Introduction

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Why Parts of Speech Matter

There are eight parts of speech, and it pays to learn them. If you want to become a better writer, you need to know something about the building blocks of language.

Our approach to parts of speech is fairly straight forward. The primary goal is to help you identify each part of speech in the context of a sentence. That’s why we’ve tried to keep this section as streamlined as possible. Most of the instruction in usage and specific grammatical problems has been set aside for later.

If, after you work through this section, you can spot an adverb or a preposition, then that’s cause for celebration. Any other grammatical rules your pick up along the way are just a nice bonus.