Writers love em dashes as much as hunters love Swiss army knives. It’s not difficult to understand why. Like the utilitarian knife, em dashes are versatile tools. Once you find out about these handy dashes, you may fall in love with them too.
Em dashes differ from other dashes not only in usage, which we will discuss shortly, but also in appearance. In fact, the em dash is named after its length—it’s about the same width as the capital letter M.
Introductory clauses are dependent clauses that are often found at the beginning of the sentence (although they can be moved to the end of the sentence, too, without confusing the meaning of the sentence). After a dependent introductory clause, we use a comma to separate the introductory clause from the independent clause. Consider the examples below:
When you picture someone meditating, what do you see? A yoga class? A person of South Asian descent in a religious context? A random businessperson in a stock photo?
Messages about mindfulness have been muddled, messy, and largely unhelpful since its rise to popularity. In the last few years, mindfulness has moved from hippie-and-yogi buzzword to bonified productivity skill lauded by the likes of The Harvard Business Review and Tim Ferriss.
Should you place a comma before so when it joins two clauses in a sentence? The answer depends on whether the clause introduced by so is an independent or dependent clause. If so begins an independent clause, a comma should precede it, but if it begins a dependent clause, leave it out.
Let’s have a look at how commas are used before so in the middle of a sentence.
An independent clause is a clause that would convey a complete thought if it were to be set apart as a sentence on its own.
Commas may be placed after the closing parenthesis but not before either the opening or the closing parenthesis. If the sentence would not require any commas if the parentheses were removed, the sentence should not have any commas when the parentheses are present.
You’ve likely seen writers use parentheses to set apart information from the main sentence. But do you know how to use them correctly?
Possessive pronouns show that something belongs to someone. The possessive pronouns are my, our, your, his, her, its, and their. There’s also an “independent” form of each of these pronouns: mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, and theirs. Possessive pronouns are never spelled with apostrophes.
Possessive pronouns simplify constructions that show possession of a noun.
What is #GrammoWriMo?
In November 2013, in honor of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Grammarly has organized the largest group of authors to collaborate on a single novel—we’re calling the project #GrammoWriMo.
How many people are participating?
More than 750 people have signed up to participate in #GrammoWriMo. We’ve divided the novel into 30 chapters—between 25 and 26 writers have been assigned to contribute to each chapter.
A subordinate clause is a clause that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence; it merely complements a sentence’s main clause, thereby adding to the whole unit of meaning. Because a subordinate clause is dependent upon a main clause to be meaningful, it is also referred to as a dependent clause.
Whether you use the term subordinate or dependent to describe the clause, this clause’s function is clear: it provides informational support to the main event of the sentence.
A lot, alot, and allot only differ by a few spaces or letters. However, all of the terms function differently. Let’s investigate how to use each one.
Alot is a common misspelling of a lot. A lot should always be spelled as two words. The meaning of a lot depends on the context. Usually, it means “many” or “to a great extent.” Let’s look at some examples.
