What are you hiding when you add in extra words.

I am grateful for Dr. Dobson's affirmation for the point that the stability of the family is critical to our economy's success.

Honestly it seems like we have an easy job. We receive emails, we read them, we point out the grammar mistakes. It isn't that easy. When you affirm something you support the thing itself. You can't affirm a point that someone else made. You can affirm the contents of the point, or the idea. "Dr. Dobson affirmed that the stability of the family is critical to our economy's success." That's not quite right either. I assume that Mr. Santorum is trying to say that he, Rick, came up with the idea that stable families are essential to the economy, and that then Dr. Dobson said something like, 'Rick Santorum said stable families are essential to the economy and I agree.' But maybe he is saying that the idea was floating around and Dr. Dobson, prestigious Doctor that he is, affirmed this idea -- lending credence to the statement. It is really hard to tell.

The good news is that I understand what you were thinking. You were thinking that you'd never say "through she" -- you'd say "through her." Right? Here you have a prepositional phrase though. You might be tempted to blame it on the KJV Bible you're toting around, but I'm not sure that's fair! You really must read your tweets and think about them before you send them out.

Oh, also, Nikki -- if you hadn't recently destroyed all state emails, we could have gone over those together to correct prior grammar mistakes too.

Michele:

Yesterday's super gaff (spelling United States wrong) meant that the pressure was on for today's email. In general, Michele did a really great job!

Student is showing signs of improvement. While student still has trouble with run-on sentences, there were fewer editing gaffs. Student could benefit from more careful proofreading. We recommend reading the email aloud before hitting post. Remember that professionalism will count later in life.

Without further ado:

1. "Iowa is the first in the nation contest." Now , this is a bolded header. We all make mistakes. An important thing to remember for the future is to reread these bolded headers before you push 'send' to 40 million followers. As a rule it is always worth it to check everything you are publishing to a mass audience.

2. "As one of my most loyal supporters, I wanted to reach out to you first." In this sentence the 'As one of my most loyal supporters' modifies "I", which means you are saying that because you are your own most loyal supporter you are contacting me first. Now that just doesn't make sense.

This is, as always, the tip of the iceberg. Leave your grammar tips in the comments!

Some advice for Newt

1. Michelle Bachmann's campaign is very good at writing my first name in every paragraph. You are not so good at this.

2.

Speaker Gingrich has the big ideas and bold policies that are the only antidote to the venomous policies of President Obama.

Antidote should be plural.

2. I don't have any facts to back this up. But there is no way that Obama's cuts will lead to the 'smallest airforce ever.' In fact, as a student of history, Speaker Gingrich should know that that the Wright brothers are widely credited with 'inventing' the airplane, and taking the first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Our country was established before then - and so one would assume the airforce was smaller at that time.

Michele Michele...

I don't know where to begin.

I want to take this moment to sigh, and to feel sad for you, for the Christian children educated in the bible colleges you prefer, and for all of us in the United States.

It is an email. It is informal. But you are running for President of the United States. It is an important job with a lot of responsibility. It is even harder than writing an email! I think you should try to hire someone to write your copy. You may need to pay extra because of who you are, but writers come cheap. There are fewer and fewer jobs for liberal arts majors.

What I mean to say is: whoever writes your emails is not doing a good job. There are many grammatical errors in your email. I'm going to play a game. I'm going to put the text of the email here. I hope our many readers will point out the errors, so you can learn English.

Dear Nerd,

In 2012, everything is on the line.

This is the last election where I believe we can turn the country around- and it begins by defeating President Obama.

Americans across the nation are hurting. The economy continues to falter, the job numbers are dismal, and our children and grandchildren’s future is hanging in limbo. Yet, Obama is focused on winning re-election and while doing so is putting our nation’s economy at risk.

It is clear that President Obama only cares about one job — his own. We cannot afford to have a president who is more concerned about his own poll numbers than the job numbers. We need a President who puts Americans and America, first.

As the next President of the Unites States, I pledge to always fight for taxpayers first and remain true to the founders’ limited government, pro-freedom vision. I pledge to faithfully adhere to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, a limiting document that reminds us all that the true political power lies with “We the People”. After all, the American people know how to spend their money better than government!

With less than 50 days until the Iowa caucuses, our campaign needs your support today more than ever. Your donation of $35, $50, $100 or more will ensure our campaigns has the funds necessary to ensure our conservative message resonates with voters.

We conservatives have a great opportunity at hand- We don't have to settle for a moderate for the sake of winning. We can stay true to our values, take back our country and win the White House in 2012!

We need a president whose focus is the safety of our country and the economy of our nation. We need permanent, free market solutions which will allow America's businesses, small and large to start hiring again. We need a leader who is not afraid to make the tough decisions necessary to balance our budget and begin to eliminate our country’s nearly insurmountable debt.

The Democrats and liberal media would love nothing more than our campaign to be silenced because they know we will not stop fighting back against out of control spending with renewed pressure on government at every level to live within its means.

Through Obamacare, wasteful spending and his other failed leadership, Barack Obama has done significant damage to the United States. I know, with your support we can ensure Barack Obama is a one-term president. To ensure I am able to continue fighting the big-government Obama agenda please make a generous donation of $25, $35, $50 or more today.

Thank you for your continued support and friendship. May God bless America.

Sincerely,

Why doesn't Rick Santorum have html emails?

We are at the midway point in our "50 Days to Iowa" moneybomb. So far we've raised $118,378 and we are still climbing.

Rick, what are you climbing? A moneybomb? Are you climbing a 'moneybomb'? What is a moneybomb? Are you at the 'midway point' in a climb, that is simultaneously a 'bomb'? A climb is a long vertical thing. A bomb is temporally brief, but creates a big explosion. Are you halfway through the explosion? Or halfway up the mountain?