Editor’s note: see the Rafflecopter widget at the end of the post for a new giveaway!

Grammar. An exciting topic, no?

Okay, probably not.

It is an important topic though, for anyone who has to write. (That’d be most of us.) Students write papers routinely, and getting a good grade is important. Plenty of people have to write reports and articles professionally, and then there are those of us who write for fun or profit. All would benefit from the proper use of grammar.

So. You know what a split infinitive is, don’t you? How about a dangling participle? Do you know how to correctly use an adverbial phrase? When is the last time you diagrammed a sentence?

I’ll be the first to say that grammar is difficult, especially in the case of split infinitives, dangling participles, or the proper use of adverbial phrases. I’ve taught grammar for years now, and all of those terms are for the advanced grammarian.

And who needs to understand all of those things, really? (No offense intended to the grammar experts among us.) While we need to write well and properly, keeping track of all those rules can be time-consuming, frustrating, and difficult.

Enter Grammarly, an online grammar checker. Simply type out your article/report/letter, copy and paste the text into Grammarly, and get an instant evaluation with suggestions for improvement. The system will evaluate your writing on several different levels, from casual to business, general to technical. After checking the work, Grammarly shows you where errors exist, and it also gives style suggestions.

To be honest, I didn’t completely agree with the style suggestions I was given. I did learn what a split infinitive is because for every error a detailed explanation is available. How cool is that? Want to learn more about grammar and usage? Check out Grammarly’s English Grammar Rules to learn all you want about grammar and good writing.

If you have a student in the family, a Grammarly membership can certainly help with assignments every time. Are you writing a novel? Having good grammar could help you get past the editor’s pen faster. How about writing a report or letter for work? Of course having proper grammar would help.

The good people at Grammarly were kind enough to let me use the service so I could tell you about it, AND they’re letting me give away a membership. I love giveaways!

We’re using the Rafflecopter widget again, which means that you have several ways to enter the contest. Click on each green button and follow the directions to get additional entries. Winner will be chosen via random drawing on or after March 12, 2012. Feel free to let other folks know about the giveaway as well. It’s a great prize. Not the most exciting (and it’s not chocolate) but the potential benefits are huge. Just using Grammarly will improve your mind and your writing. It’s really a painless way to learn, if you think about it.

Good luck and I hope you win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway