Is Sentence Diagramming Helpful?

Marilyn vos Savant is reportedly the smartest person in the world – but she doesn’t know a lot about writing. In one of her columns she advocated studying grammar (especially diagramming sentences) in order to “express yourself clearly and well.”

Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But problems abound.

Not everyone agrees about what constitutes the rules of grammar. I’m careful to use possessives with gerundives, for example – but many professional writers don’t bother with that rule any more. The same goes for misplaced modifiers, indefinite pronoun references, and errors with parallel construction. Many professional writers occasionally sacrifice grammatical correctness in order to make a sentence sound more natural. (I do it myself.)

Marilyn vos Savant does make a good point about pronouns: “Misplacing even one pronoun can totally confuse a listener.” Yes! Yes! But you don’t have to spend hours diagramming sentences. What you need to do is a) learn how to recognize pronouns and b) make a habit of slowing down to double-check them.

Here are some pointers. Any writer can easily master these principles in far less time than it takes to learn how to @#$%&! diagram sentences.

1. Learn how to recognize common pronouns: he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them, this, that. These are the pronouns most likely to cause problems.

2. Double-check pronouns during the editing step. Pronouns are so common that we tend to skip over them.

3. Always follow this and that with a noun (a person, place, or thing). This handy rule automatically eliminates most indefinite pronoun reference errors. (I wish I could remember who taught me to do this. That person deserves canonization, in my opinion.)

Main Street was closed for an emergency this morning. That’s why I was late for work. INDEFINITE PRONOUN REFERENCE 

Main Street was closed for an emergency this morning. That problem caused me to be late for work.  CORRECT

You don’t have to be fussy about this rule in conversation and informal writing. But you should be careful any time you’re writing for publication.

4. Don’t use he/him if there are two males in a sentence. (The same principle applies to using she/her when there are two females.)

John and Sam spent Saturday morning getting his house ready for cold weather. [whose house?]  CONFUSING

John spent Saturday morning helping Sam get his house ready for cold weather.  BETTER

OR 

Sam spent Saturday morning helping John get his house ready for cold weather. BETTER

Bottom line: There’s a lot to learn about writing. Invest your time wisely!

Sentencediagram 2

 

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