Mistake of the Month: Missing Commas

There are two types of writers in this world: those who use too many commas and those who use too few. While unnecessary commas can turn straightforward sentences into twisting labyrinths of syntactical confusion, missing a critical comma can change the entire meaning of your sentence.

Consider the headline from the now-infamous Rachael Ray cover of Tails magazine: “Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.” While the line breaks of the original cover make it apparent what the editors meant to say, the lack of commas between the three items in the list—“cooking,” “family,” and “her dog”—caused Tails to accidentally portray Ray as a cannibal who gleefully cooks her family and dog.

“Can We Guess Your Zodiac Element Based on Your Writing Habits?” Quiz

There are four elements of the zodiac—air, fire, water, and earth. The zodiac signs within each element share characteristics. Take this fun quiz to find out which zodiac element your writing style is like and see if it matches your real zodiac sign!

Did we get it right? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Hyphen In Compound Adjective With Numbers

When numbers are used as the first part of a compound adjective, use a hyphen to connect them to the noun that follows them. This way, the reader knows that both words function like a unit to modify another noun. This applies whether the number is written in words or in digits.

The president of the company gave a 10-minute speech to the Board of Directors.

He is knowledgeable in thirteenth-century politics.

#GrammoWriMo Plot Summary

Updated November 15, 2013 

Chapter 1

Our adult, female protagonist, Audra, is introduced. This chapter must establish that Audra is a magical wish-granter whose job is to clean the coins out of a small, unremarkable local fountain each night. She is fed up with the vain and selfish wishes of people and regrets that she cannot make a wish for something great, noble—or not having to grant people’s wishes anymore.

3 Dating Tips You Can Steal From “Quiet”

Dating is tough for a lot of people. For introverts living in an extroversion-dominant society, the dating pool can be even more difficult to navigate. However, some of the powerful lessons from the landmark book Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking can be helpful not only for coping with western culture generally but also for getting more value from dating.

12 Mental Habits That Will Derail Your Goals

It feels the same every year: you set some goals for yourself, the year starts with the best of intentions, but then it’s October and you are looking at a partially completed goal and feeling pretty frustrated with yourself. It happens to everyone—literally. But not everyone struggles all the time. Here are twelve ways that your mind is sabotaging your goals and some approaches to getting your head right.

Sequence of Tenses–Grammar Rules

The rules governing verb tenses are dictated by logic; an action in the future obviously cannot happen before an action in the past. In writing, it’s a matter of looking at your clauses and sentences and determining when each action is happening relative to everything else. The past must come before the present, and the present before the future, etc. Pay particular attention to the verb sequence when you have a dependent clause before an independent clause, or a result clause before the if-clause.