Sunday, February 26, 2017

Prepositions

  • Prepositions indicate relationships between other words in a sentence.
  • Many prepositions tell you where something is or when something happened.
  • Most prepositions have several definitions, so the meaning changes quite a bit in different contexts.
  • Ending a sentence with a preposition is not a grammatical error.

    • What Is a Preposition?

      “Vampires! Zombies! Werewolves!” “Where?!” “Behind you!”

Friday, February 24, 2017

Adjectives

What Are Adjectives?

Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns: many, few, millions, eleven.

Adjectives Modify Nouns.

Most students learn that adjectives are words which modify (describe) a noun. Adjectives do not modify verbs or adverbs or other adjectives.

Monday, February 20, 2017

How to Write an Outline: 4 Ways to Organize Your Thoughts

When I was a novice writer, I chafed at the idea of using an outline. I was certain organizing my thoughts in advance would stifle my creativity and make my writing stiff and uninspired. After all, how can serendipity happen if you’ve got everything planned?

But then I started creating content for a living, and I needed to turn out several polished articles every week. I write at least 240,000 words per year to earn my keep.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Conjunctions

Without conjunctions, you’d be forced to express every complex idea in a series of short, simplistic sentences: I like cooking. I like eating. I don’t like washing dishes afterward.

What Are Conjunctions?

Conjunctions are words that link other words, phrases, or clauses together.

I like cooking and eating, but I don’t like washing dishes afterward. Sophie is clearly exhausted, yet she insists on dancing till dawn.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole (hi-PER-buh-lee) is language that is obviously exaggerated and not meant to be taken literally. Writers often use hyperbole for emphasis or to be funny.

Hyperbole: The Best Thing Ever

You can find hyperbole in plenty of English idioms: She’s asked a million questions. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He’s as quiet as a mouse. Now I’ve seen everything.

Where and When to Use Hyperbole

Hyperbole, like metaphors and similes, is a type of figurative language.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

A Brief and Glorious History of the Interrobang

Imagine you need to write down a phone number, but you don’t have any paper handy. What would you use? Some scribble on a receipt, a napkin, or even their hands. Others repeat the number mentally until they locate a sheet of paper. It’s true; necessity is the mother of invention. In other words, people often generate creative solutions if they need something not readily available.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Top 5 Most Frustrating Writing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

Recently Grammarly asked its social media communities which writing mistakes were the worst kinds of errors. Our fans tend to find substantive grammatical trip-ups, like verb errors, far more frustrating than typographical errors and “stylistic” errors, such as homophone misspelling and preposition placement.

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Here are the top five worst writing mistakes and how to avoid and correct them.