SOAR Chapter 15

When people encounter a language question or challenge in the real world, they:

• Ask the teacher.

• Use reference tools.

• Ignore it, because the importance of grammar is lessening over time.

• Avoid written communication.

When you have mastered the top 20% of the most common language errors, you've...

• Mastered 80% of the problems you're likely to encounter.

• Only learned a small fraction of what you need to know to be successful in life.

• Mastered the "Auckley Complex Standard."

• Actually learned 80% of all language errors.

In the professional world, poor capitalization, punctuation, and/or spelling send the message that you don't pay attention to details. Follow all of these rules with your writing, EXCEPT:

• Always reread emails and use spell-check and grammar-check.

• Master the "Most Common Language Errors"

• Use oral communication as much as possible to minimize the chance of a mistake.

• Always have 1 or 2 other people read important reports, documents, or articles before you submit or publish them.

The skill of knowing your "syntax" means:

• Knowing how to adjust your language to different settings and environments.

• You are a strong reader.

• You've mastered nearly all of the grammar rules of the English language.

• You find people come to you for proofreading.

What does it mean to "use context clues" to understand the meaning of a word?

• Use the other words in the sentence to determine the meaning of the word.

• Incorporate software to analyze the meaning of the word.

• Ask other people the right questions to get to the meaning of the word.

• Search contextclues.com for the meaning of the word.

When you come to a word you don't know, you can do all of the following, EXCEPT:

• Make up your own meaning.

• Take the word apart.

• Look up the meaning of the word.

• Use context clues.

A "figure of speech" is...

• a model to help describe the meaning of a word.

• a group of words that do not mean what they literally represent.

• a person with strong speaking skills.

• the numerical equivalent of a word.

Why should you always have other people read important documents, emails, or articles before you submit or publish them?

• It gives people around you an opportunity to see your writing talents.

• It reduces the risk of duplicate communications within an organization.

• Having other people read your work promotes the sharing of new ideas.

• We can't trust our eyes to catch all of our errors.

How can you build your language skills with ease?

• Read the dictionary from cover-to-cover.

• Regularly study a thesaurus.

• Play popular brain games designed to build language skills.

• Study classic literature.

If you don't know a word, you can try to "take it apart" to figure out its meaning. All of the following are examples of parts of a word, EXCEPT:

• root

• prefix

• synonym

• suffix