Are You Appositive about This?
Appositives are grammatical elements that may be restrictive or nonrestrictive in a sentence. Not positive you know what an appositive…
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Learn When to Be Restrictive
Do you find the rules regarding comma usage restrictive? Or just confusing? Some comma confusion comes from understanding restrictive and…
Using Hyphens to Avoid Confusion
If I called you a short story editor, would I be remarking on your height? I would be, if I…
To Apostrophe or Not—That Is the Question
Sometimes punctuation is a matter of context. Attributive vs. possessive nouns are a case in point. Is the second Sunday…
Joint Ownership
Let’s talk a bit about joint possession and the proper way to express this. Possession can get a bit tricky, and…
Any Way You Splice It
You might know it as a run-on sentence, a fused sentence, or a comma splice. When two independent clauses—sentences that…
Don’t Abuse the Dot-Dot-Dots
Writers often succumb to dot abuse. Well, I’ve heard some people call ellipses “dots.” I’m not talking about the candy…
Scare Quotes Are Not All That Scary
There’s a time and place for every punctuation mark. Using any of them excessively or incorrectly is, well, just plain…
Semicolons: Commonly Misused Bits of Punctuation
The semicolon is the most commonly misused punctuation mark. Bryan Garner (A Dictionary of Modern American Usage) calls the semicolon…
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