Tuesday, May 31, 2016

5 Best Writers’ Retreats of All Time

Some like it hot. Others like it cold, or cluttered, or colorful. As you can imagine, authors, poets, and playwrights find inspiration in a variety of writing environments. With Log Cabin Day coming up on June 28, the Grammarly team began thinking about the best — and most interesting — places to write.

Are you curious about where your favorite author penned his or her bestseller?

Monday, May 30, 2016

Monday Motivation Hack: Make the Hard Choice

Whether you’re a decisive taskmaster or someone who struggles to choose what to eat for breakfast, you will eventually have a decision that stumps you. Sometimes, these are big life choices like taking that job, choosing that partner, or moving to that new city. Other times, seemingly small decisions like which font you should use in your presentation can trip you up.

Never fear, future decision-makers!

Friday, May 27, 2016

5 Alternative Ways to Say “Thank You in Advance”

You just got an email from Susie in accounting asking you to bring three dozen of your famous cupcakes for Dave the office manager’s retirement party. Which, by the way, is tomorrow. Susie signed her email:

Thank you in advance,

Susie

Your reaction to that sign-off will probably depend on the tone and content of Susie’s email. If she politely apologized for the short notice and begged you to please consider whipping up what has become an office favorite (because, really, who doesn’t like cupcakes?), you might get busy baking after work.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Apostrophe Rules

Apostrophes can be tricky. Sometimes they form possessives. Sometimes they form contractions. Can they ever make something plural?

Apostrophe Use: Contractions and Omissions

A contraction is a shortened form of a word (or group of words) that omits certain letters or sounds. In a contraction, an apostrophe represents missing letters. The most common contractions are made up of verbs, auxiliaries, or modals attached to other words: He would=He’d.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Adjectives and Adverbs–What’s the Difference?

Many of us learned in school that adjectives modify nouns and that adverbs modify verbs. But as we’ve seen, adjectives can also act as complements for linking verbs. This leads to a common type of error: incorrectly substituting an adverb in place of a predicate adjective. An example you’ve probably heard before is:

I feel badly about what happened.

Because “feel” is a verb, it seems to call for an adverb rather than an adjective.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Here’s How to Send the Perfect Farewell Message to Colleagues

If you’re leaving your job, you will need to tie up lots of loose ends. Leaving a positive impression on your colleagues is vital. How do you gracefully notify colleagues of your departure? Let’s talk about the perfect farewell message.

The Perfect Timing

Sending farewell messages too early is a bad idea. People will inevitably stop by your office to wish you well face-to-face, and that could interfere with finishing up your last work tasks.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Using the Future Continuous Tense

The future continuous tense, sometimes also referred to as the future progressive tense, is a verb tense that indicates that something will occur in the future and continue for an expected length of time. It is formed using the construction will + be + the present participle (the root verb + -ing).

The simple future tense is a verb tense that is used when an action is expected to occur in the future and be completed.