Weird Grammar Rules You Might Not Have Heard Of!!

Even if you are not a stickler for grammar, you PhD would demand from you to be immaculate in your grammar. Some scholars go forward and end up becoming grammar geeks because all the time they are busy in rectifying the grammatical errors in their writing. Here I will discuss some of the most unusual grammar rules that you must know. After knowing this you would get an eye for noticing grammatical errors in almost every document you go through from time to time.

The use of which and that: Most of the professional writers often make a mistake in the use of which and that. Most of us think that these two pronouns can be used interchangeably. But you are wrong if you so think. “That” being in the category of restrictive pronoun it becomes very important for the noun it refers to. “Which” is a more detailing pronoun relatively so cannot be used interchangeably with that.

May & Might: Same like above, a lot of people believe these words can be used interchangeably but there is a difference in their meaning. “May” is a more positive word and implies possibility while “Might” is used for showing uncertainty for a situation that may not happen most likely.

Fewer & Less: This is perhaps the most commonly broken grammar rule that we see happening everywhere. But ironically, the logic for this is very simple. The use of “less” is more appropriate for intangible and hypothetical quantities such as “fun, joy, sad” etc. while we use the word “few” and “fewer” is more appropriate for those items that can be quantified easily and are of tangible characteristics.

Effect and Affect: It is crime for writers in English if they wrongly use the two words, “affect” and “effect”. It is actually very surprising that many people get it wrong most often as the difference between the two is very basic and simple to understand. “Effect” is a noun and “Affect” is a verb. Affect is used for telling about the outcome or consequences of something.

The use of comma: The use of commas is seen mostly with adjectives and adjectives are of varied categories such as coordinate, cumulative, descriptive and so on. The rule of the use of comma at each one is different and should be considered.

So, now when you sit down with your thesis or research documentation, be more particular about the grammar and its small intricacies we generally tend to overlook.

The abstract for humanities or social sciences is most of the time unstructured in comparison to others. It is not divided into specific sections matching with the content, such as the Introduction, Methods, Results and so on. Most of the time it comprises a single paragraph that elaborates the content and the scope of the study.  The length of a social sciences abstract is   somewhere closer to 150-250 words. With that limited word count available, the writer has to be very sure of including only the necessary stuff. Know that although the abstract is written as a single paragraph, it has to include a very crisp summary of the significant sections of the study. Some things that don’t have to be missed are the objectives, approach, findings and conclusion.  Since all this content has to be included, it is best advised to write the content after having completed the entire document. This gives you a more clear idea about the content and the scope of the work so you are able to put across a more holistic summary of the content in the abstract in the best possible condensed manner.

Some of the main elements of the abstract are:

Statement of purpose:  This statement of purpose has to clearly explain why it was chosen to conduct this study. The reason because of which the problem is significant or what is the gap in the existing literature you have identified that you intend to fill.

Methods or approach:  What has been the course you have adopted to get the results that you have presented and what process you adopted to get your results? In other words here you need to talk about the research methodology in a very brief way.

Results:  This is very important and the only thing that is completely unique and novel to your study. This is what makes or mars the worthiness of your study. Mostly readers, the seasoned ones prefer to go to the results straight away so make sure your abstract gives the significant results that you have derived from the above mentioned procedures.

Conclusions:  The conclusion part is where you try to tell the readers why your study is significant and why how are your results contributing in the existing literature. The larger implications of your findings are how do they identify with the gap in research that has been identified by you is again a very important component of the abstract and has to be given in as concise a manner as possible.

It is easy to find students making mistakes with footnotes as a lot of students use footnotes without actually knowing how they should be used precisely. The thumb rule says that if you do not know the way in which the footnotes should be used, then you perhaps should not use them at all.

First of all let us understand the distinction between footnotes and bibliography. The purpose of using footnotes is to provide the reader with some extra information about the content. As the name is indicative, a footnote is to be found at the bottom of the page and gets it referencing through a superscript number placed on the main content. While, the bibliography page is the last page of the section of your essay or dissertation and incorporates the entire citation information for any of the information that has been used in the content and retrieved from any external source. The purpose of bibliography is to give the complete detail to the reader including the place and time of publication of the content in reference. All these details are not included in the footnote.

There is a way to use the footnotes correctly and one should actually be very specific about adopting the correct means. Always write your footnotes in the last. Most of the times it is the shortest version of the citation placed in the bibliography. The best thing to do is to leave writing the footnotes till the end until the essay is finished and the entire bibliography is complete. Never think that using footnotes can be a replacement for bibliography. The impact of bibliography may diminish with a lot of use of footnotes, however it does not become redundant. A bibliography is a proof that you are a well-read writer, so all the information that you have adopted in your writing, whether it is directly referenced or no, bibliography is a place to tell about it.

Footnotes can be written in different citation styles and each university may have its own norm about which referencing style to follow. The most commonly used referencing styles are Harvard, Oxford and Chicago. Whichever be the preference of your university, focus on the intricacies that the style demands.

Footnotes isn’t a thing to be forgotten and how much ever you get trapped in the writing process, do not ignore the use of references and bibliography as that is the key distinction between generalised writing and academic writing.

 There are a lot of classes of Reliability Estimates. Some of the main ones are:

1. Inter Rate Reliability:  This kind of reliability assesses the degree of agreement that is there between two or more raters in their appraisals.
2. Test Re test Reliability: This is used for assessing the degree to which these scores have consistency when shifted from one test administration to another one. The measurements are to be gathered from one single rater who puts to use the same methods or instruments in the same environment and conditions that were previously used for testing. This also includes the intra rater reliability.
3. Inter Method Reliability: These test scores find out the degree to which these test scores have been consistent when there is a variation in the methods or instruments have been put to use. This gives way for removing the inter rater reliability
4.  Internal Consistency Reliability:  This helps to assess the consistency in the results across the items that are there within the tests.

 Link between Reliability and Validity

 Reliability is not an indication of validity. In simpler terms anything that is found to be reliable is confirmed as being consistent but it surely and certainly does  not measure what the researcher is intending to measure.  There may be a lot of reliable tests for the measurement of specific skills for not all of them would be applicable for measuring of job performance. When we talk of accuracy and precision, reliability is a useful way for describing of precision while validity is helpful in the description of accuracy of an instrument.

Now that we know that reliability does lead or confirm validity. Surely a test that is not perfectly reliable surely cannot be perfectly valid. To clear the confusion we can say that, a reliable test may offer valid information but a test that has been proven reliable cannot be surely valid.

The fundamental point of all the theories of test reliability is that the scores of test show the influences of two types of factors:

1. Factors contributing consistency:  The characteristics are stable for the attribute that is being attempted to be measured

Factors contributing towards inconsistency:   Those features of the individual that can have test scores but they do not have anything to do with the attribute that is getting measured.