I’m + (verb) denotes an action about yourself. Examples: ” I’m dancing. “ ” I’m watching movies. “ ” I’m cooking lunch. “ ” I’m

I’m can be used with preposition in, at, and on. When you enter a physical location like a building or a room, you would use

I’m is an acronym for the word ‘I AM.’ It is used to tell someone about yourself. It is used in combination with other words.

Meet vs catch up: Normal: ” Let’s meet today. “ Advanced: ” Let’s catch up today. “ Hungry vs Starving: Normal: ” I’m very hungry.

🔹Apostrophe — (’) 🔹Colon — (:) 🔹Semicolon — (;) 🔹Dash — (—) 🔹Comma — (,) 🔹Quotation Marks — (“”) 🔹Hyphen — (-) 🔹Ellipses Dots —

The English language is teeming with idiosyncrasies that can cause confusion, including differentiating between a lot, alot, and allot. Though these words all sound the same, a lot and allot mean totally

An ellipsis, or ellipses in the plural form, is a punctuation mark of three dots (. . .) that shows an omission of words, represents a pause, or suggests

Antithesis is a literary device that positions opposite ideas parallel to each other. Think heroes and villains, hot and cold, bitter and sweet. Antithesis enhances your writing by illuminating

Have you ever stopped and thought about who Mr. Fox of Fantastic Mr. Fox really is? He’s a walking, talking, crafty red fox with harebrained schemes. If

When is a question not a question? Whether you’re writing an essay for school or conversing with a friend, you’ve likely asked a rhetorical question at some

An idiom is a phrase that, when taken as a whole, has a meaning you wouldn’t be able to deduce from the meanings of the

The English language is filled with words that have similar spellings or root words, but that mean completely different things. Take nowhere, somewhere, everywhere, and anywhere, for example. These

What is gender-neutral language? Gender-neutral language is simply a way of talking about people without assuming their gender. For example, it’s referring to someone you

A mixed construction is a sentence with incompatible elements that begins with one type of structure and shifts to another type of structure. In these

Parallel sentence elements in grammar are just like parallel lines in geometry: they face the same direction and never meet. More precisely, in grammar, it’s

Is “they” singular or plural? The answer is both. As of 2019, most big style guides—including the Associated Press, the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA style manual,

The passive voice is often maligned by teachers and professors as a bad writing habit. Or, to put it in the active voice, teachers and

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true but helps explain an idea

Let’s use this example to understand what a simile is: A simile is a phrase that uses a comparison to describe. For example, “life” can be described as similar

What’s an Idiom? Broadly speaking, an idiom is a widely used phrase that, when taken as a whole, has a particular meaning that you would

Boom! Crunch! Pop! Onomato . . . what? Hard to spell but easy to use, an onomatopoeia (ahn-uh-mat-uh-PEE-uh) is a word that sounds like what it means.

Hyperbole (hi-PER-buh-lee) is a language that is obviously exaggerated and not meant to be taken literally. Writers often use hyperbole for emphasis or to be

When two words are used together to yield a new meaning, a compound is formed. Compound words can be written in three ways: as open

At first glance, the rules of English capitalization seem simple. You probably know you should capitalize proper nouns and the first word of every sentence.

Anyone who has ever had to memorize a tough-to-spell English word (It’s fuchsia, right? Or is it fuschia? Fushia?) has noticed that the spelling of some words is

An abbreviation, simply put, is a shortened form of a word. In writing, abbreviations are useful when you need to squeeze a lot of writing

There are two types of slashes: a backslash (\) and a forward slash (/). The backslash is used only for computer coding. The forward slash, often simply

Semicolons (;) are as basic as a period stacked on top of a comma. Does that mean you can use it like either one? Don’t

Quotation marks are used to identify words that someone has said. You’ll often find them in fiction, where they signify dialogue, the words spoken by the

Without question marks, we’d miss out on all kinds of things: invitations, jokes, the Riddler . . . No doubt, the question mark is a

What is a Period? A period, also known as a “full stop” in British English, is a punctuation mark that looks like a tiny circle or dot.

Parentheses are punctuation marks that are used to set off information within a text or paragraph. Outside the realm of emoticons, parentheses always come in pairs.

A hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark that’s used to join words or parts of words. It’s not interchangeable with other types of dashes. Use

The exclamation point also called an exclamation mark, is a punctuation mark that goes at the end of certain sentences. It’s less common than the period or question mark,

Those three little dots are called ellipsis (plural: ellipses). The term ellipsis comes from the Greek word meaning “omission,” and that’s just what an ellipsis

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s

Ah, the comma. Of all the punctuation marks in English, this one is perhaps the most abused and misused. And it’s no wonder. There are lots

A colon introduces an element or series of elements that illustrates or amplifies the information that preceded the colon. While a semicolon normally joins two

Apostrophes can be tricky. Sometimes they form possessives. Sometimes they form contractions. Can they ever make something plural? Apostrophe Use: Contractions and Omissions A contraction

There are up to five forms for each verb: root, third-person singular, present participle, past, and past participle. Root Form of the Verb The root

Pronouns are the words you substitute for other nouns when your reader or listener already knows which nouns you’re referring to. For example, you might

Prepositions indicate relationships between other words in a sentence. Many prepositions tell you where something is or when something happened. Most prepositions have several definitions,

Nouns are everywhere in our writing. But what are all the types of nouns you come across, and how do you use them? What is

What are They? Ouch! Oh my! Wow! Yikes! If you’ve ever uttered any of the words above, you’ve used an interjection, whether you knew it

Without conjunctions, you’d be forced to express every complex idea in a series of short, simplistic sentences: I like cooking. I like eating. I don’t

Articles are words that define a noun as specific or unspecific. Consider the following examples: After the long day, the cup of tea tasted particularly good. By using the

An adverb is a word that modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly), an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended too quickly), or even a

What is an adjective? Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe

The basic writing portfolio Let’s say you’re a college student hungry for an internship in a scrappy local newsroom, and a professor who’s friendly with an editor