13 Professional Writers to Follow on Facebook

After a delightful meal, have you ever sent your compliments to the chef? Finishing a great novel can leave you with the same urge to congratulate the brilliant mind behind it. Did you know you can leave a message for your favorite author on Facebook? Besides messages, Facebook offers you the opportunity to discover a lot about your favorite writer. Let’s look at the pages of thirteen professional writers!

Commonly Confused Word Pairs

By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom

Words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings are called homophones, and especially for kids who are just learning to spell, they can cause trouble every time. There are some rules to help budding writers remember the trickiest homophones, but in many cases it’s just a matter of memory. There, their . . . they’ll get them in time.

8 Great Hanukkah Reads

Hanukkah, if you didn’t already know, is a Jewish holiday that begins on the twenty-fifth of the Jewish month Kislev and lasts for eight days. It’s a winter holiday, and because Jewish months don’t correspond perfectly to the Gregorian calendar months, Hanukkah can fall in November, December, or even stretch into January. This year, it begins at sunset on December 24 and lasts until nightfall on January 1.

When Should I Spell Out Numbers?

It is generally best to write out numbers from zero to one hundred in nontechnical writing. In scientific and technical writing, the prevailing style is to write out numbers under ten. While there are exceptions to these rules, your predominant concern should be expressing numbers consistently.

Numbers can disrupt readability in a paragraph, so for most writing purposes, it is best to flex those fingers and type out numbers less than 101 as fully spelled words.

What Are Proper Nouns, and How Do I Use Them?

A proper noun is a specific (i.e., not generic) name for a particular person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are always capitalized in English, no matter where they fall in a sentence. Because they endow nouns with a specific name, they are also sometimes called proper names.

Every noun can be classified as either common or proper. A common noun is the generic name for one item in a class or group.

Comma Before But

Deciding whether to put a comma before or after but in a sentence is hard for a lot of writers, but it doesn’t have to be for you!

When Do You Need a Comma Before But?

You should put a comma before but only when but is connecting two independent clauses.

I would go for a walk, but it’s raining outside.

How do you know you have two independent clauses? First, look at the words before but: I would go for a walk.