4 Important Grammar Lessons I Learned From Textbroker’s Editors

I’m a professionally trained journalist and writer with a communication degree from a major university, so I know how to write. Preferences change through the years, however, and quite honestly, we sometimes get rusty and forget a few rules.

I’ve written before about how writing for Textbroker isn’t a real job, but I’ve also made thousands of dollars writing for them. For a while, they were a good source of income for me -- until I decided to move up to bigger, better things that would offer me even better opportunities for making money online.

My time with Textbroker was useful to me, however. Their editors are much maligned because of their inconsistent rulings and arbitrary decisions, and based on my experience, those criticisms are completely justified.

I’ve also written before how content mills can help improve writing speed, skill and confidence for those who want to be successful at online writing, but I was surprised when I realized that I had learned four important grammar lessons from Textbroker editors that have helped improve my writing. You might be making the same mistakes I was.

Here are four grammar lessons that Textbroker’s inconsistent editors still managed to teach me:

1. That comma before “too” and “though” at the end of a sentence is so outdated.

I was taught to write as a journalist. And since newspaper columns are narrow, journalists don’t waste characters. That means journalists never put a comma before the “and” at the end of a series of items. That means you write “parsley, sage and rosemary” -- not “parsley, sage, and rosemary”. I’ve noticed most people have stopped putting a comma in that position.

I failed to notice, however, the silliness of the comma before “too” or “though” and similar comments at the end of sentence. It serves no purpose, and most grammarians insist it should no longer be used.

WRONG:
I want to write well, too.
You make a good point, though.

RIGHT:
I want to write well too.
You make a good point though.

2. It’s almost always “ensure”, not “assure”.

This one is probably just my own little quirk, but I don’t like the word ensure. Assure sounds somehow more, uh, assuring. In any case, the two words have different meanings and can’t be used interchangeably.

Ensure means to make certain. Assure means to make confident. While I seem to prefer to use the word assure most of the time, it’s only correct when you mean that you are telling someone positively or certainly and dispelling all doubts.

WRONG:
Sign up for my list to assure that you get all the emails.

RIGHT:
Sign up for my list to ensure that you get all the emails.
I assure you that the information is completely correct.

3. Companies are singular, not plural.

I knew that, but either because I watch a lot of British television shows (this rule is different in Britain) or because I’m from Texas where you talk about the neighborhood hardware store as if it you were talking about the people there, not the company as a whole, I somehow started messing this up.

When you mention a company, you use the pronouns “it” and “its” on second reference, not “they”.

WRONG:
American Airlines is in trouble, and they know it.

RIGHT:
American Airlines is in trouble, and it knows it.
(And that still sounds weird to me.)

4. Using “that” isn’t such a bad thing.

As I said, I was trained as a journalist by professors who insisted on eliminating as many unnecessary words as possible. The word “that” was one that they specifically mentioned as often being useless when introducing a phrase or clause. Sentences just sound better if you eliminate thats at every opportunity.

There’s only one problem with this idea: It isn’t correct. The Associate Press Stylebook -- the bible for journalistic writing -- lists out rules for when “that” is required. And then it says something astonishing to me: If in doubt, use it anyway. It never hurts to use it, the book says.

WRONG:
The procedure improves circulation so the skin regains its normal color.

RIGHT:
The procedure improves circulation so that the skin regains its normal color.

A Final Note

You may not be making any of these mistakes -- and you may be making others that have never been a problem for me. Still, I hope these tips are useful to you as you pursue making money as a writer. In my humblest of opinions, it’s the best full-time home working opportunity available.

Being a professional writer isn’t about being perfect. It’s about getting a little better with every sentence you write -- even if you’re writing those sentences for content mills like Textbroker.