NAME:

TEACHER:

SCHEDULE:

Writing Project

Level 1

Universidad de Guadalajara

January 2018

Created and designed by:

Bridget Sanchez Mireles, Vanessa Noemi Medina Castro,

Luis Fernando Moreno Vargas

Updated June 2022 by:

Bridget Sangez Mireles, Amanda Nonomura
In this manual, you will learn about sentences and phrases, subject-verb agreement,
capitalization and basic punctuation rules.
Sentence and phrase
These two structures are a common part of English and are all composed of groups of
words. Phrases and sentences are very similar, but they do have different roles.
Learning the difference between them will help you make a lot more sense of English
grammar and will be very useful to improve your written English.
What is a sentence?
A complete sentence has a subject and predicate, a group of words can form a
sentence, no matter how short.
Example:
● Elvis lives.
● Adam lives in Bangor.
● The telegram contained exciting news.
● The girls in our office are experienced instructors.
● They are experienced instructors, who got their experience in
France .

Write 5 sentences:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

What is a phrase?
A group of words without a subject or a verb is called a phrase.
Phrases can be very short – or very long. Two examples of phrases are:
“After dinner”
“For the rain to stop”.
Write three more phrases:
1.
2.
3.
 Subject Verb Agreement
Subject Verb Agreement is a very important concept in English grammar. This will
give you the basics about English grammar rules for subject verb agreement and how
to use them in your exams:

How to make the subject and verb agree:

1. Identify the subject.
2. Decide if the subject is singular or plural.
3. Decide which verb form will match with the subject.

Example:
The taste of the apples was not good.
In this, the subject is: “The taste of the apples” and the verb is ‘was’.
The subject does not refer to the apples but to the taste of them that´s why the subject
“the taste of the apples” is singular and it uses the singular verb ‘was’.

9 rules of Subject Verb Agreement

RULE 1: The subject and verb must agree in number: both must be singular, or both
must be plural.
Example: The car belongs to my brother. (SINGULAR)
They also play football.(PLURAL)

RULE 2: The number of the subject (singular or plural) is not changed by words(or a
phrase) that come in between the subject and the verb.
Example: One of the boxes is open.
Here, the subject “one” and the verb “is” are both singular.

RULE 3: Some subjects always take a singular verb even though the meaning may
seem plural.
Example: Someone in the game was (not were) hurt.

RULE 4: The following words may be singular or plural, depending upon their use in a
sentence: some, any, all, most.
Example: Most of the food is good. (singular)
Most of the flowers were yellow. (plural)
RULE 5: Subjects joined by “and” are plural. Subjects joined by “or” or “nor” take a
verb that agrees with the last subject.
Example: Bob and George are leaving.
Neither Bob nor George is leaving.

RULE 6: “There” and “here” are never subjects. In sentences that begin with these
words, the subject is usually found later on in the sentence.
Example: There were five books on the shelf. (were, agrees with the subject “book”)

RULE 7: Collective nouns may be singular or plural, depending on their use in the
sentence.
Examples: The orchestra is playing a song. (Orchestra is considered as one unit—
singular)
The orchestra was asked to give their musical backgrounds. (Orchestra is considered
as separate units-plural)

RULE 8: Some nouns, while plural in form, are actually singular in meaning. Nouns
such as ‘civics,’ ‘mathematics,’ ‘dollars,’ and ‘news’ require singular verbs.
Example: Mathematics is (not are) an easy subject for some people.

RULE 9: “Doesn’t” is a contraction of “does not” and should be used only with a singular
subject. “Don’t” is a contraction of “do not” and should be used only with a plural subject.
Example: He doesn’t (does not) like it.

Task 1.

Subject and Verb Agreement Exercise

Circle the correct form of the verb that agrees with the subject.

1. Annie and her brothers (is, are) at school.

2. Brazilian people (is, are) coming to the meeting.

3. The dog or the cats (is, are) outside.

4. Mathematics (is, are) too difficult for me.

5. George and Tamara (doesn't, don't) want to see that movie.

6. Benito (doesn't, don't) know the answer.

7. One of my sisters (is, are) going on a trip to France.

8. The man with all the birds (live, lives) on my street.

9. The movie, including all the previews, (take, takes) about two hours to watch.

10. The players, as well as the captain, (want, wants) to win.

11. Both letter A and B (is, are) acceptable.

12. Every one of those books (is, are) fiction.

13. Nobody (know, knows) the trouble I've seen.

14. (Is, Are) the news on at five or six?

Capitalization

Capitalization is the writing of a word with its first letter in uppercase and the
remaining letters in lowercase. There are many rules. Here are some basic ones:

● Names: Jimmy, Kate, Janet.

● Beginning of a sentence.
● Abbreviations, acronyms: Corp. … NASA.
● Days of the week, months and holidays: Monday, Tuesday… June, December,
Christmas.
● Proper nouns, such as:
• Streets and roads: Calzada, Monte, Alcalde...
• Nationalities, races and tribes: Mexican, American, Eskimo, Navajo
• Countries and cities: Mexico, Canada, Texas.
• Structures: the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Titanic
• Planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars…
• Institutions: Harvard University, The College of Wooster
● Subject “I” is always in capital letter.
Task 2.

Underline the correct option.

1.
A. Her favorite holiday is christmas.
B. Her favorite holiday is Christmas.
C. her favorite holiday is christmas.

2.
A. The show is on Friday.
B. the show is on Friday.
C. The show is on friday.
3.
A. Mary is chinese and lives in Puerto Rico.
B. Mary is chinese and lives in puerto rico.
C. Mary is Chinese and lives in Puerto Rico.
4.
A. Javier and i like to go to the park.
B. Javier and I like to go to the park.
C. Javier and I like to go to the Park.

Task 3. (optional)

Kahoot

Extra practice:
 BASIC PUNCTUATION RULES

Used at the end of a sentence or to show a word is

abbreviated.
Period/Full stop
Used to indicate a brief pause, to separate a list of similar
words or phrases, a statement from a question, the day of
month from the year, a city from its state.
Comma

Used to introduce lists or to indicate a subtitle.

Colon

Used at the end of a sentence that asks a question.

Question Mark

Used at the end of a sentence or after an interjection (oh,

oops, aww) to express strong feeling, admiration or

Exclamation Mark
excitement.

Used to form contractions and to indicate possession.

Apostrophe
*Note: symbols ¿,! and ´ are not used in English so please be careful when you
are using a keyboard in Spanish.
Task 4.

Underline the correct option.

1.
A) My childrens toys are always in the following places: my room, their room
and in the living room.
B) My children's toys are always in the following places, my room, their room
and in the living room.
C) My children's toys are always in the following places: my room, their room
and in the living room.
2.
A) What is your teachers name?
B) What is your teacher’s name?
C) What is your teacher’s name!

3.
A) Hey, watch out for that car?
B) Hey, watch out for that car.!
C) Hey, watch out for that car!

4.
A) My grandmother lives across the street. From the school.
B) My grandmother lives across the street from the school.
C) My grandmother lives' across the street from the school.

Task 5.

Correct the following sentences:

1. My mother is a doctor and she loves her job she works 12 hours a day.

2. I like chocolate, do you like it too.

3. Wow Those shoes are beautiful.

4. My son is 2 years old, my daughter is 3, my father is 40.

Extra practice:
 Final task

Betty´s Family

Step 1: Find the 34 mistakes and mark them using the editing symbols on the next page.

Mistake 1: Betty

My name is betty and I have a really nice family it is not a big one, but its perfect for

me we are four members my mom my dad my brother and i my mom is from los

angeles California and shes a teacher at michigan state university my dad is from são

paulo brazil and he is a lawyer at martin & associates my brother and I am studying

highschool. and we enjoy doing almost everything together In my family everyone

care for each other. What is your family like.

Step 2:

Rewrite the paragraph correctly.

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EDITING SYMBOLS
INSTRUCTIONS: check the boxes you can answer yes to under student´s self-evaluation.

Final Evaluation
Grading
Student´s Teacher´s
Self- evaluation evaluation

1. I was in class the days established by

3 POINTS
my teacher and got my 3 stamps.

2. I answered the final task correctly. 5 POINTS

3. I turned in my final project the day

2 POINTS
established by the teacher.

Total