#6 Common grammar mistakes

Learning english grammar is must to everyone to learn english. It can be very boring but is important. To correctly use the grammatical structure, we have to remember all the rules. Looking at the common mistakes that we usually make may be a good way to avoid them and strengthen our English foundation.

Common mistake-Parallelism:
Using parallelism helps to reduce repetition in writing, so it is very useful. However, it may increase the complexity of a sentence and is easy to make mistakes in.When we join a list of two or more things in a sentence with and, but, or or, we need to make sure that the elements in the list are parallel.

Not parallel:
e.g. He is tired, lonely, and in a hurry. (tired and lonely are adjectives, but in a hurry is a prepositional phrase)
e.g. He took a book, a pen, and wrote. (book and pen are nouns, but wrote is a verb.

Correct sentences:
e.g. You can get cell phones in red, blue, green, and black. (all are colors)
e.g. Marry likes milk, loves tea, and hates coffee. (all describe emotions about food)
e.g. They took vegetables, meat, and fruit on the camping trip. (all types of food)

Common mistake-fragments:
A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. Some fragments are incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb. Fragments that we usually make mistakes in are dependent clauses. They have a subject and a verb, so they look like complete sentences, but they don't express a complete thought.

e.g. I would go there. If I could.
“If I could” is an incomplete sentence. The fragment should be made part of the sentence It should be corrected by” I would go there if I could.

e.g. John took the bus. (independent clause) Because his car was in the shop. (Dependent clause )It should be corrected by “John took the bus because his car was in the shop.”

Common mistake when using "no matter":
e.g. No matter you like it or not, you have to do it.
It is a wrong sentence, because "no matter" must be followed by wh-words like what, where and when.

Correct sentences:
e.g. No matter where you live, you should go to school/work on time.
e.g. No matter how good your are, you should be humble.

The above wrong sentence can be corrected by “No matter whether you like it or not, you have to do it.” Actually, "No matter" can be omitted in this sentence.

Grammar is the basic element to learn English, it is extremely crucial to every learner. The best way to improve it may be to do more exercises. Moreover, we have to remember all the mistakes we had made and do not make the same mistakes any more. I believe in “practice makes perfect” and I hope we(you) all can learn from mistakes.

#5 summary of roundtable discussion

I would like to summarize the roundtable discussion of Li Jing's group.
Their group had to discuss one climate change mitigation technology and their main idea is to use renewable energies.

Renewable energy is produced from non-fossil fuel sources. Current sources of renewable energy include wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biomass and nuclear. Using renewable energy is one of the most important ways to address climate change and reduce environmental impacts. The renewable energies Li Jing’s group discussed were hydropower, solar power and nuclear power.

Hydropower is a pollution-free source. A hydropower plant consists of a reservoir and a power generating facility. Many power plants are fed by several reservoirs, and in some river systems several power stations are located one after another so that the energy in the water can be used repeatedly before it finally runs into the sea.

Solar power is Clean, Sustainable and inexhaustible energy, and it has flexible installation. Solar power generation is a clean energy system that generates electricity from sunlight that falls on the earth. It can be used anywhere in large buildings, in factories, and in residential homes. Both commercial and private customers are showing increased interest in solar power generation.

Nuclear power is powerful, safe and efficient. A nuclear power plant generates steam which rotates a generator at high speed. Steam is obtained by heating water inside a boiler (the nuclear reactor), which uses heat released by the fission of uranium nuclei. However, nuclear power generation produces waste including radioactive waste which has to be managed with the greatest care.

Although renewable energies have many advantages, they are not widely used. It is because the cost to establish, set up and install the power system is very high, many companies cannot afford it. The government subsidise is needed. People believe that the renewable energies may be well developed and commonly used in the future.