Do I ALWAYS have to write in active voice? No, you don’t! Although writing in active voice is generally preferable, sometimes passive voice is the better choice, or maybe even the only choice. When you write in active voice, the subject of the sentence accomplishes the action: The technician checked the equipment for leaks. The…
We see it often in letters, emails, texts, tweets, memos, and notes. This mark is appealing because it helps save character space and looks casual, but how does it fit in formal writing? The Associated Press Stylebook advises using the ampersand when it is part of a company’s formal name or composition title: Barnes &…
If you are a native speaker of English, you probably take a lot of things for granted—such as the order in which you write adjectives that describe nouns. English as a Second Language (ESL) writers, however, may have trouble with it. Native English speakers/writers have lots of experience hearing the flow and rhythm of the…
When you are talking about discussing something in great detail, do you want ‘indepth’ or ‘in depth’? The word you want is ‘in depth.’ Just like the term ‘a lot,’ in depth is often mistaken to be one word—but don’t make that mistake! If you want to use the term ‘in depth’ as an adjective describing…
How do I know when to use ‘fewer’ and when to use ‘less’? The express lane at the grocery store is not grammatically correct if the sign near the cash register reads “15 items or less.” Uh oh. How can that be? Use ‘fewer’ when you are referring to things that can be counted. Correct:…
When it comes to quotation marks, the rules for British usage are, for the most part, the opposite of the rules for American usage, as shown in the table below:
Regardless of how good you are at grammar, hyphens can be a pain. Here is the rule for using the prefix ‘re’ with or without a hyphen: Use a hyphen with ‘re’ if it meets both of these conditions: 1. ‘Re’ means again. 2. Omitting the hyphen from the word would cause the reader to confuse it…
A few years ago I was chastened by a client who informed me that the word ‘once’ means ‘one time,’ and it should not be used to mean anything other than that. He was so adamant about it that I didn’t bother to look it up. I have heard this admonition more than once (in fact, several…
When you use a conjunctive adverb (therefore, however, nevertheless, consequently, for example, on the other hand, moreover, besides, accordingly, thus) to join two independent clauses (complete sentences), precede the adverb with a semicolon and follow it with a comma. In English, please? When you combine two complete sentences with any of the words listed in the parentheses…
Is it correct to say, “All of the cars had been stolen”? Or should I write, “All the cars had been stolen”? According to The Chicago Manual of Style, we should delete the ‘of’ whenever possible. (All the cars had been stolen.) There are exceptions, however. (It seems that there are always exceptions when it…