Conventions of Standard English

Consider the sheer mechanical miracle of human communication. A complex, abstract thought forms in your mind, and by utilizing an agreed-upon system of structured vocalizations or written symbols, you can reliably reconstruct that exact thought inside the mind of someone else. For this transfer of information to occur without catastrophic loss of meaning, both the transmitter and the receiver must rely on a shared set of rules. We call this shared infrastructure the conventions of Standard English. Standard English is a specific language dialect widely accepted in formal education and professional business settings. Just as physics relies on agreed-upon units of measurement to build bridges that do not collapse, writers and speakers rely on the mechanics of grammar to build arguments that do not crumble under scrutiny.

To master this system for the Praxis exam, we must first examine the fundamental particles of language—the parts of speech—and then understand how these elements bond together to form the molecules of human thought: clauses and sentences.