Online English Grammar Resources Needed

September 20, 2014 12:15 PM

I am looking for three things here: 1) Some kind of drill, preferably in game format but anything good will do 2) tools to run my writing through to catch my errors and 3) generic reference materials. Online resources are strongly preferred, in part because I get sick when I handle books and papers too much.

I had an awesome 7th grade grammar teacher and I was in AP English in high school, so I think I have a pretty good grounding overall, but I seem to have kind of gotten lax in the years since then. On the other hand, I also grew up in a bilingual home and seem to write in Germish (German-English hybrid) much of the time.

I did a google search yesterday and came up with some online games aimed at kids. I am willing to play kids' games, though the one I ended up playing -- Comma Chameleon -- annoyed me seems is pretty limited. So if you have any recommendations of things you think are actually good, that would be awesome.

For tools, I currently am using Paperrater.com and it seems like it is missing some of my errors. I know there are other online tools. I used to also use another online tool, but I seem to have forgotten the name of it.

I especially need help with commas. That seems to be a big Achilles' heel for me.

Thanks!

(Yes, I also searched AskMe yesterday. I did not readily see a question really much like this. Naturally, I would be happy to get relevant links to "previously on AskMe and The Blue...")

posted by Michele in California to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

For years I've recommended Purdue University's OWL (Online Writing Lab) for having a very complete set of tutorials and reference resources for just the sort of usage questions you have. I can't recommend a grammar and usage checker, unfortunately. Most of them I've seen are pretty kludgy and not really flexible enough to deal well with actual language use - I'm hopeful others have better ideas for you.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 12:32 PM on September 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Diana Hacker.
posted by oceano at 1:26 PM on September 20, 2014

Very late to answer, but for anyone who searches for this question: the English teachers I know love Chomp Chomp.
posted by Alexandra Michelle at 9:55 PM on February 19, 2015