Many, many people on this site write extremely well. And I do not want to nitpick, but there are some common mistakes made that I thought a grammar/punctuation freak could help with. And note, I ended that sentence with a preposition, because some rules have just gone out of style.
I could have said, "with which a grammar/punctuation freak could help," but it sounds stilted, and most English grammarians will tell you to use what sounds better.
However, a number of mistakes are just mistakes. And, while I can't describe them all here, I can offer a few minor pointers.
Please don't take this as criticism; it's not. It's merely an attempt to point out some egregious errors that most writers, even good ones, don't know. So here we go...
Under way is almost always two words. The only time it is one word is when it is used as an adjective: Our underway ship hit a reef. You can see how that usage would be rare.
Same with "all right." Alright is a bastardization that is not recognized by grammar nuts, although you can see it in print almost every day. Whoa, there's another one:
Every day is two words unless it is used as an adjective: My everyday routine. But, "Every day, she thinks about Sarah Palin..." Or, "She thinks about Sarah Palin every day."
Apostrophe catastrophes. An apostrophe indicates a missing letter; thus, "it's" is always "it is," with the apostrophe substituting for the "i" in "is." In other words, "It's abominable that Rush Limbaugh is making $500 million," or "John McCain's candidacy turned the Republican Party on its head."
Which, of course, leads to noun-pronoun agreement. The Republican Party is an "it," not a "they." This is a common mistake of sportswriters that has made its way into the regular lingo. "Atlanta beat St. Louis, so they are going to the playoffs." NO. The Falcons are a "they;" Atlanta is an "it."
Which brings us to the quotation mark. Quotation marks always go outside the last punctuation mark if it's a comma or a period. Inside if it's a semi-colon or a colon. With question marks, dashes and exclamation points, the quotation marks go inside when they are not part of the phrase: Where is your copy of "Crashing the Gate"?
"Farther" means distance: I went farther to see Obama than my sister did.
"Further" means time: I read further into To Kill a Mockingbird
than my sister did.
Passive voice. It is almost always stronger to use active voice: "President Bush approved the new anti-environment policy," as opposed to "The new anti-environment policy was approved by President Bush."
And one I see here a lot (a lot being two words): Hopefully.
Hopefully does not mean "I hope" or "it is hoped." It means "with hope."
"I voted for Obama hopefully." Not, "hopefully, I voted for Obama," which just means you are not sure how you voted, but you hope it was for Obama.
Anyway (one word unless it means in any course, direction or manner; in other words, "Anyway, that is what I think" as opposed to "Any way you look at it, the people who voted for McCain were idiots"), this is my contribution to the discourse here.
Please don't take it badly; I am only trying to help.