Blog
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Double or Single Quotation Marks?
“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” —Henry James The…
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A Wordy Phrase You Should Avoid
Your readers’ time is valuable. And the time you spend writing is valuable. That’s why it’s best to use as few words…
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A Good Choice of Voice
One of the revisions I most frequently suggest to writers is to use active voice. You can write in active or passive…
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A New Role for “Because”
Have you noticed that the word because has been transformed in speech? Once only a subordinating conjunction, in recent years, people have…
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What Can Another Pair of Eyes Do for You?
When I taught kindergarten, I used to tell my students that I have eyes in the back of my head. So when…
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Two Phrases That Weaken Your Writing
1. Needless to say . . . People use this phrase when they think what they’re going to say is already understood.…
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Are You Allergic to Punctuation?
Everything is blooming after a cold, wet winter. For some people, this means pollen allergies. But this spring, in my editing work,…
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A Hard Habit to Break
Despite the title, this post isn’t about the song by the band Chicago; instead, it’s about a rule by The Chicago Manual…
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Punctuating Salutations
Can you choose which punctuation mark to use after the salutation in a formal letter? No. In US English, the only punctuation…