Section 3 introduces you to our approach to analysis and application in grammatical contexts. The pages in this section briefly describe abstract concepts that you can use to develop strategies for analyzing grammar more effectively and more efficiently.

As a model for learning, we realize that these concepts may not fit seamlessly into everyone's personal learning network in the same way, that it will not have the same value for meeting each of your learning goals, but we also acknowledge Diane Dietz's claim that “people love to learn but hate to be taught." While some students may say that they want lectures and research papers and regurgitation (mostly because those students, especially those at the university level, have been successful in that traditional system of education their entire lives), we also witness those same students go outside the classroom and do their "learning" on wikipedia and imdb and tumblr and pinterest and etc.

Overall, we want the content in Analyzing Grammar in Context to be something that you will use every day, or something that contributes to the thinking and the work that you do every day. Learning should be a normal part of your routine, day in and day out, for the rest of your life, and we hope the ideas, especially in this section, will fold naturally into your daily activities and your daily learning opportunities. We hope that the content in Analyzing Grammar in Context will not be seen as new "knowledge" memorized by rote to be forgotten as soon as the test is submitted; instead, we hope that it will be seen as a resource, knowledge incorporated as a part of your personal learning environments and as a part of your normal intellectual growth.

In this respect, you might think of Section 3 as combination glossary, faq, and instruction manual. In other words, each page in this section will briefly define an abstract concept, describe how to apply the concept to your analysis of grammatical concepts, and explain how the concept will be used throughout Analyzing Grammar in Context.