Like it says, I need help with things that could improve my writing and reading comprehension, because I never learned them in english from what I can remember. (y reading comprehension was knocked back a few years due to a concussion, I've since recovered some of it but my comprehension is still not where it should be for an 18-going-on-19 year old. So some things I may have forgotten since then. So, some of my questions. What is the purpose of a dash between sentences? I tend to use it like a semicolon, but I have a feeling this is incorrect. When is it appropriate to use a semicolon? I forgot. When ending a sentence that had dialogue, does the period go before or after the quotation mark? Or both? Is it REALLY necessary to know the differences between adjectives, adverbs, verbs, and the what-not to be a writer, or do those just come naturally? Which is the better way to find typos and sentences that don't make sense? Getting a beta reader or reading it aloud? Both? I think I had more, but I can't think of them right now. I'll ask them below if I remember! If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can clarify with an example of how I think something works.
Okay, so. I am not even remotely the most qualified person on the forum wrt to copy-editing and grammar, but I'm pretty sure I do have a few of these down. I'm not positive about the specific use of dashes, but I typically use them to separate clauses where I feel like a comma isn't enough. This looks to be a pretty good breakdown of them. Semicolons are used between indpendent clauses (so clauses that can stand on their own as a sentence) and typically used between independent clauses that follow a main idea, to better allow for the flow of the sentence. If a period is a full beat and a comma is a half beat when reading aloud, a semicolon is a 3/4s beat. When using semicolons, transitional phrases are helpful but not required. (ex. "My mother was a harridan; unfortunately, she never grew out of it." and "Many cats have very strong personalities; many dogs have personalities that are harder to catch." are both uses of a semicolon, one with transition and one without) If you're ending a sentence with dialogue, the punctuation always comes before the quotation mark. (ex. She said, "Don't lie to me, Gerald.") Knowing the difference between adjective, adverb, verbs, and nouns is helpful, but if you're a native speaking, most of these will be things that you pick up on by virtue of how you hear (and speak) English on a daily basis. There are certain grammatical rules surrounding situational use of adverbs and adjectives, but I wouldn't say that religious adherence to those rules is necessary to be a writer. And for personal preference, I like to have a beta over reading something aloud. Fresh eyes are usually better for picking up awkwardness in phrasing and I've noticed that I'm pretty bad about missing typos even when I read aloud because I know what the word there should be. Both is probably better, but I'd say beta readers are the more important of the two.
http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar has really great and easy to remember grammar stuff - I know there's one on the semicolon, I'm not sure about dashes. I also go for a beta reader for picking up errors. A beta + spellcheck tends to serve me pretty well. As for knowing the difference between types of words, I think it's really helpful? Useful context here is that I learned to speak first in English and to read first in French and the background and formal education in a language not my own helped with my English grammar tremendously. So I am just generally inclined to more formal approaches to how language works. As a native speaker you'll be able to make it work in writing, but, like, compare it to other art: artists can be immensely talented and have developed their own skills and styles, but a figure drawing class is still gonna add something. Formal approaches to grammar and types of words serves the same purpose. So you will almost definitely get some benefit from familiarizing yourself with formalities of stuff, but you may not find it worth the effort now, and the degree of benefit will be variable.
The simplest breakdown I can come up with for parts of speech: Noun: the thing Adjective: describes the thing Verb: what is done to the thing Adverb: how it's done to the thing Determiner: these are little things like a, the, my, and so on. You may or may not be interested in looking at basic syntax trees to understand how they work together. This one shows how the adjective happy is describing the noun linguist and the verb make is describing what is happening to 'a diagram'.
