Prefer to cozy up with a Kindle or Nook? Love flipping through onscreen pages on your iPad? Enjoy the ease of reading the same book across devices? Or do your eyes glaze over when you try to read e-text? Do you prefer the feel of a hard copy, the rustle of pages and the familiar… Read more »
?Let’s start at the very beginning,? Julie Andrews warbles in The Sound of Music, telling the von Trapp children that It’s ?a very good place to start.? And in the academic writing world, whether You’re putting together your first university paper or creating your doctoral thesis, the beginning is always, always a very good place… Read more »
During the holiday season, we hear a lot about ensuring that our greetings are inclusive or inoffensive. But there’s not much press given to spelling, grammar, and usage errors, is there? I know, I know. It’s the thought that counts. But if misspellings and mistakes turn you into a grammatical Grinch, read on. Seasonal salutations… Read more »
In the first two articles of this series (see Part I http://www.voicemagazine.org/articles/columndisplay.php?ART=9337 and Part II http://voicemagazine.org/articles/columndisplay.php?ART=9357), we examined the proper use of punctuation and quotation marks, including whether to place commas and quotes inside quotation marks and how to handle multiple sets of quotation marks. But although the steps and rules discussed cover most situations,… Read more »
In The Writer’s Toolbox last week we looked at what happens when punctuation and quotation marks mix. Here’s a quick refresher: the general rule is that commas and periods go inside quotation marks, and colons, semicolons, ellipses, question marks, and exclamation points go outside quotation marks (except when they’re part of the original quote). That… Read more »
You’ve found the perfect quote or written a bit of sparkling dialogue. You’ve gotten your citation just right?or your dialogue tag. But have you punctuated it properly? American versus British One of the most common punctuation errors arises from confusion over whether to place punctuation marks inside or outside the quotation marks. It’s complicated by… Read more »
APA. Chicago. MLA. Turabian. CSE. Struggling to properly format the citations in your paper is bad enough. But what if You’re unsure which style guide to use in the first place? Which is which? The various citation style guides were developed in response to the needs of different academic disciplines. Although it can feel overwhelming,… Read more »
?Support your statements with examples,? my fourth grade teacher told us. And while it might have sounded scary to an elementary school student, adults will recognize how commonly we do this in everyday speech. Whether we’re complaining about the obnoxious drivers on today’s commute or clarifying exactly what kind of flour we want at the… Read more »
Lie versus lay. Laid versus lay versus lain. It’s a question that confuses both new and experienced writers–and when it crops up in our own writing, we just want to lie down and die. Or is it lay? Surprisingly, It’s not as difficult to figure out as it looks–and you don’t need any grammar background… Read more »
?Let’s start at the very beginning,? Julie Andrews warbles in The Sound of Music, telling the von Trapp children that It’s ?a very good place to start.? And in the academic writing world, whether You’re putting together your first university paper or creating your doctoral thesis, the beginning is always, always a very good place… Read more »