Basics of proper grammar
Let beginning writers skip grammar jargon

Just four concepts are all the proper grammar students need as a foundation for writing. The four essential concepts are:

• The concept of sentence, which implies the opposite concept of a nonsentence.

• Subject

• Verb

• Modifier

  Subjects, verbs, and modifiers are each fragments of sentences and thus are nonsentences.

English language and linguistics expert Rei I. Noguchi says knowing just these four concepts is all writers need to correct most of the errors in grammar and punctuation that crop up regularly in student writing.

Cramming students with proper grammar before you teach them to write may make it harder for them to learn to write. The more they study grammar before you start real writing instruction, the more students come to believe writing is all about grammar.

Replace terms with categories

Essentially, Noguchi replaces dozens of grammatical terms with a few grammatical categories. Students learn a few basic rules that are broad enough to comprise a whole series of specific rules.

A few of the simpler examples from his text will give the flavor of how his minimalist grammar works.

Example 1

The most frequent error found in the 1988 Connors-Lunsford research on the top errors in student writing, is the missing comma after an introductory element. The rule is "a modifier preceding the independent clause should be set off by a comma."

In Noguchi's simplified grammar, the rule becomes, "If a fragment occurs before a sentence, it is set off from the sentence by a comma."

Example 2

Two errors on the Connors-Lunsford list involve failure to distinguish between a restrictive and a nonrestrictive element. If the element is restrictive it is not set off by commas. If it is nonrestrictive, it is set off by commas.

Using Noguchi's minimal grammar for writing, the rule would read something like this:

1) If a fragment immediately follows the person, place, or thing it describes, and 2) if the fragment may be deleted without changing the essential meaning of the sentence, then you should place commas before and after the fragment.

Example 3

Most grammar texts say to separate the independent clauses in a compound sentence by a comma.

That could be simplified using Noguchi's terminology to this:

When two sentences are joined by and, but or or, put a comma between the two sentences.

More about Noguchi's studies

Noguchi discusses concepts that are foundational to proper grammar (and much more) in his 1991 book Grammar and the Teaching of Writing: Limits and Possibilities published by the National Council of Teachers of English. You can search for a copy in a library near you using the WorldCat search box above in the right hand column.