---

To SUBSCRIBE and have writing tips sent to your e-mail address each time we write a new one, click on the link at the top of this page. Thanks for your support!

Purchase your own copy of our first fifty writing tips, revised and collected in a printed paperbound reference book suitable for gift giving! Scroll down to see a list of the topics we have collected in this single volume. To purchase a copy, click on the "Order Books" link above.

Previous Tips:

• Handling Vertical Lists (Also Known As Bulleted Lists)
• Typing Characters That Are Not on the Keyboard
• Nauseated versus Nauseous, with an Aside on the Word Notoriety
• Using I and Me
• Bad or Badly?
• Making Verbs Agree with Relative Pronouns
• Speaking of Graduates
• The Ellipsis
• Using the Possessive Case with Gerunds

(Why we should write "I appreciate your taking time" instead of "I appreciate you taking time")
• The Passive Voice

(transitive passive verbs vs. transitive active verbs; why we should write "We have denied your claim" instead of "Your claim has been denied.")
• Possessive vs. Attributive Nouns

(Apostrophes or not in titles and names such as "Father's Day," "Veterans Day," and "Bankers Association")
• When to Use a Comma before And
• Update on Cyberlanguage
• Cyberlanguage (see also "Update on Cyberlanguage" above)
• Which vs. That
• Using Numbers
• "The Reason Is Because" vs. "The Reason Is That"
• Compound Words: When to Hyphenate
• Ending Sentences with Prepositions
• One or Two Spaces after Periods? (and other typography issues)
• Signing Your Holiday Greetings
  (Happy holidays from the Williamses, the Williams', or the Williams's??)
• Using the Colon
• Parallel Structure
• En Dashes and Em Dashes
• Regarding Irregardless
• Who and Whom
• Sit and Set
• Lie and Lay
• Reflexive Pronouns
  (the correct use of words such as "myself," "himself," "herself," "ourselves," etc.)
• Singular Indefinite Pronouns: Part 2
• Which Words to Capitalize in Titles
• Handling the Titles of Works
• More on Punctuating with Quotation Marks
• Singular Indefinite Pronouns: Part I
• Titles of Persons
• Punctuating with Parentheses
• Using the Semicolon
• Anymore and Everyday
• Using Good and Well as Modifiers
• The Subjunctive Mood
• Placement of Only
• Comparatives and Superlatives
• The Possessive Case of Sibilants

  (How to make a word possessive if it ends in s, ch, sh, or x

• The Latin Abbreviations i.e. and e.g.
• Collective Nouns
• Review of Previous Tips
• Anxious and Eager
• The Prefixes Bi and Semi
• Bring and Take
• Using the Articles A and An
• Commas between Coordinate Adjectives
• Possessives: The Issue of Ownership
• Style Manuals
• Hyphenated Adjectives
• Starting Sentences with And or But
• Drug/Dragged and Loan/Lend
• Here and There
• Between and Among
• Four Verb Errors to Avoid
• The Serial Comma (or, Using a Comma before And in a List)
• Effect and Affect
• Like and As
• Criteria and Media
• Punctuating with Quotation Marks
• When Less is Better
• Holiday Greetings: Naming Names

---

GIW Home | Most Recent Tip | Subscribe | Books | Contact

---