Apostrophes with Singular and Plural Nouns

Lets get into the complexities of apostrophes when dealing with singular and plural nouns.

Special Post: ProofreadingPal’s 2019 Holiday Hours

ProofreadingPal’s 2019 Holiday Hours

Poetry Tools to Enhance Your Prose: Analogy, Part 1 (Simile and Metaphor)

The guidebooks’ prohibition on colorful language is really just a plea for clarity. Used sparingly,…

What to Do When You Can’t Use Emojis

This time, let’s deal with the fact that emojis are still not OK in professional…

Conditional Verbs in Research Writing

In research writing, the difference between hypothetical and factual statements is critical; your choice of…

Why We Need Emojis

Even though the older generations love to dump on them and elites love to complain…

AP Style Quick Guide

In today’s post I’ll discuss some AP basics and differences from other style guides you’ll…

Poetry Tools to Enhance Your Prose: Varieties of Rhyme

Rhyme can be understated, and it comes in more flavors than you might think. Repeated…

One or Two: The Case Remains the Same

Adding in a second (or third or eighth) subject or object or modifier doesn’t change…

Poetry Tools to Enhance Your Prose: Rhythm

The glorious and intimidating thing about the English language is its bounty of options. Whatever…

URLS & DOIs in Reference Lists: APA, MLA, and Chicago

In today’s post, I’ll provide examples of reference listings including DOIs and URLs in APA,…

Tricky Issues in Plagiarism: Part 2

This time in our plagiarism avoidance master class, we’ll discuss some even murkier areas dealing…

Poetry Tools to Enhance Your Prose: Meter

Poetry is simply a way of thinking about language, a theory that words can be…

Is It One Word or Two Words?

As a living language, English is in a constant state of flux. This is quite…

Style Guides and House Rules

Periodicals often have their own in-house style guides laying out exceptions. Such house rules can…

Third-Person POV on Other Characters

We live our lives behind one set of eyes, but we can tell a lot…

Avoiding Plagiarism in Tricky Situations: Part 1

But because we take inspiration from everything around us—from nature, from conversations, from street signs,…

“I Wish I Were”: Explaining the Subjunctive

You may never have heard the term subjunctive case before, or don’t remember it from…

When Writing Rules Conflict

You can write a passage of ornate prose, passive voice willy-nilly, telling without showing, and…

Christian Publishing Standards: Part 2

In this blog, we’ll dig deeper into matters of formatting in Christian publishing, paying particular…