When you’re writing a sentence that already contains the word “and,” it can be tempting to use “as well as” instead of another “and.” You probably learned at some point in school or at work that you should avoid using
Punctuation tip: Not all questions end with a question mark
Not every sentence that sounds like a question ends with a question mark. Sentences that do end with question marks are called direct questions — they are sentences that we could ask someone. For example, “Lisa, where are the cookies?”
How to punctuate sentences that already end with a period
When it comes to punctuation, periods are one of the easier ones to use. But what happens when you have a sentence like this: “We’re going to leave for the airport at 6:30 a.m.”? How do you punctuate it? Do
When to leave periods out: Part 1
For those of us who write in English on a regular basis, using periods is usually a pretty standard affair. We know that, in general, we need to place a period at the end of a sentence. In some cases,
Writing concisely tip #6: Combine sentences
Sometimes our writing is wordy because we use more sentences than we need to express our thoughts clearly. Because each sentence needs to contain certain types of words (e.g., nouns, verbs, and prepositions) to be grammatical, breaking up related ideas
Writing concisely tip #5: Shorten long words
Our fifth tip for writing concisely focused on turning nouns into their verb equivalents. Sometimes, however, we have a long noun that can’t be turned into a verb (e.g., “methodology”). And in other cases, we have words that are verbs,
Writing concisely tip #4: Turn nouns into verbs
Another way to write concisely is to use nouns in place of verbs when possible. Consider the following sentences: “It is our recommendation that athletes have access to water at all times during the race.” “We recommend that athletes have
Writing concisely tip #3: Use active rather than passive voice
When you write a sentence, you can phrase it in either the active voice or the passive voice. In active voice, the person or thing that performs the main action of the sentence is the subject of the sentence. For
Writing concisely tip #2: Remove unnecessary words
Like redundant expressions, unnecessary words can make your sentences long and wordy. If you’re trying to reduce your word count or even just write more concisely for the sake of clarity, getting rid of unnecessary words can help. Instead of
Writing concisely tip #1: Remove redundant words
Sometimes we make sentences longer than they need to be because we include words that are already implied by other words in the sentence. Consider the following sentence: “When Obama first became president, he moved into the White House.” Because