Thursday, June 29, 2017

Quiz: Do You Know How to Network?

Networking can be a challenge.

There’s more to it than just researching events, identifying contacts, and following up. You also have to balance talking about your goals and interests against getting to know others. Effective networking is as much an art as a science.

This quiz will guide you through some key aspects of effective networking and help you understand how good a networker you are.

This Is the Best Way to Write a Memorable Restaurant Review

A great restaurant review can point you toward your new favorite spot—or help you avoid a dining disaster. Review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor have an abundance of restaurant reviews to browse, but if you spend any time on these sites you’ll notice not all reviews are helpful.

Some reviews are positive, but are so vague that you question their legitimacy. Some might have helpful information, but are so poorly written they’re unintelligible.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

What Is an Intensive Pronoun?

An intensive pronoun is almost identical to a reflexive pronoun, but their functions differ. Intensive pronouns are used to add emphasis to the subject or antecedent of the sentence. You’ll usually find the intensive pronoun right after the noun or pronoun it’s modifying, but not necessarily.

The intensive/reflexive pronouns include myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

Monday, June 26, 2017

5 Things You Must Do Every Morning to Be More Productive at Work

On waking up, your bleary eyes note that your phone’s alarm presents two options: “Snooze” and “OK.” Both buttons are the same size, but somehow the word snooooooze seems not only longer but vastly more alluring than the resigned okay you muffle into your pillow, followed by a pleading Don’t make me do stuff to no one.

Getting out of bed and hauling yourself to work can be unfun. There’s good reason you insist on getting paid to do it, after all.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Slashes

There are two types of slashes: a backslash () and a forward slash (/). The backslash is used only for computer coding. The forward slash, often simply referred to as a slash, is a punctuation mark used in English. The only time it is appropriate to use a comma after a slash is when demonstrating breaks between lines of poetry, songs, or plays.

What Does / Mean Between Words?

An explanation of what a forward slash means in a text depends on the context.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

9 Best Grammar Resources for Teachers

How do teachers motivate students to embrace good grammar 365 days of the year and not just on World Teachers’ Day? These ten grammar resources might be just what you need.

1 Visual Aids

If students visualize how grammar works, they will be able to understand sentence structure. For example, an infographic on Copyblogger.com explains what a dangling participle is. Here’s their example sentence: “After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.” The illustration of a zombie holding an orange helps students see that sentence structure matters.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Spelling Rules

Anyone who has ever had to memorize a tough-to-spell English word (It’s fuchsia, right? Or is it fuschia? Fushia?) has noticed that the spelling of some words is wildly different from the way we pronounce them. To make matters worse, some words are spelled differently in American English and British English. If it makes you feel any better, the eccentricities of English spelling weren’t invented just to make life difficult for writers.