Grammar Basics Guidebook and Parallelism

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the basic parts of speech, common comma rules, and principles of simple parallelism.

Noun

A word that is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea (e.g., John, apple, printer, democracy, honesty, Ontario).

Pronoun

A word that substitutes for a noun, typically one that was stated earlier in the same sentence or in the previous sentence.

Verb

A word that expresses an action or a state of being (e.g., ran, am, throws).

Adjective

A word that modifies a noun or pronoun by describing or qualifying it, typically found before the word it modifies.

Adverb

A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or an entire clause, often formed by adding "ly" to an adjective.

Preposition

A word that links a noun or pronoun to another word, typically being a small word that indicates time and space relationships.

Conjunction

A word that connects words, phrases, and clauses.

FANBOYS

An acronym used to remember the coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Conjunctions that connect clauses, including words such as while, if, and although.

Interjection

A word that usually expresses emotion, sometimes stands alone, and is often punctuated with an exclamation point (e.g., Wow!, Oh).

Article

A word that helps to define a noun, divided into indefinite articles ("a", "an") and the definite article ("the").

Comma Rule for Lists

The punctuation rule requiring the use of commas between items in a list.

Comma Rule for Coordinating Conjunctions

The punctuation rule requiring a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) that joins two independent clauses.

Parallelism

A writing technique where two or more items or characteristics in a series are written in the same grammatical form to achieve flow, rhythm, and equal weight of ideas.

Characteristics of Parallel Series

The three rules of simple parallelism: all items must be in the same grammatical form (all words, phrases, or clauses), function the same way (all actions, things/concepts, or modifiers), and conjugate verbs in the same fashion if present.