Many people fall into the traps that English has set out for unsuspecting victims. As an English Education major, a lot of grammatical errors drive me crazy, but I want to help people fix their mistakes. It's unfortunate that some people were taught to spell, to use proper grammar, and to use punctuation incorrectly. Here are a few things to help improve your (notice my use of your) English skills.

1.) GRAMMAR

I'm a grammar-Nazi because this drives me absolutely bonkers. As an English Education major, my hope is to see a world where the discrepancy between "your dog" and "you are dog" will be eliminated. I am also the person to correct you over text message, this is a fair warning before getting bombarded by asterisks***.

2.) PUNCTUATION

Wouldn't it be great if we could eliminate the above tragedies due to misunderstandings? That's why punctuation is important. Instead of eating your dear granny, you could be enjoying the delicious dinner she prepared. Instead of cooking up your family and your dog, you could enjoy cooking, your family, AND your dog! It's a simple comma, not a superhero.Just imagine a world without innocent deaths due to proper punctuation.

3.) PROPER DASH PLACEMENT

I'm sure not many people know how to use a dash properly when a word gets split up onto two separate lines. You know when you run out of room but you've already started writing the word? No problem! Separate the word you've already started writing into syllables and then place the dash in between any syllable you end on. Let's look at the word "administration" in the picture above, the red line represents a syllable. Let's say you started writing "ad" and run out of the room, just pop a dash in there and continue the rest of the word on a new line. If you started writing "adm" and you're running out of room, finish writing to the next syllable (so until "admin") follow it by a dash and continue the word on the next line. Just remember when continuing a word, you can only place a dash after a syllable.

4.) WORD VARIETY

A thesaurus is like a dictionary for new vocabulary. This one's an easy fix: instead of using basic words such as "good" or "fun", you can find the basic word in a thesaurus and it will provide synonyms and antonyms to replace it with. It gives you so many different words to make you sound smarter and less-basic.

5.) PROFESSIONAL E-MAILING

There's nothing worse than sending your professor, boss, or supervisor and e-mail that sounds like you're (notice how I used you're) a 13-year-old texting. Remember when you were taught how to write a letter? An e-mail should be in the same format, starting with "Dear ______" and ending with "Sincerely _______". Pretending you're e-mailing something technologically-challenged: write everything out, avoid abbreviations, avoid slang. You are an adult, so sound like one. Don't make your superior say, "WTF?"