Strategies to Deal With Chronic Interrupters

Getting interrupted is no fun. Whether it’s at work or with a friend or family member, being the interruptee can make you feel disrespected and unheard. The good news: there are strategies for dealing with interrupters.

First, approach the situation differently based on the context and kind of interrupting. Here are some examples:

• You’re giving a presentation and your boss interrupts with a question
• You’re in a brainstorm session and a colleague interrupts your idea with a different idea
• In a chat with a friend, he or she keeps interrupting to give advice, or change the subject
• In an argument with a significant other, you both interrupt each other to make your point
• In a panel on gender and diversity and business, a male executive repeatedly interrupts a female executive (and doesn’t seem to notice until someone calls him out)
• In an award ceremony, Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to say Beyoncé made a better video than Tay Tay.

Technology That Can Help You Write Better

Writing is a creative and magical process. There’s no telling when inspiration will strike—or what unique conditions will help us access our creativity.

Over the centuries, writers have discovered what worked best for them—no matter how unusual. Agatha Christie penned her murder mysteries in the bathtub while eating apples and drinking tea. Gertrude Stein was known for writing on the go, sitting in her Model T with a pencil and notepad while her wife drove her around running errands.

How to Customize Your Writing in Job Applications

Writing job applications is a necessary evil that awaits most of us. On the plus side, applications allow us to reach for the stars—or at least for employers we would never be able to reach through recommendations or word of mouth. On the flip side, they offer the same opportunity to hundreds of other people who are also looking for a job. To make matters even worse, in this day and age you can’t use the same résumé and cover letter for every job post you see.

Comma Before Such As

The phrase such as requires a comma in front of it only if it’s part of a nonrestrictive clause.

When to Use a Comma Before Such As

Here’s an example of such as used correctly with a comma in a sentence:

In this forest, you’ll see many types of coniferous trees, such as pine and spruce.

The phrase such as pine and spruce is nonrestrictive, so you need a comma. How can you tell it’s nonrestrictive?

How to Write Interesting Stories

April 27 is Tell a Story Day, a great time for writers at all levels to finally share the stories that they’ve been keeping to themselves. But, what if the story you want to tell isn’t quite ready for its debut?

We encourage you to find a different story to tell! How, you ask? Read on . . .

Famous writers approached their writing in different ways, but one commonality involved extracting stories from real life experiences.

Introducing the Diaeresis

The New Yorker is a quirky magazine. Sure, it’s a go-to when you’re looking to read high-quality writing, but the magazine’s style is full of peculiarities. There are the double consonants where you don’t expect them, as in the word “travelled.” There’s the spelling out of numbers, even the really long ones. And there are the words like “coöperate” and “reëlect,” which are written with two tiny dots over the second o and the second e.

Monday Motivation Hack: Avoid Negativity

Mondays induce negativity like no other day. After all, weekends are straight-up awesome. If we’re lucky, we get to sleep in, enjoy a breakfast that’s not rushed, and maybe savor a cup of coffee while laughing at YouTube videos of dogs failing at being dogs. Sometimes, we have exciting activities planned. Sometimes we get to enjoy leisure time. And sure, sometimes we work. But let’s not talk about that here, deal?