3 Easy Steps for Lovely Thank-You Notes

According to Emily Post, “No fill-in-the-blank cards, no pre-printed cards, no phone calls, no emails,…

Easy Guide to Writing a Knitting Pattern

I call this an “easy guide” because actually writing down a pattern can be anything…

How Not to Write Like a Lawyer: Part 2

So, now the time has come when you want to write about something that you…

How Not to Write Like a Lawyer (and Why You Shouldn’t Want To): Part 1

It’s little wonder that when people can’t or don’t want to hire a lawyer, they…

Write without Bias, Sexism, or Racism

Language is always changing to reflect material developments and changing ideas, so it’s important to…

5 Cancelled Terms & Sayings

Several phrases have been cancelled in recent years for good reasons, but there have been…

Guide to Using Character Maps and Unicode

The Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit based in Mountain View, California, was founded in 1991 to…

Why Adverbs Can Be Bad

Problems with Jargon and More When Writing for General Audiences

Writing on a specialized topic for nonspecialists can be a challenge for writers of all…

Common Errors When Using Names

For readability and clarity and out of respect for those referred to, it is important…

Guide to Transitions: Sentences

Last time, we talked about transitioning from topic to topic, which means from paragraph to…

Quick Guide to Transitions: Paragraphs

Transitions are essential to making sense in a proposition or argument, so it’s little wonder…

Are You a Better Writer than a Fifth Grader?

After freelance proofreading, editing, and writing and doing small-group literacy and math intervention for the…

“Was Done by the Researcher” Must Die

Tips to Help Children Write Better

With school having started already some places and about to start in others, many parents…

Implicit Racism in Writing

Implicit racism is woven into the fabric of American society. It plays a part in…

5 Reasons Assembly Instructions Fall Apart

If you find yourself in the unlucky position of writing a manual or set of…

Write an Effective Blog Post

No matter your motivation for blogging, you’ll want to make sure each post is high…

Hearing the Music: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing (Again)

There’s no rule saying that academic articles can’t be written in muscular prose, no law…

Poetry Tools to Enhance Your Prose: Still More Figures of Speech (Anaphora, Merism, Antonomasia)

The kinds of figurative language described in this installment are not appropriate for most academic…