YOU MAY REMEMBER THAT LAST YEAR I STARTED A SET OF CRABBIT’S TIPS FOR WRITERS. Here’s No. 5. To find the others, go to the list of labels on the right (scroll down) [on my blog] and choose Crabbit’s Tips for Writers. You can also go here to download the pretty pdf and print it out, [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
THERE ARE SEVERAL SIMILAR WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE that cause a high degree of confusion: those who use them don’t always understand the correct word to write. This article will shed some light on the use of ‘that’ and ‘which’. The simple rule to follow here is in asking if the portion of the [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
A CORRESPONDENT OF MINE RECENTLY HAD THIS TO SAY: I’m appalled at the increasing use of less when fewer would be more appropriate. I was taught that if you could count them (e.g. people at a meeting) you used fewer; if you couldn’t count it (e.g. sugar) you used less. It seems that the trend [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
‘AFFECT’ AND ‘EFFECT’ ARE COMMONLY MISUSED. Here are some simple examples to help you get them straight. The most common meaning of ‘affect’ is to influence, e.g. The new image AFFECTED the size of the file. The new sense of respect AFFECTED him profoundly. The sunlight has AFFECTED the finish of this paint. Another meaning [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
YOUR READERS JUDGE YOU ON THE WAY YOU WRITE. This applies whether you’re writing advertising copy, a college or business report, a website or the next great novel; it’s these judgements that will determine the success or failure of your venture. For example, would you buy a book if you flipped through the pages and [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
TIM NORTH PRESENTS A BEGINNER’S GUIDE to the humble apostrophe. Apostrophes are a common source of confusion for many writers. They needn’t be, though, and this easy-to-follow article will help you to use them properly. Let’s start with a very simple explanation of what a noun is. Don’t worry, this will be the only jargon [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
IN THE DOCK FORUM we see more punctuation errors in speech than in other prose, but the rules are actually straightforward. All speech must be contained within quotes. The traditional way is to use double quotes, i.e. “ and ”, but more recently single quotes have become acceptable too: ‘ and ’. Whichever you use, [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
THIS CORRESPONDENT IS AGITATED by certain uses of conjunctions. My agitation has been aroused by the simplistic overtone prevalent in some journalistic house styles. In particular I refer to the practice of starting the sentence or paragraph immediately following the initial tantaliser with the conjunction ‘but’. The maxim ‘keep it simple, stupid’ might well apply [...]
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
(47) (26) (11) (7) (6) (6) (5) (5) (4) (4) (4) (4) (4) (4) (4) (3) (3) (3) (3) (3)