Back in the day, before computers, email, smart phones, SMS and twitter we all communicated by writing letters. Our deepest thoughts and hopes were etched into structured letters that sought earnestly to deliver the true meaning behind the words on the page.

Now, we scribble notes and tweets and AIMs as quickly as our honed typing skills allow us. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for the increased speed of send and receive- and a true lover of technology, but I do feel like we are starting to lose the human intelligence of our language. And in the process we magnify grammatical mistakes made by broadcasting them to a much wider audience.

Displaying yourself publicly through your writing, on a blog or through twitter, really does have an impact on others’ perception of you. Which is why it is important to have resources to help you come off as your best (written) self.

Last year I downloaded Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips from Audible. I would listen to it on the tube, while walking through the park- whenever I had a free moment to take in the answers to all the grammatical questions I had. Now, there is a Grammar Girl website! The content is updated, even including tips for tweeting. This has been one of my top resources for sussing out when to use a comma, who to give possession to, whether or not to put an s at the end of toward (you do in the UK but not the US) and many other queries.

If you are more the traditional type or would like to pick up a good read while still absorbing grammatical wisdom I recommend the well-loved and known Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.

Of course, the old standby for all queries is the trusted Google search- just make sure your sources are reputable. ;)