Thursday Thoughts: What is "Grammar for Academic Writers"?

Next week begins the Writing Center's series on Grammar for Academic Writers. All week, we will be honoring each and every one of our skilled mono-lingual, bi-lingual, tri-lingual, and multi-lingual writers by sharing our expansive grammar-related resources. The week culminates on Thursday, September 15th with a brand new Live Webinar presented by two of our language experts. The webinar, "Grammar for Academic Writers: Identifying Common Errors," will be an interactive, constructive, helpful look at English language rules most helpful to academic writers.   

With this eventful week ahead, we thought we would get the ball rolling and offer you a brief lesson about the difference between restrictive clauses and non-restrictive clauses for this week's Thursday Thoughts post.

1. 1. A restrictive clause restricts or defines the meaning of a noun or noun phrase and provides necessary information about the noun in the sentence.  It is not separated from the rest of the sentence by commas. Restrictive clauses are more common in writing than nonrestrictive clauses. A restrictive clause is also sometimes referred to as an essential clause or phrase.
2. 2.  A nonrestrictive clause adds additional information to a sentence. It is usually a proper noun or a common noun that refers to a unique person, thing, or event. It uses commas to show that the information is additional. The commas almost act like parentheses within the sentence. If the information between the commas is omitted, readers will still understand the overall meaning of the sentence. A nonrestrictive clause is also known as a nonessential clause or phrase.

To learn more about this important grammar topic, please visit our page on relative, restrictive, and nonrestrictive clauses. Here, you'll find examples of the dos, the do-nots, and a number of helpful tips and tricks to help you stay on point in your writing. And while you're there, investigate our many other grammar resources as well. 

Lastly, if you'd appreciate even more instruction about this hot grammar topic (along with others!), we invite you to join us for our live webinar, entitled, "Grammar for Academic Writers: Identifying Common Errors." This webinar will be presented live on Thursday, September 15th, at 12PM EST. Can't wait to see you there!




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