or her format.

Hyphen in Suffix -like

When using the suffix -

like

, put a hyphen between the root word and

-like

.

Plurals of Nouns Ending in -o

The plurals of words ending in -

o

are formed by either adding -s or by adding -es. The plurals of many words can be formed

either

way. To determine whether a particular word ends in -s or -es (or if the word can be spelled either way), check your dictionary or the list below. There are two helpful rules: a. All words that end in a vowel plus

-o

(-ao, -eo, -io, -oo, -uo) have plurals that end in just -s: stereo--stereos; studio--studios; duo--duos b. All musical terms ending in

-o

have plurals ending in just -s.

piano--pianos; cello--cellos; solo--solos For the rest, you have to learn the plural forms of words ending in

-o

:

-os -oes os or oes

albinos armadillos autos bravos broncos cantos casinos sombreros combos advocatoes/os gazebos buffaloes/os infernos hoboes/os kimonos innuendoes/os logos desperadoes/os marachinos peccadilloes/os ponchos mangoes/os tacos lassoes/os dodoes/os tornadoes/os ghettoes/os cargoes/os embargoes palmettoes/os torpedoes echoes heroes potatoes tomatoes vetoes mulattoes/os