If you want to brush up on your grammar skills, you’re in the right place. You can find several free, high-quality grammar resources online. These are guides, books, and courses you can use to improve your writing.
At the start of my online writing career, I used many of these resources to work on my craft. They were incredibly valuable, and I’m excited to share them with you in this post.
While countless blogs promise to deliver writing tips that work, it’s not always easy to discern who’s credible and who’s not. Below, I’ll cover trusted sources to help you boost your grammar skills.
Let’s get started.
1. Elements of Style
The Elements of Style is a style guide by English professor William Strunk.
Though it was first published in 1918, the Elements of Style is still one of the most well-known grammar books, and it’s easy to see why.
It’s a short, easy-to-read guide on the aspects of grammar. The book improves your grammar because it presents common errors and best practices. Strunk uses specific, clear examples throughout the text to demonstrate a point.
A good way to get started is to set aside time to work through each of the sections. For example, one week, you may decide to focus on the section Place a comma before a conjunction introducing a co-ordinate clause. You might find as you read the chapter that you need to do additional research to understand the concept. For example, perhaps you need additional reading about coordinate clauses.
Also, don’t feel compelled to read the entire book. In my case, I found the first six sections were most useful for my writing.
2. Grammar Girl
Grammar Girl is a podcast by Mignon Fogarty
The episodes are brief but packed solid with grammar tips. You’ll understand common questions about usage, like whether you can start a sentence with however.
To get started, browse the Grammar Girl archive for episodes. The thing that makes Grammar Girl stand out for me is its format. Right around this time, I was spending hours commuting. Having a writing podcast to listen to made the trip far more bearable. You might choose to listen during a walk or while doing the dishes.
3. Grammar and Punctuation
Grammar and Punctuation is a course from the University of California Irvine.
This course is a great resource for boosting, or refreshing, your basic grammar skills. Each lesson comes with video lectures and tests. Before taking this course, I struggled with comma usage. My sentence structures were monotonous because I wasn’t sure how to use commas properly.
I took this course in 2018, and the lessons I learned have stayed with me since. My approach was to practice what I learned as I completed the material.
4. Grammarly
Grammarly is a free and paid online grammar assistant.
Upload your text to Grammarly, or install the Chrome extension, and it will identify errors in your document.
The great thing about Grammarly is that you have an opportunity to become a better writer each you use the tool because. Grammarly explains the error, you avoid it the next time you sit down to write. I use the Chrome extension so Grammarly is enabled in my email.
5. Purdue Online Writing Lab
The Purdue Online Writing Lab, also known as Purdue OWL lab, is a set of writing resources from Purdue University.
This is a great resource because it covers a broad range of writing challenges. You can find support for everything basic grammar to brainstorming to writer’s block.
The library of resources is especially useful when you’re stuck with a particular writing problem. Perhaps you need help drafting better emails at work. Simply enter your query into the search bar, and you’ll be able to find an article. Alternatively, add the site to your bookmark and read an article each week.
6. Grammar Underground
Grammar Underground is a website by writer June Casagrande.
I first discovered June when I read her book, It was the Best of Sentences, it was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences. I came away with a new understanding of using clauses in my writing.
All of the articles on her website are free. She posts concise write-ups, like this one on how to use the apostrophe.
7. New Yorker’s Comma Queen Series
The New Yorker is one of the most celebrated magazines because of its high-quality writing and storytelling. It offers a free grammar skills video series, New Yorker’s Comma Queen Series.
Mary Norris, the New Yorker’s copy editor, presents the video series. Norris has been with the New Yorker since 1978, and she’s authored several books on issues of grammar and style. In the Comma Queen video series, she does quick explainers on common grammar questions, like when to use which vs that.
Level up your grammar skills today
Now that you have a list of free resources, set aside time each week to devote to your writing practice. Check out these free writing and content resources for additional writing support.
