I don't know everything. When some people in my English department have questions about grammar, they come to me because I know a lot of the rules. I've learned them, over the years, as the person in charge of keeping our Conventions of Composition website up to date. Even so, some sentences leave me stumped.
Fortunately, our site isn't the only show in town. In fact, while ours is terrific for anybody who grades papers (Hello, other English teachers!), we haven't designed it for ease in asking the kinds of questions that might come up while you're writing.
If you're rolling along writing an essay or blogpost or love letter, you might get stumped in one of these ways:
- Do I need a comma here or a period?
- When do I spell out numbers?
- Which pronoun could I put here?
- Should I capitalize True Love or leave it all in lowercase?
If you have those kinds of questions, you wouldn't use Hotchkiss' site. I recommend GrammarGirl. She gives clear answers to every question of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and agreement.
On the other hand, your questions might seem a totally different. Do these questions seem more important to you:
- Where do I put which article?
- Which preposition makes the most sense here?
- How can I make subjects and verbs agree?
If you might ask these, you could be a second (or third or more) language learner. If so, then the best place for you to look is Purdue University's OWL (Online Writing Lab) site.
Either way, the key is to find the right answer and keep writing. Of course, if you search the world wide web and still can't find the answer to your grammar question, then that's a question I want to hear. Please feel free to comment on your favorite grammar rules or ask questions about the rules that trouble you. I'd love to help.