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a graphic with suspended quotation marks in dialogue boxes to showcase dialogue quotation rules

Proper Use of Quotation Marks

Quotation marks show that those words are being spoken. They are used a lot in dialogue in fiction writing. Dialogue is words spoken by characters. Quotation marks are always in pairs, with the first set opening the quote and the second set closing the quote.… continue reading

title graphic stating "imperative sentences, definition & examples"

Imperative Sentence – Definition and Examples

An imperative sentence gives a demand, command, or instruction directly to an audience and typically begins with an action word (a verb). These sentences often appear to be missing a subject or the person, place, or thing that performs a main action. This is… continue reading

Converting Boring Business Writing Into Something Inspiring

Business writing is useful in various contexts, but its primary purpose is to receive a business response. In other words, it is writing that deals with business, whether it’s reaching out to customers or employees, and getting a response back relevant to whatever business the… continue reading

Enhancing Active Verbiage in Business Letters

When you’re writing a business letter, especially to colleagues or other people in your field, you may tend to write in a very dry, jargon-filled manner. Though you may not be able to avoid the jargon trap in this case, there is another trap that… continue reading

How To Avoid Too Much Formality in Business Writing

Writing for business can be tricky. Because you must maintain a professional manner, this can often cause some people to become too formal in how they write. Although business writing should be more formal than other casual types of writing, such as emails between friends or social media articles, it still needs… continue reading

Getting Your Idea Across in Minimal Words

It can sometimes appear to be very difficult explaining various things or concepts to many of the people around you. Everyone has completely different and unique experiences and knowledge, which means that the person you’re talking to at the moment might not know what exactly… continue reading

Review: Interested in Language? You’ll Love This Book

As an English major in college, I had only one English department class that I did not do well in: I got a C in linguistics, a required class. Phonemes, bilabial fricatives—they bored me to tears. How I wish the text had been this new… continue reading

ESL Instructors–Is This Book for Ewe?

Today is Book Lovers Day, an unofficial holiday celebrating the love of books. It’s a great excuse to relax and read. I picked an easy book to enjoy, P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, written by rapper Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter and… continue reading

A Guide to Gender-Neutral Language

It’s LGBTQ Pride month and a good time to start using gender-neutral language if you haven’t started already. That’s words such as people, folks, everyone, they, them, and their, which do not indicate gender. It’s different from the expressions ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters,… continue reading

Read Your Dense Privacy Policy? No, I’ll Go Elsewhere

Earlier this month The New York Times published an interactive data-filled article on privacy policies titled “We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster.” Author Kevin Litman-Navarro performed several analyses. For example, he timed the minutes it took him to read a privacy policy. Craigslist’s… continue reading