Advice and Articles tagged with grammar

Adjectives or Adverbs?

Are you constantly confusing adverbs and adjectives? Scribendi.com's editors will help cure your confusion for good. Continued...

Are adjectives causing you aggravation? Are you unsure of the difference between adjectives and adverbs? Perhaps you are asking yourself “What is an adjective?” Whatever the case, this article will help you make sense of these descriptive words. Continued...

All About Adverbs

The adverb belongs to a large class of words that add information by qualifying or modifying a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a preposition, or a clause, indeed anything except nouns and pronouns (which are modified by adjectives). Confused? Don't be! After we provide some examples of adverbs, you will have a much better understanding of this mystifying modifier. Continued...

All About Nouns

The English word “noun” comes from the Latin nomen, meaning “name.” We use nouns to name something, that is, a person, animal, object, place, action, or abstract idea, such as an event or quality (boy, koala, block, farm, invasion, or kindness). Nouns can be defined more precisely by the other words that go with them. In particular, nouns often have the definite article "the" in front of them. Continued...

All About Pronouns

Are pesky pronouns causing you grief in your ESL English writing? Relax—our ESL editing and proofreading experts are here to help explain this troublesome part of speech. Continued...

All About Verbs

When it comes to constructing a sentence, the verb is widely considered to be one of the most integral elements. In the simplest of definitions, a verb is an action. Drink, walk, talk, drive, and dive are all verbs. But as with everything English, it can't possibly be this easy, can it? Continued...

Are You Confused by Hyphenation?

Are hyphens causing havoc in your humanities papers? Have dashes destroyed your dissertation? Don't let punctuation puzzle you any longer; We are here to help. Continued...

Editing Tips—Active and Passive Voice

Are you unsure whether to use the active of passive voice? Our editors explain why using the active voice will make your academic papers stronger. Continued...

Editing Tips—Making Comparisons

This is the second in a series of articles addressing several common grammatical issues. This article explains phantom or one-sided comparisons, which might be the most prevalent issue of all, particularly in academic papers. Continued...

Editing Tips—The Wandering Only

In this article, we discuss what we call the wandering or misplaced "only," which, although common and usually understood in everyday casual speech, is often confusing and has no place in formal or academic writing. Continued...

Editing versus Proofreading

It's common for many people, including business professionals and first-time Scribendi.com clients, to be a bit unclear about the differences between editing and proofreading. Continued...

ESL Writing Tips

You are a professional and are very proficient at academic writing in your first language, but when it comes to translating your work into written English, suddenly you don't know your "ifs" from your "ofs." This is natural in professional ESL writing, because writing in another language is a lot more complicated than speaking it. However, here are some helpful tips to improve your ESL writing. Continued...

Full Stops: A How-To Guide

If you’re North American, you may be wondering what exactly full stops are—here’s a hint, there is one at the end of this sentence. This is the main function of full stops, or periods: marking the end of a sentence. Continued...

Homophones: Do You Mean There, Their, or They're?

If you find yourself making common ESL mistakes, it's OK. English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Being such a blend of original language sources has led to a kaleidoscope of peculiar spellings for English words and the creation of several hundred homophones. Continued...

How Business Editing Will Help You Avoid Redundancies

While literary geniuses are free to flout style conventions, we mere mortals must adhere to them. So how do you purge your paper of redundancies? Our editors explain how to avoid redundancies in your business writing. Continued...

How to Use Brackets (Parentheses) Properly

Writers, have you ever found yourselves with a great deal of important information that you want to include in a sentence, but have difficulty finding a spot for all of it? Fitting everything into a sentence can be tricky—this is where brackets are useful. Brackets (parentheses) are punctuation marks used to include information within sentences that is not essential to the main point. Continued...