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+39 347 378 8169

Typographical Conventions

Sentence Structure

ICAL TEFLThis page describes the typographical conventions we use in the Grammar Guide and generally on the ICAL TEFL site.

Examples

Examples are shown thus:

This is a grammar example.

Following common convention, ungrammatical sentences are marked with an asterisk:

* This is grammatical not.

Note that In some grammars‏‎ (although not ours) you can also see this shown as strikethrough:

This is grammatical not.

In cases where there is doubt over whether a sentence is grammatical or not, a question mark is used before the sentence:

? The car’s door.

Syntax & Form

For examples of structure or syntax‏‎, we use this format. The curly brackets show a grammatical term (e.g. a part of speech or sentence part, etc):

{subject} + {verb}

The three men + smiled
He was running

Note that sometimes we’ll use the + symbol, other times not; this depends on the circumstances and what we want to highlight. Likewise we will put in bold words or phrases to be noted.

If a word is shown normally (i.e. without brackets or other formatting) then it must be used as is; if there is a choice of words then they’re separated with a slash:

{pronoun} + have/had + {past participle}

He had gone
We have seen

To show the base form of a word which needs to be conjugated or declined or otherwise inflected, we put it in round brackets:

{noun phrase} + (be)

the doctor + is
the doctor + was
they + are

Note that this is the same as putting the full list of possibilities separated by a slash:

{noun phrase} + (be)

{noun phrase} + be/am/are/is/was/were/am being/are being/is being/was being/were being/will be…

If something is optional it’s in square brackets:

He said + [that] + clause

He said we must go.
He said that we must go.

To show a more general term, we use italics:

[person] + [reporting verb] + quote

He replied, “Never again!”
She said, “I will survive!”

Spelling

The ICAL TEFL Resource Library in general uses American English‏‎ spelling.

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