Response Blog 3

Summary:
     In the book "English Grammar and Usage," by Lester and Beason, the authors give advices about how to write correctly. One of them is called "Agreement with Lost Subjects." It refers on how to find the subject- verb agreement when the sentence is too long or complicated. This situation makes that the subject get lost and that the verb incorrectly relates to another word than the subject. They suggest that to avoid errors , you have "to write like third graders with short subject noun phrases" in order to understand what is the sentence about, and then you can expand the phrase.


Response.
     When I read this part of the book, I realized that when I write I do this error, and when I read I have problems to find the the subject and the agreement with the verb . One strategy that I use to do is to cross off as many prepositional phrases in the sentence. Thus I remove all unnecessary words and I just stay with the most important: the subject and the verb. So I realize if a subject-verb agreement exists.