Improving Your Writing Will Improve Your Life

Everyone wants a little taste of the good life, but it’s often difficult to figure out just how to cook it up and savor it. After all, the recipe for success can be more complex than the method behind a Yotam Ottolenghi vegetable dish.

The first challenge, naturally, is identifying the right ingredients. And unless you think the key to a better existence merely opens the door to a Ferrari, you’re most likely part of the crowd that agrees that health, peace of mind, and happiness are critical components.

Are you passionate about grammar? March forth with us on National Grammar Day!

March 4th is National Grammar Day in the United States. Each year we rally all the grammar-loving troops to raise awareness about the value of proper grammar and about good writing overall. This year we have some exciting initiatives to get everyone thinking about good grammar!

The Grammarly Grammar Nerd Personality Quiz

Every English language lover knows that not every grammar fiend is created equally.

Grammar Basics: What Are Commonly Confused Phrases in English?

Are there certain phrases in English that you can never quite remember? Chances are, others have the same difficulty. Here are some of the most commonly confused expressions in English.

I couldn’t care less So you do care! That’s what you’ll be saying if you say what many others mistakenly do: I could care less.

By accident If you say this wrong, you might have learned it from a native speaker.

“Which World Leader Do You Write Like?” Quiz

You have greatness in you. Cultivating it often takes role models, mentors, and loads of hard work. This fun quiz will help you find out which famous world leader you most resemble in your writing and may help you find an inspiring role model.

What world leader did you get? What others do you look up to?

Carmel vs. Caramel: Which Is Correct?

Generally, “caramel” is defined as a chewy, light-brown candy made from butter, sugar, and milk or cream. For example: I love eating caramels because they are soft and chewy. In contrast, “Carmel,” is used as a proper noun, and it is a popular beach town in California, known as Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Carmel and caramel are not different spellings of the same word. Caramel is the correct spelling if you’re talking about food or colors.

3 Punctuation Mistakes That Can Make You Look Like A Cannibal

1. Eat your dinner. vs Eat. You’re dinner.

Normal: Eat your dinner. Cannibalistic: Eat. You’re dinner.

That apostrophe (‘) is important! There are often a lot of hilarious (sometimes scary) sentences that come about when people confuse “your” and “you’re.” To avoid looking like a creep, it’s best to remember that your is the possessive form of you. It functions just like my does in relation to me.

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives: Rules and Examples

Adjectives can compare two things or more than two things. When we make these comparisons, we use comparative and superlative forms of adjectives.

Comparatives

One way to describe nouns (people, objects, animals, etc.) is by comparing them to something else. When comparing two things, you’re likely to use adjectives like smaller, bigger, taller, more interesting, and less expensive.

Does what you read influence how you write?

The Grammarly team is growing quickly, which means that we’re writing a lot of job descriptions to help us recruit top talent. One recent job post stated: “Salary will be commensurate with experience.”

Commensurate . . . commensurate . . . commensurate . . .

Perhaps you know what that word means; you may even understand how to use it in the context of a sentence. However, if you are like me, you have no idea how to actually say it aloud.

How to Write a Resignation Letter and Exit in Style

When it comes to making big shifts in the direction of your life, changing jobs ranks right up there among the most significant. You’ll be leaving behind familiar faces, tasks, and roles to sail into unknown waters. It’s energizing and daunting at the same time!

Once you’ve made the decision to leave your job, you’re faced with the challenge of leaving on good terms.

7 Intelligent Tips on How to Quit Your Job Properly

As life changes go, quitting a job ranks among the most exhilarating and terrifying. It’s a leap into the unknown, regardless of whether you’ve got a new position all lined up or you’re leaving to begin the hunt for new opportunities. Here are seven expert tips to take a little of the stress out of your transition and help you quit your job with class.

1Weigh the pros and cons.

8 Things We Can All Learn From Elizabeth Kolbert

If you’re looking for an inspiring female author from whose work you might glean a few writerly pointers, you needn’t search far. Whether you’re a hardcore fiction buff or always hungry for a fresh memoir, the world of words is suffering no shortage of brilliant women.

Recent fiction luminaires include Hanya Yanagihara—a longtime writer by trade but a relative newcomer to the realm of novels.

“Make Yourself At Home” with Good Grammar

Believe it or not, the quality of your writing significantly influences some of the most important milestones in your life.

In school, good grammar helps students to achieve higher grades. On the job, professionals with fewer grammar errors tend to achieve higher positions; their writing is demonstrative of the credibility, professionalism, and accuracy observable in their work.

5 Ways To Write Better Poems

Poetry is a strange medium. It’s both heavily critiqued and profoundly subjective. A poem can be as timeless as the best classical literature or it might only ever move one reader. When a format is so artistic and personal, it seems absurd to impose rules or suggest ways in which one poem is objectively better than another. Nonetheless, there are certain ways in which a poet can make her own work the best it can be, regardless of how it compares to the mainstream.

This Is How to Properly Introduce Yourself in an Email

Meeting someone in person is pretty straightforward. You smile, shake their hand, tell them your name. But what if you’re not meeting face to face? What if you’re introducing yourself via email?

Maybe you’re reaching out to create a new connection, to ask for advice, or a collaboration, or a job. How do you compete with the other 700 emails in their inbox and convince them a response to you is worthwhile?

GRAMMARLY RESEARCH: Good Grammar Will Get You The Job

The informality of email, texting, and tweeting has crept into company communication–embarrassing management and leaving bad impressions with clients. Kyle Wiens, of iFixit and Dozuki, said in a July 2012 post on the Harvard Business Review blog, “I have a ‘zero tolerance approach’ to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.” He requires job applicants to pass a grammar test before hiring them because writing is his business.

14 People Who May Love Books More Than You Do

Loving books is not a competition. There’s no such thing as a bookworm grand prix. But then again, it’s hard not to notice that some people are bigger bookworms than others or are expressing their love of books in ways that other people might find a little bit too out there. From creating elaborate reading corners and having tattoos of books to building bookshelves that spell “worm” and simply having a lot of books on a to-read list, people celebrate their love of books in many different, creative ways.

Why You NEED to Write Every Day

Alzheimer’s, dementia, and severe memory loss affect memory, thinking, language, and behavior—even beyond expected decreases in function from the typical aging process. But according to a recent study by the Medical Journal of the American Academy of Neurology, there are some strategies to help you avoid this type of cognitive decline that you can begin working on now.

Negatives and Negation–Grammar Rules

When you want to express the opposite meaning of a particular word or sentence, you can do it by inserting a negation. Negations are words like no, not, and never. If you wanted to express the opposite of I am here, for example, you could say I am not here.

Below, you’ll find lists of common negative words used to negate ideas.

Negative words:

• No
• Not
• None
• No one
• Nobody
• Nothing
• Neither
• Nowhere
• Never

Negative Adverbs:

Finding a Rhyme and Reason for National Poetry Month

Academia teaches us to use proper nouns, pronouns, and punctuation, but what about other types of writing? What about types of writing, like fiction or poetry, which capture a reader in ways beyond the period or comma?

April is National Poetry Month, and a great time to help writers to answer these questions — even if in an intangible way. For example, to strict grammarians, poetry may seem as though it has no rules.