There’s a grammar sherrif in town who is rounding up misplaced commas and stopping run-on sentences before they can wrap text.

Ruth Beaumont Cook is a Birmingham author who spots grammatical errors and misspellings and exposes them so all of us can become better writers. You would think that there would only be so much to be said on the topic of grammar, but Ms. Cook finds fodder for her blog , GrammarGlitchCentral.com, everywhere. It’s not that she’s a pessimist; it’s just that careless errors and awkward phrases are everywhere around us.

We’ve all had to think through a glitch in expressing our thoughts, and sometimes it takes a second set of eyes to see the problem. Ms. Cook’s examples are often taken from the work of writers or professionally developed marketing materials (the lesson: never rely on the printer to proof read your work prior to publishing). If those who have editors and colleagues to proof their work still make errors, imagine how easy it is for the rest of us to make a grammatical slip. I shudder to think what Ms. Cook would discover in reading through BirminghamMom!

Although you may have thought your high school English teacher was just being picky, it turns out she was right. Once you’re in the real world, grammatical errors can greatly diminish your audience’s perception of your professionalism and even intelligence. Ms. Cook provides instruction to help avoid the grammar glitches that a good suit and a power tie just can’t hide.

Ruth Beaumont Cook will be presenting on resume writing at the Hoover Public Library’s Career Skills Workshop on December 7th at 9:30 a.m. The program is free but reservations are requested at 444-7816.