The finer points of English grammar can be tricky to get your head around but use the following reminders to brush up your writing skills.
Tricky singular/plural situations:
Companies are singular; they take a singular verb and pronoun (it, not they or their).
In sentences that contain neither/nor or either/or, match the verb to the closest subject.
What to capitalise:
Proper names
The first word in a sentence
Titles before and attached to names
Titles used as substitutes for names
The first word and all other important words in a title or subtitle
Each letter in an acronym
Some abbreviations
What to put in lower case:
Years in school (primary 4, second year, and so forth)
School subjects, except for languages (history, science and algebra, for example)
Titles not attached to or used as names (she’s a professor)
Directions (north, south, inward, up and so on)
General terms for geographical features (canyon, river, mountain and the like)
Academic degrees (a master’s, a bachelor’s degree)
To use possessive nouns and pronouns properly, follow these rules:
Make a possessive noun by adding an apostrophe and the letter s to a singular noun
Add an apostrophe to a plural noun that ends in the letter s to create a possessive
To show possession, add an apostrophe and the letter s to a plural noun that doesn’t end in the letter s
Possessive pronouns (my, his, theirs, whose and so forth) never contain apostrophes
Place a possessive noun or pronoun in front of an -ing verb form used as a noun (her drawing, Kate’s running, and the like)
