Whether or not you put a comma before and depends on how you’re using and. There’s no single rule that applies to all situations. You usually put a comma before and when it’s connecting two independent clauses. It’s almost always optional to put a comma before and in a list.
A lot of people have strong feelings about putting a comma before and in a list.
In honor of International Women’s Day, we rounded up nine of our favorite quotes from women writers about reading. Share your favorite quotes about reading and writing in the comments section!
It doesn’t matter whether you’re just testing the job market or eagerly searching for your next gig—knowing how to write a great cover letter is an essential skill. We’ll talk about the whys and hows of cover letters, offer some examples of what to say (and what not to), and provide a few etiquette dos and don’ts. Read on to rev up your job-seeking game!
Hunting for a job is hard.
If you stare awhile at the string of characters that a sentence comprises, the squiggles lose all meaning. That humans somehow manage to agree on the use of these symbols well enough to communicate at all can seem miraculous.
But what about when we don’t quite agree—when it seems a writer has added a superfluous, bafflingly out-of-place comma, perhaps, or inexplicably used the wrong pronoun?
Without question marks, we’d miss out on all kinds of things: invitations, jokes, the Riddler . . .
No doubt, the question mark is a nice little piece of punctuation. And, best of all, it’s easy to use!
The main purpose of a question mark, perhaps unsurprisingly, is to indicate that a sentence is a question. Direct questions often (but not always) begin with a wh- word (who, what, when, where, why).
Have you ever been in this situation?
You go in for an interview, and after a harrowing two hours, walk out feeling relatively confident that you made a good impression. Your resume was flawless. Your cover letter was witty and showed passion. Your interview outfit was on point. You thought you really bonded with the team that interviewed you. Nothing could go wrong, right?
This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.
Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!
If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.
Holiday season is fun, but it’s also hectic. You may get a few days off from work or school, but with all the parties, family gatherings, feast cooking, gift shopping, and other celebratory goings-on, there may not be much time left over. What’s a bookworm to do? Get creative, that’s what! Here are four ways to sneak some reading time into even the busiest holiday schedule.
Yaaawn. You were having a productive day.
This morning you were launching emails with the rapid succession of a fireworks display and smashing deadlines like an elite Whac-a-Mole champion who can see the future. It’s one of those magical days where you managed to titrate your coffee dosage perfectly—you were awake enough to contribute plenty during your team’s morning meeting, but not caffeinated to the point of jitters or psychosis.
One look at composer-performer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s list of accomplishments and you’ve got to wonder how he does it all.
His first musical, In the Heights, which he wrote and starred in, won four Tony Awards. He’s acted in TV shows, appeared on SNL, and was recently awarded the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Grant. He wrote the songs for Disney’s animated “Moana,” whose hit song “How Far I’ll Go” was nominated for the 2017 Oscar for Best Original Song.
Have you ever written something only to have the recipient completely misunderstand your intent? Or been accused of abruptness when you thought you were being businesslike and efficient? There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to communicating effectively, but among the most important is tone.
I’ve spent nearly two decades in the online trenches in roles ranging from business owner to forum moderator to PR email writer extraordinaire—a true virtual diplomat.
If a publisher offers you a kill fee, don’t panic! They’re not asking you to murder anyone. A kill fee is money paid for a piece of writing if they decide to kill it—i.e., not publish it. If you want to make it in the writing industry (and avoid criminal charges), you need to learn the lingo. Let’s start right now.
Have you heard of a policeman’s beat?
This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.
Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!
If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.
Let’s face it, formal letter-writing has gone the way of the pager. Once a necessary communication tool, it’s now a relic of an era before email, only to be used in specific, often similarly antiquated situations.
But what should you do if you have occasion to write a letter? And what if you have to write that letter to someone who isn’t a man?
via GIPHY
Never fear, fearless writer, you’ve got this.
Whether or not you realize it, you have a writing style. It’s like fashion: sometimes you don’t notice it at all (jeans and a t-shirt), and other times you can’t take your eyes away (Fashion Week, or Lady Gaga). Whether you’re trying to make it as an author or churning out dozens of business emails a day, your writing style is your signature way of communicating.
Your writing style is uniquely yours, but that doesn’t mean it has to be so unique that it causes confusion.
Stiff legs. Sore behind. “Are we there yet, Mom?”
It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to Aspen, New Orleans, or Disney World. Long car rides bore the best of us. One of the fastest ways to bust boredom is to keep your mind active. Pack these nifty word-related car games in your overnight bag the next time you hit the road.
Choose another car and take a good look at its passengers.
Ah, March Madness. Every year, this season reminds college basketball lovers to root for the underdog, try their hand at predicting tournament results, and believe in their team. Similarly, our March MADness tournament to choose the worst work habit has had some upsets, a few underdogs, and ultimately, one champion. If you voted in one or more of the polls, thank you!
Advisor vs. adviser is probably not the most important or the most annoying conundrum related to the verb advise. That honor goes to advise vs. advice because mixing them up is a more damaging mistake. But still, people wonder about advisor and adviser because we don’t have two different spellings for every word in the English language—it’s not common.
When humans aggregate into groups, we tend to develop new lexicons specific to our group context. Wizards complain about “muggles,” high schoolers aspire to “squad goals”—and occasionally a mid-level manager stares fervently into your eyes and tells you it’s time to “shift the paradigm.”
In recent years business jargon has somehow evolved into a tangled mess of annoying, pretentious, tired clichés that are more effective at obscuring than clarifying meaning.
