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Writing Tip #1

There is a BIG difference between “your” and “you’re.” “Your” is possessive, which means it pretty much always comes before a noun (i.e. “your face”). “You’re” is the contraction of “you” and “are,” so it is just a short, familiar way of saying “you are.”

Examples:

CORRECT: Sally, your fake eyelashes looked really awesome at the party.

INCORRECT: Sally, your a really fun person to bring to a party.

CORRECT: Fido, you’re such an annoying dog.

INCORRECT: You’re dog barks a lot.

A lot of people confuse these two words, so be sure that you aren’t one of them.


Posted Mar 16 2007 by Amanda | Filed under Writing Tips

2 Comments | Permalink




2 Responses to “Writing Tip #1”

  1. Amanda Says:
    March 17th, 2007 at 12:02 am

    If anyone has some interesting examples, post them here. They can be funny or serious, academic or ridiculous. Just no profanity or lewd material, OK?
    Sound off, people.

  2. Kim Says:
    April 2nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm

    Hi Amanda. I think this site is awesome. :) Good luck.

    Examples? Okay, sure!

    Hmm. The following examples are taken from “Guide to Common Writing Errors.” I think it’s important to know.

    1 - Misspellings: “reoccur” and “reoccurence” should be “recur” and “recurrence.”

    2 - Dangling participle: certain phrases with participles (the ‘ing’ form of verbs) must be closely connected to what they modify; when they don’t, they are said to be dangling.

    Incorrect: Running out of the house, the policeman shot the burglar.”
    Correct: Running out of the house, the burglar was shot by the policeman.

    In this instance, the first way was incorrect because we can’t be sure who was running because we would assume it was the burglar but the participle is close to the policeman.

    A better way to explain this is, if you take everything after the comma and put it in the front of the sentence and it makes sense to what you are saying, then you are right. If it doesn’t, then you are wrong.

    :)

    Okay, good night! :) Good job Amanda. Keep it up. I think what you are doing is cool.

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