I used to think that the same punctuation rules applied no matter what you were writing. But I was wrong: there are four major editing styles, and each one has its own rules.
Myths are fictitious stories, but they have a lot of power. Lightning never strikes the same place twice is one myth that I’m sure you’re familiar with, and it is a dangerous one. Lightning could strike the same place in less than ten minutes, or it could wait thousands of years to strike that place again.
There are enough rules about when to use a comma and when not to use one to drive any normal person insane.
Is it grammatically correct to use they as a singular pronoun?
October is National Sarcastic Awareness Month, but people use sarcasm every day of the year. How often are you sarcastic? What is sarcasm? Sarcasm, according to the dictionary, is harsh or bitter derision. It is irony or the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning. When used…
There are enough rules about when to use a comma and when not to use one to drive any normal person insane. Have you ever noticed that sometimes there are commas between adjectives and sometimes there aren’t? Why is that? Order of AdjectivesDid you know that there is an order in which adjectives should appear?…
The words your character just yelled are so very important, and you want to be sure those who will be reading your story notice them. How do you draw attention to those words? How do you convey their importance to your readers?
What would life be like without punctuation? Schoolchildren might rejoice that there would be less homework. But when you stop and think about it, that homework would be more difficult. Anything we read would be so much more confusing. Because of the period, we are able to see where one thought ends and another begins.…
The rules about when to use a comma and when not to use a comma seem to never end. AppositivesWhat is an appositive? Any noun phrase that is placed next to another noun phrase to restate it or say it in a different way is an appositive. A noun phrase can be made up of…
If I were to have a nightmare, I’m pretty sure that it would be about commas. There are so many rules about how to use this little punctuation mark correctly that it can drive a person insane. Some of these rules are easy to remember though. What is a comma splice? Splice means to join…
