All Blog Posts Tagged 'error' (24)

(« Detail of a poster for the International Hygiene Exhibition 1911 in Dresden » by Franz von Stuck)

« Understanding » is the third segue in the series that I have written…

Before I write anything else, let me state that I like Lynn Truss’s book Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It is funny, and it has a few good pointers on…

Therefore and Too are conjunctive adverbs, and they cause a lot of problems with commas. Before we look at using commas with therefore and too, we need to understand conjunctive adverbs and what they do.

What Conjunctive Adverbs Do

A conjunctive adverb shows how the idea in one sentence or independent clause…

You have a document, and it has special formatting. Perhaps it has heading styles, block quotes, references, and the like. Maybe you need to use APA style or MLA style. Perhaps your document has special chapter titles. Keeping track of these styles—and using them consistently—can…

Language, and writing, can do one of two things, depending on how it is used: enhance a relationship or damage it. In simple terms, it can help bring people together or push them apart; it can help you accomplish your purposes, or it can hinder you. Language is never neutral.

What does this mean for you as you write? This means you have to think carefully…

1. I think chocolate is tasty too.
2. I think chocolate is tasty, too.

Although paragraph structure challenges writers, it is essential not only to help organize the content logically but also to keep the reader interested to the end of the document. On the other hand, if paragraphs are not structured well, the reader will have difficulty understanding the ideas being presented and will be unlikely to respond as you wish.

You…

Do commas confuse you?

The final stage of the writing and editing process is proofreading: correcting any errors in spelling, punctuation, word usage, and format. Roughly 75% of what I do while proofreading clients’ documents is correct commas.

 

When I teach university writing courses, I ask the students, “What’s the number one thing that confuses you…

For nearly 20 years, I have helped graduate students edit essays, research papers, dissertations, and other graduate-level papers. Some papers only need basic proofreading to correct spelling errors, grammar errors, punctuation errors, and problems with word choice. Other papers need help with APA format, reference lists, and citations. However, most papers need substantial revising.

The most common problem I have found when editing graduate papers is the lack of…

When I teach writing classes, give book talks, or generally discuss strategies for improving written communication, I often get this question: “What are the best strategies for writing well?”…

This is not an article about politics. Instead, it is about 7 strategies for creating impact with your words. We will use samples from President Obama’s July 17th weekly address as an example of impact strategies.

President Obama is a powerful speaker. What does that mean? Being a powerful speaker means that people are interested in what you say and that they react emotionally and cognitively to your message. This is impact. Whether intuitively or consciously, powerful speakers…

We often respond to questions on Yahoo! Answers. The article below is adapted from one of those responses.

Question: Can Someone Check My Grammar?

“There are several factors account for cultural diversity in Europe such as geographical, historical, and religion that prevent the growth of any single homogenous style in the region. The geographical distribution has formed boundaries within the different ethnic groups. Separated by their identity…

How a cliché becomes a cliché

When a particular cliché was first used (before it became a cliché), it created an impact. It used words in an interesting and novel way. The person who heard or read the expression might have thought, “Gosh, that’s a really creative way to express that idea.” Then, when other people began to use that expression, they were not clever; they were copycats. Having no interesting ideas of their own, they used someone else’s idea. When many people do…

I took a writing course about four years ago. By the end of the second session, I was thinking, “Sheeze! I could teach this course.” I learned only one thing. During the second month, I learned the name of a very important concept I had been using unconsciously for years, thereby increasing my ability to write and edit purposefully.

Grammatical versus Rhetorical Subject

I learned that sentences can have two types of subjects: Grammatical and…