Teaching stand-alone grammar lessons is not as beneficial as instructors think if they want their students to learn how to write. If teachers truly want their students to become better at writing grammatically correct papers they will provide practice in writing, lots of practice. It is only through the practice of writing can students improve their writing. Filling in grammar sheets and teaching students how to parse a sentence serves the purpose of getting students to practice skills that they may not need to learn. It also provides practice in isolation and, as a result, students often can't transfer what they learnt from the grammar sheets to their own writing. It is not unusual to have students who can explain grammar rules but can't use them when they are completing assignments. The purpose of teaching grammar should be to show students why they need to learn some of these rules and why they are important if they want to improve their own writing. Therefore, it is important to teach the grammar they need and not to do a blanket teaching of every grammar rule that exists. This is not productive and students will not learn how to follow those rules. Teaching grammar needs to be used judiciously.