The spelling of words in English is difficult because they do not always adhere to established rules. Part of the reason for that is that English is an amalgam of Latin, Greek, French, Germanic, and other languages, all of which have their own idiosyncratic spelling conventions.

While most words in English are spelled phonetically, a great many are not. Their spellings simply must be memorized. There are, for instance, words with silent letters, such as lamb, climb, rhythm, thought, and many, many others. There are also words which seem to defy their own rules. For instance, why don’t cord and word rhyme?

Then there are homophones, words which sound alike, but have different spellings and different meanings, such as principal and principle, there and their, and sail and sale. Of course, there are words which sound different when pronounced, depending on what part of speech they manifesting, but which are spelled the same. Think about record, as in I like this record and We should record that song. There are words which have two correct spellings, such as theater and theatre, although, in American English theater is preferred.

How about the fact that an initial g followed by an e, i, or y usually sounds like j, as in gentle, ginger, and gymnasium, but it has a hard g sound in get? Why is that the case? In order to spell words such as those correctly, you have to understand that the spelling and pronunciation rule has to be ignored sometimes.

Then we have the problem involving irregular verbs. They totally defy spelling (and pronunciation) rules. Take, for example, eat. When that word is in the past tense form, it is not eated. It is ate. Why? The past tense of jump is jumped, so why is the past tense of eat not eated? For that matter, why is the past tense of read not readed? Why is it read? Why does it not change spelling from present to past tense?

Ok. As if that were not confusing enough, how about plural irregular nouns? The plural of boy is boys. That’s simple enough. Boy is a regular noun. But, what about woman? Why is its plural women? Why is more than one wolf spelled wolves? Why is parties the plural of party, but the plural of donkey is donkeys? Why is it that we simply add an s to donkey, but we have to change the y ending of party to ies? Why is it, for that matter, that some nouns are not differentiated at all when they are pluralized? Examples of that strange spelling rule are sheep, shrimp, and deer. The spelling does not change whether you are referring to one or more than one of those. It is not correct to refer to a flock of sheeps.

Why don’t invisible and advisable have the same suffix? Both ible and able sound the same, but different words require different suffixes. How about rambunctious and conscious? The suffixes of those two words sound the same. Why are they spelled differently?

Is there a rule for these spelling (and pronunciation) exceptions? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The only way in which to know the correct words to use in spoken and written English and to pronounce and spell them correctly is to memorize all of the unusual pronunciations and spellings and meanings. Careful reading is very helpful. Once you have seen a word used and spelled correctly in print, it is generally easier to remember how to use it and spell it correctly. A good comprehensive dictionary (not a pocket version, although a few are very good—I like The American Heritage Dictionary) is invaluable. It will include all of the information that you need in order to know how to use words correctly and pronounce and spell them properly. The spell check function on your computer will generally catch misspellings and lead you to corrections, but not always. It may not, for example, distinguish between their and there.

If you are concerned about your use of language and spelling, as I suggested, you should read and observe what you are reading. Another alternative is to submit your document to Papercheck.com for professional proofreading and editing.

In all of your important writing, you should try to use better words. Or, if I were to rewrite that sentence with “better words,” it would look like this: In all of your serious writing, you should attempt to employ enhanced vocabulary. Of course, it is not necessary to do that when you are composing emails and memos and other less formal types of writing, but, on the other hand, it would not hurt.

You need not be an English major to improve your written vocabulary. There are three easy ways in which to do this:

1. After you are finished writing, reread your work. You should always do this anyway in order to spot and eliminate writing errors. But, now, when you reread your writing, think about substitutes for some of the words that you used. You do not need to, and, in fact, you should not replace all of the everyday words with higher level ones. It is not necessary to do so. Using complex words throughout your document may obscure your meaning, and it may cause your writing to appear pompous. In any case, examine your writing, and ask yourself, “Do I know a better word to use instead of …?” For example, instead of get, use obtain or acquire. Instead of do, try implement or perform. Of course, in some cases, do is more suitable than one of its substitutes.
2. Use Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus. Simply highlight the word that you would like to replace. Then click the Tools function on Microsoft Word. Click on Language. From Language, click Thesaurus. Then choose a substitute.
3. Use a hard copy of a thesaurus or a dictionary.

Besides bringing your writing to a higher level, using improved vocabulary will also provide a sense of freshness to your work. This is especially true in terms of helping you to avoid one of the pitfalls of so much academic and business writing—the use of repetitious vocabulary. Look at this example, in which the italicized words in the second sentence are repetitions of words that are used in the first:

One of the reasons why the Southern states seceded from the United States in 1861 is that many people in the south thought that Abraham Lincoln was going to try to abolish slavery. They thought that was a good reason to secede from the United States because they thought that people in the north had no right to tell them what to do about the issue of slavery.

In this version of the same paragraph, the italicized words in the second sentence are variations of words used in the first sentence:

One of the reasons why the Southern states seceded from the union in 1861 is that many people in the south thought that Abraham Lincoln was going to try to abolish slavery. They believed that was a good basis for withdrawing from the union because they felt that inhabitants of the north had no right to tell them what to do about the issue of involuntary servitude.

In conclusion, beefing up your vocabulary can improve your written work by making it interesting and of a higher-than-average quality.

Punctuation marks are like highway signs. Instead of directing vehicular traffic, however, they control how text is to be read. For the most part, knowing where to place periods, commas, etc. is fairly simple, although there are a few tricky aspects to this skill. The following is a brief outline of the uses of the main English punctuation marks.

Periods belong at the ends of sentences and after abbreviations. They are also used in acronyms.

A full sentence expresses a complete thought. Each of the sentences in this document is a full sentence, expressing a full thought.

The following are examples of the use of periods at the end of abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., and corp.

Acronyms, such as U.S.A. and P.E.T.A. are written with periods after each of their letters.

Commas are used to separate phrases and clauses, when listing things, and to separate dialogue from the speaker of the dialogue.

The following is an example of the use of commas to separate independent clauses in a sentence: After the lions devoured their prey, they rested in the shade.

Here is an example of the use of commas to separate items in a list: I bought apples, oranges, cherries, grapes, and lemons.

The part of a sentence with dialogue that indicates who is speaking is called the tag; commas are used to separate dialogue from the tag, as follows: “Traffic was very bad this morning,” said Bob.

Question marks are placed only at the ends of interrogatory sentences and phrases, as in the following: Is there a solution to the problem of global warming?

Exclamation points are used to express heightened emotion: When I realized that the fire was spreading, I yelled, “Everybody out now!”

Colons are used to indicate that more information is to follow, as in: My favorite foods are as follows: pizza, spaghetti, and ice cream.

Semi colons are used to separate independent clauses. Here is an example of their use: This has been a strange winter; most days and nights have been warmer than average.

One way of learning how to punctuate properly is to read widely. Most books, newspaper and magazine articles, and other published material, in general, contain properly punctuated sentences. By observing the punctuation in those sentences, you will be able to learn their use.

If you are uncertain about your use of punctuation, use your spell check function. You might also choose to submit your document to Papercheck to have it professionally edited.

You have done the long, laborious research, including reading hundreds of pages and taking copious notes, and book marking websites from the Internet. You have written an outline of your paper. The actual writing of the research paper has taken several days and nights. The writing is good. The sources are accurate. You have followed the directions that were given to you, including using the correct formatting. This paper will count as a large part of your grade. It is ready to print and be brought to class or sent in electronically.

But…wait. Is it really ready for submission? Is it possible that you have some clunky sentences? What about those spelling demons? Those are the words that you never remember how to spell or that you confuse with other words. Then there’s punctuation! Apostrophes, commas, quotation marks, etc., etc.

What should you do? The first step in terms of proofreading a document is to read the paper to yourself, out loud, if that helps. Don’t read what you think you wrote, what you meant to write. Go through the paper line by line, word by word, as if you are a neutral reader, and not the one who put so much blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Then, use the spell check function. It will not catch every error, but it will point out most spelling and usage mistakes.

Even after carefully proofreading my work by reading it on my computer screen, I find additional errors when I read a hard copy of my work. Somehow, seeing the writing on paper allows me to notice missing commas and other errors that I just did not see when I was reading my document on my monitor. So, I print the document, and carefully proofread it again.

Following those steps should help you to produce a well-written document. However, when all is said and done, if you are not sure that your document is completely correct and ready to be handed in or published, you can always refer it to a document editing and proofreading service, such as Papercheck.