As my post on mechanics emphasizes, learning the parts of speech is crucial to understanding how to correctly revise your writing.  Most of you have heard each name of each part of speech.  The problem often arises when you are asked to identify certain parts of speech and how they function within a sentence.

Verbs denote actions, occurrences, or states of being.

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns.

Adverbs modify any other part of language except nouns.

Prepositions introduce prepositional phrases, thus indicating a relation between things in the sentence.

Conjunctions connect words, phrases, or clauses.

Interjections are used to express strong feelings or emotions.

Take a look at the following scenario which demonstrates the advantage of being able to identify parts of speech and their functions within a sentence.

After I became ill, my mother took me to the hospital.  They placed me in a room and began an IV.

In this sentence, the pronoun, "they" is ambiguous.  A pronoun takes the place of a noun or another pronoun.  Can you identify a noun or a pronoun that "they" is replacing in this sentence?  No, because "they" is not replacing a noun or a pronoun, so its use here is incorrect.  "They" should be replaced with "The doctor" or "The nurse."

To change the oil in a car, you need to know where the oil pan is located.  To change the spark-plugs in a car, you must know where the spark-plugs plugs are located and what they look like as well.  You get the picture.  A mechanic must know the parts of the car before he or she can correctly service the vehicle or address problems that prevent the vehicle from functioning properly.

In writing, a writer must be able to identify the parts of a sentence in order to address problems that prevent the sentence from functioning properly.  Just as the mechanic would be foolish to try to work on a vehicle without knowing the parts and their locations, a writer would be just as foolish to try to revise sentences without knowing the parts and their locations.

Think of the various components of a vehicle as the parts of speech in writing.  All the parts of a vehicle work together to keep the vehicle functioning properly just as the parts of speech in writing work together to keep the writing functioning properly.  Certain components of the vehicle keep it moving along, stopping and starting in the right places, and pausing whenever necessary; punctuation does the same for writing.

To appraise the analogy, learning the parts of speech, the grammar rules, and punctuation rules are vitally important to becoming good writers.  The entity is known as the mechanics of writing.

Learning to identify coordinating conjunctions is essential to correctly using commas with these types of conjunctions. Another critical ingredient for successfully using commas with coordinating conjunctions is being able to identify independent clauses [complete sentences].

Coordinating Conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions are easy to learn because only seven of them exist, and they are affectionately referred to as the FANBOYS.

• For
• And
• Nor
• But
• Or
• Yet
• So

Independent Clauses
An independent clause is a clause that

• can stand alone.
• contains a subject and a predicate.
• makes sense by itself.