Welcome to Part II in our grammar series. This installment will teach you about proper sentence structure, quotation marks, and how to properly use commas. Stick around and learn a little!

4. What's in a Sentence?
The most basic sentence you can build will need only one word: a verb. For example, "Go!" could be considered a complete sentence, because it doesn't need any additional words to make a statement. However, when writing a blog you're going to need many additional words to get your point across, so I'll give you the basic rundown of the sentence parts and which you need. First, you need a verb. No sentence is complete without one. A verb is an action word, like run, write, blog, go, stop or whine. Next you will probably want a noun. A noun is a person, place or thing. If you're not sure if something is a noun, just ask yourself if it is a person, place or a thing. Dog, house, James, and peanut are all nouns. He, she and it are pronouns, which can be used in place of the noun when you have a sentence like this: "She runs fast!". Now on to adjectives. Adjectives are descriptions of nouns. In the sentence "The blue car was totalled," blue is the adjective. Finally, we have adverbs. Adverbs describe the verb. So an adverb would be "fast" in the sentence, "She runs fast." The following are two sentences, one is complete and the other is not. I'm not telling which is which. You figure it out.

"Last week admitted that the market is experiencing difficulties."

"Prices of fuel and food inflation increased to 5%."

Don't forget to pay attention when you write your blog. I sure wouldn't want to hire someone that can't write a complete sentence, especially considering that person would be writing descriptions of my house to be used in online and print marketing!


5. Quizzical About Quotes?
Aren't we all? Quotes are pretty easy, if you can remember the rules. But if you can't, then just come back here for a reminder.
1. Punctuation goes inside the quotes only if it applies to the quote itself, or if it ends a sentence.
Sophie said, "I know!" Sophie asked, "Do you like my dress?" Did Sophie say, "Eat your peas"?
2. When using a quote at the beginning or the middle of a sentence, it needs to end with a comma.
"Here's your package," said the UPS man.
3. When quoting a quote, use the double quotes first and the single quotes inside of those.
"She said, 'I have an idea!'" repeated Mary.
4. When you quote numerous paragraphs of text, only the last paragraph gets end quotes, but all the paragraphs get beginning quotes.
"Paragraph one.....
"Paragraph two.....
"Paragraph three....."
For additional rules about quotes, check here.

6. Crazy Comma Conundrums
Commas can be a source of great confusion. The most basic rule for commas that I can give you is this one: use a comma if you need to separate things, or if there should be a pause in a sentence. Of course, you also use commas when listing things, in dates, and in quotes.

Here are some good examples of comma usage:
I'd like to eat steak, crab cakes, or pasta for dinner. I would not like chicken, pork, or fish.
Her daughter was born on March 8, 2008, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Unfortunately, I will not be attending Inman this year.
Your ultimate goal, to sell a house, won't come true unless you market yourself properly.
I love my dogs, but they certainly annoy me.

Here are some examples lacking commas:
I want to go to the beach home to change and then the restaurant.
Obviously your plan won't be successful.
I want to date a soccer player not an attorney.
Helen you can't go to the movies!

For more on commas, check out this site.


Come back next week for part III of this series, and lots of other great stuff that is sure to come!

Labels: Blog Mistakes, Grammar Errors, Real Estate Blog

I recently saw this blog post, which I found to be hysterically funny, over at Agent Genius. Go read it, it will make your day. It made me realize how often I see mistakes in other blogs, as well as in emails and other types of online communication. I think that typing makes people less worried about misspellings, incorrect word usage, and improper punctuation than if they were writing by hand. You know, like we all did back in the day... "which was a Wednesday, by the way," according to Dane Cook.

Anyway, here are the first three tips in a series of three. In case your math is worse than your grammar, that's nine tips total.

1. Don't Space Out Over Spaces

All sentences and paragraphs need spaces, and you should probably use them properly to avoid irritating your readers. One thing that I see frequently that annoys me is spacing that changes throughout a document. For example, I have seen documents where the writer uses double spaces after each period until about halfway through, and then switches to using a single space after each period. That annoys me, and I can't imagine that I'm alone on this one. So here are the rules for spacing.

• Each word gets one space after it.
• Sentences can have either one or two spaces after the period, as long as you are consistent. The rule used to be that you needed two spaces but it has since changed. I think either is acceptable. Personally, I do two spaces because that's what I'm used to.
• Colons get two spaces after them, like a period.
• Commas, apostrophes, quotations and all other punctuation get one space after them.

For more on spaces, check here.

2. Spell Check is Your Best Asset

I know you thought it was your amazing ability to balance a spoon on your nose, and while that might impress the ladies (depending on who you're dating!), it certainly won't help you look like the polished, educated, professional real estate blogger you are. When your blog or email or, yes, even your property listing, is littered with misspelled words, it makes you look careless and rushed, and possibly even less intelligent. Just to clarify, even one misspelled word can cause that impression. That's why I so highly recommend spell check. I know for a fact that Outlook and Word contain spellchecks, and so do the most popular blogging platforms. So there really is no excuse. Which brings me to my next tip...

3. The Importance of Proof-Reading

As we all know, spell check is not fool proof. Sometimes you can accidentally allow it to replace a misspelled word with a word that doesn't make sense, you can accidentally type a word correctly correctly twice, or you can leave out a word altogether and that can cause a lot of confusion. I always reread everything I type after I run spell check, just in case. Also, if it doesn't make sense written down, read it out loud. Yes, the person in the cube next to you may think you're temporarily insane, but at least the recipient of your letter (or your blog readers) will have a good impression of you!


If you're looking for spelling errors, you won't find any. But have fun looking anyway. Who knows, you might find something else that's wrong *wink, wink*. Check back next week for more of these cool tips, and let me know if there's one in particular that you want to know more about.

Labels: Blog Mistakes, Grammar Errors, Real Estate Blog