What the Heck Is a Heteronym?
If you’re like most people, you’ve heard of synonyms, antonyms and homonyms. They’re part of the basic English curriculum in every school, after all. However, you may have breezed through every grade,...
When to Put an Apostrophe Before the ‘s’ and When to Put It After
Apostrophes play a big role in writing the English language. Not so much in an “understanding the meaning” kind of way, but more of a “proper punctuation” kind of way. If you forget the apostrophe...
Your vs. You’re…One Trick to Guarantee You Never Get It Wrong Again!
Occasionally mixing up the odd words that happen to sound similar is understandable. If you do a lot of writing, it may even be expected. However, this your and you’re confusion has reached epidemic...
Why Accurate Fact Checking Is So Critically Important to Your Writing
It’s easy to think of “fact checking” as an activity reserved for term papers, essays and other writing that require historical accuracy. However, the need for correct factual information in writing...
For All Intensive Purposes…and Other Commonly Misused Phrases
Sometimes, to make your ideas flow from one to the next or to hammer home a point, you use a common phrase to get the job done. We all do it from time to time, but there is a problem. It seems that many...
3 Headline Tips that Will Draw Your Reader In Like a Magnet
Opinions may vary about precisely how long you have to make an impression on a potential reader once they have seen your headline, but most seem to agree it’s less than five seconds. Most also agree...
What are Expletive Constructions and Why Should I Avoid Them?
Whether you write professionally, churn out the odd report as part of your job, or write papers and stories in school, structural and grammatical missteps are part of the process. One such misstep is known...
Farther vs. Further…Is There Really a Difference?
When it comes to writing just about anything, a great deal of confusion, head shaking and fist pounding comes from the use of farther and further. It’s pretty interesting how the difference of one letter...
7 Business Writing Blunders that Will Make You Look Foolish
Speeches, documents, articles, blog posts, news releases, websites, even inter-office memos are all examples of business writing. They are also prime opportunities for you to make some common business...
What Is Persuasive Copy?
The simple (and lazy) way to answer this question is to say persuasive copy is copy or content that is designed to persuade people to do things. And while that is completely true, the real meaning goes...
Writing a Press Release? 5 Tips for Success
If you own or run a business, charity, club or other type of organization that needs to ‘get the word out’ about anything, you may end up writing a press release at some point to accomplish your goal. ...
Improve Your English Writing Skills Fast With These Tips
Just because you grew up speaking the English language and communicating in English all through school doesn’t mean you have great English writing skills. For some people, it just isn’t their...