Writing Resources: Grammar Girl

As a writer, it’s only natural for me to pay attention to the mechanics of my craft, which is why I’m always out the lookout for new and useful writing resources.

I’m especially on the lookout for grammar-related writing resources, since good grammar is essential to the craft that is writing.

So last spring, when I discovered the Grammar Girl podcast, my interest in good grammar piqued, and I started writing more consciously than ever before. Sure, I still break the rules of grammar now and then. That’s what creative writing is all about, right?

But if you don’t know the rules, then you shouldn’t break them or your writing will come off as amateurish. Good news: there’s a quick and dirty grammar resource out there that will only cost you a few minutes each week, and it will fine tune your grammar skills quickly and easily while rounding out your own collection of writing resources.

Meet Grammar Girl

Grammar Girl provides short, useful tips on grammar that are easy to remember and easy to put into practice. The information is available in audio format as a podcast, and it’s also available in writing, so if you don’t like listening to podcasts, you can visit the Grammar Girl blog and read the tips instead.

New Grammar Girl episodes are published a few times a week and each one lasts about five minutes or less. You’ll gain a wealth of information in that small amount of time. No matter how acute your grammar skills are, they’ll become even sharper!

You’ll get:

• Grammar Girl proofreading and editing tips and suggestions for writing resources.
• Clarification on homophones and word pairs (accept vs. except, less or fewer).
• Information about language and words that relate to writing and grammar.
• Details about proper sentence structure, writing formats, and word usage.
• The straight facts about good grammar.

Grammar Girl was created by a writer named Mignon Fogerty, and the show has received much critical acclaim, with appearances and mentions on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times, and USA Today, to name a few. In fact Grammar Girl is highly credited with sparking a fresh interest in grammar throughout our culture.

Meet Grammar Girl’s Mignon Fogarty

Not only is she the creator of Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty is also the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. She has written for magazines, worked as a technical writer, and is an entrepreneur. Much of her writing experience has been in health and science, and she holds B.A. in English from the University of Washington and an M.S. in biology from Stanford.

Get Interested in Grammar and Writing Resources

Since discovering Grammar Girl, I’ve acquired plenty of fresh knowledge about grammar, much of which I’ve shared here on the Writing Forward grammar posts.

For today, I thought I’d pay homage to the source of my revived appreciation for good grammar. I encourage all you writers out there to head over and subscribe to Grammar Girl. You can do so through iTunes for the audio podcast or through RSS.

Do you already listen to Grammar Girl, or do you have any other writerly podcasts or writing resources that you enjoy? Leave a comment and let me know!