GrammarPhile Blog

A bias is a strong inclination of the mind or a preconceived opinion about something or someone. Most of the time, biases occur on a subconscious level and people aren’t even aware they have them. But everyone still holds biases; it’s simply human nature to be partial toward certain things and not toward others, for a multitude of reasons. A lot of biases can be good, like being partial toward initiatives that help children from low-income families. Some can be neutral, like preferring to read New York Times bestsellers instead of The Wall Street Journal. And some biases are generally considered negative, like racial, age, cultural, and gender biases.

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Verb conjugation refers to how a verb changes from one form to another in order to show a different person, tense, number, aspect, or mood. Verbs are critical to understanding what and when something is happening to or via a subject or object in a sentence. It’s vital to know what’s happening in a sentence. And it’s just as important to know who is doing what when we’re communicating, as well as when they’re doing it, and how they’re doing it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another very efficiently.

Writing an impressive social media profile isn’t as easy as it seems, especially in an online world where personal and professional lines are becoming more and more blurred. Knowing how to stand out to the right individuals on social media requires a certain amount of finesse. But fortunately, getting your profile noticed isn’t as arbitrary as it seems at first either. If you want to have a notable social media profile that stands out, here are some things you’ll want to do as you’re writing it.

Consider Your Target Audience 

Facebook has over two billion users each month. Twitter has over three hundred million users. And LinkedIn has about five hundred million monthly users. With numbers like these, it can seem daunting to try and write a profile that would appeal to so many people. The good news is, you shouldn’t even try to do that. Instead, consider your target audience on each platform and who you want to appeal to the most, and then write information about yourself that is relevant to them.

Punctuation is used in writing to establish clarity, tone, meaning, and structure. Consider this sentence without punctuation, and you’ll quickly remember why we need to use it.

maybe you dont always want to use commas periods colons etc when youre writing sentences when I am in a rush tired cold lazy or angry I sometimes leave out punctuation marks grammar is unnecessary anyway I can write without it and wont ever need it my aunt Jane once said she wasnt very good with writing and I never understood a word she wrote to me I think ill just learn enough punctuation not too much enough to write to Aunt Jane needs some help

Using punctuation properly helps your readers understand the message you’re attempting to convey, and ensures they don’t read one thing while you intend another. Punctuation promotes effective communication, which is why it’s so important in marketing and business writing.

Do you think you’re already a pro with punctuation? Test your punctuation knowledge with our quiz and get your answers on-screen when you complete the quiz. After you complete the quiz, the correct answers will be highlighted.

You probably know more word roots in English than you think, simply because you speak and write in the language every day. Once you glance at the list below, it will all start to make sense, and many of the word roots will be easy to remember because they’re so familiar.

Sometimes proofreaders get a bad reputation for being overly critical, pretentious, and boring. They’re often viewed as the holder of the red pen of doom, the crusher of written dreams. And they’re the people who hold things up in the publishing process because they get too involved in the nitty-gritty of your important work, and they’re overly picky with the corrections they make and suggest. However, these stereotypes attributed to proofreaders are a bit grandiose.

Experts generally agree that the difference between an editor and a proofreader is as follows:  an editor reviews a piece of writing to fix any errors in its structure or content, followed by a review by a proofreader who looks for any glaring grammar or spelling mistakes.

While there is some truth to this general claim, there is a little bit more behind what makes editors’ and proofreaders’ roles different and why they’re often jumbled. Otherwise, so many people wouldn’t be confused about who does what in the first place.   

Here are the differences between the responsibilities of editors and proofreaders, explained a little more in depth.

Should using the Oxford comma (also known as the “serial comma”) be a requirement? This is one of the most heated debates in the realm of grammar today. This debate exists not just among writers, but large institutions too. There's even a Twitter account dedicated to asking celebrities about their choice to use (or not use) the Oxford Comma, @CelebrityOxford. Margaret Atwood, the noted author and literary critic, recently disclosed her thoughts on the topic there.

There you are, staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor that’s mocking you. You have absolutely no ideas and a deadline that’s looming. You feel as if you’ve forgotten the entire alphabet overnight and couldn’t even write your name if the fate of the world depended on it. Panic starts to set in, and you finally realize that you’re experiencing writer’s block.

Last week’s post was only the beginning of an even longer list of common mistakes writers are prone to make. Below are a few more common mistakes you should remember the next time you’re writing something, so you can fix them before you share or publish your final draft.