How to Write Holiday Greetings and Avoid Common Mistakes

Maybe you don’t love holly or snowmen. Or winter jingles. Or trying to manage the list of gifts you’ll need to buy, wrap, and present to your loved ones. Heck, maybe every year you get stuck holding down the office for weeks on end while half the staff is away. Still, you want to power through this—to scream “come at me December, I can take you on!”

Nothing says “I am undaunted by the demands of the winter holidays and am not merely soldiering through—I am here to dominate” like a greeting card.

Capitalization

At first glance, the rules of English capitalization seem simple. You probably know you should capitalize proper nouns and the first word of every sentence. But you also (sometimes) capitalize the first word of a quote. Usually you don’t capitalize after a colon, but there are exceptions. And what do you do when you’re not sure whether something is a proper noun?

English Capitalization Rules:

1 Capitalize the First Word of a Sentence

7 Productivity Apps That Will Make Your Life More Efficient

Ever reach the end of the day and wonder where all your time went?

I keep reading articles where the author points out that all of us—from millionaires to humble knowledge workers—have the same twenty-four hours in the day.

Sure, this is meant to be inspiring (you too can achieve your dreams!), but when it’s already noon and I’ve barely started my to-do list . . . it just feels depressing.

7 Useful Tips on How to Write a Perfect Professional Email in English

It’s an exciting day—your first at a new job. And it’s the kind of gig you could get used to: Sitting in a comfortable chair and handling emails isn’t exactly backbreaking labor, right? But parts of it may not come naturally to you, at least not right away.

Maybe you want the emails you draft to project confidence and control, but are nervous about arranging each part in the right order.

How did you learn grammar?

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Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

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Colon

A colon introduces an element or series of elements that illustrates or amplifies the information that preceded the colon. While a semicolon normally joins two independent clauses to signal a close connection between them, a colon does the job of directing you to the information following it.

Many people are confused about using colons, but their function is actually quite straightforward.

5 Things That Will Make You Better at Content Writing

Writers around the world publish millions of articles to the Internet every day. Does yours stand out? If you’re a content creator, making a few simple changes will help you become the kind of writer whose posts are readable, relatable, and shareable. Here are five things that will make you better at content writing and help your posts shine like a beacon in a sea of words.

Sorry for the Late Reply: How to Apologize for a Delayed Response

You don’t always respond to emails right away. In fact, sometimes you put them off until the next day, the next week, or—downcast gaze—the next month. At some point the calculus shifts from “Can I somehow compose an email that justifies my glacially slow response-time?” to “Would it be easier to just fake my death instead?”

While it doesn’t look or feel great, sometimes you have to own up to sleeping on someone’s message.

Do You Want a Promotion? Read These 5 Books.

You work hard. You’re excited about your career. Isn’t it about time you had a job promotion?

You’re eager to move up the ladder, but navigating the maze of company politics feels stressful and confusing. If you’re not sure how to ask, when to ask, or what to ask, it may be time to call in the professionals.

Here are five of the best career books that will help you advance faster, have greater success, and make more money.

Reader’s Choice: 10 Books That Will Make Great Holiday Gifts

Grammarly blog readers love many things. Chief among them, grammar advice, writing tips, and of course, reading.

Book recommendations are always clutch, especially at this time of the year. So for those looking for last-minute stocking-stuffers or timely selections for your book clubs, we asked our Facebook audience, “What has been your favorite book of 2017?” Here are their picks for the  books they’re loving right now along with reviews from Goodreads.

Mixed Constructions

A mixed construction is a sentence with incompatible elements that begins with one type of structure and shifts to another type of structure. In these sentences, the speaker sets out to say one thing and abruptly switches to something else, resulting in confusion.

A sentence that is logical has a subject and a predicate. When a subject is introduced in a sentence, an expectation is set up about the grammatical direction the sentence is going in, and when that expectation is not met, the sentence does not sound right.

7 Places Grammarly’s Mobile Keyboard Helps You the Most

Smartphone users, rejoice! Grammarly has finally made the long-awaited jump to mobile (both iOS and Android!), helping us improve our communication even when using our smartphones and tablets.

But how can the Grammarly keyboard really help your writing experience?

We’re glad you asked! Here are just a few of the important places Grammarly’s new keyboard can help you show up as your best self when you’re writing on mobile.

Which common writing error is the worst?

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.

Parallelism

Parallel sentence elements in grammar are just like parallel lines in geometry: they face the same direction and never meet.

More precisely, in grammar, it’s less about meeting and more about balance. Parallelism in grammar is defined as two or more phrases or clauses in a sentence that have the same grammatical structure.

The Why

A sentence with parallel construction makes your writing effective, classy, and certain to impress anyone who reads your stuff.

The Singular They

What Is the Singular They?

They is a third-person pronoun, usually referring to a group of something.

It is possible, however, to use they in reference to a single something (the same is true for the possessive, objective, and reflexive forms of they: their, them, and themselves). This is sometimes called the singular they.

A teacher can make a big difference in the lives of their students.

When Is the Best Time to Send an Important Email?

Your email may never be opened. Sure, you wrote brilliant copy. You also took the time to craft a compelling subject line. You followed good email etiquette. But, unless you considered the best time to send an email, your message may still be destined for the trash bin.

By my conservative estimate, I’ve sent at least 100,000 emails since the early days of the Internet. (May Prodigy rest in peace.) It wasn’t until I started handling public and media relations a decade or so ago that I gave a second thought to how an email’s send time affects open rates.

5 Holiday Out of Office Messages That Will Make You Smile

Ah, the holidays! The winter festivities mean that many of us get to leave the stress of office life behind. If you’re taking an extended break, you may want to create a holiday out-of-office message to let your contacts know you’ll get back to them just as soon as the eggnog is out of your system and you’ve returned to your desk.

How to Write a Holiday Out-of-Office Message

Within reason, it’s okay to have some fun with your out-of-office message.

Conjunctions

Without conjunctions, you’d be forced to express every complex idea in a series of short, simplistic sentences: I like cooking. I like eating. I don’t like washing dishes afterward.

What Are Conjunctions?

Conjunctions are words that link other words, phrases, or clauses together.

I like cooking and eating, but I don’t like washing dishes afterward. Sophie is clearly exhausted, yet she insists on dancing till dawn.

8 Honest Reasons You Didn’t Make It Past the First Interview

You breezed through the phone screening and your first interview went surprisingly well.

But weeks go by and you never hear back. If you do end up getting a rejection email, you’re left staring numbly at an auto-response with too many clichés and not a single explanation of why you didn’t make the cut.

And so, the vicious circle continues. How can you improve your interview game when no one is telling you what you’re doing wrong?