brendan-c on flickr John ate a slice of pepperoni pizza, and drank a bottle of beer. If that sentence doesn't make you involuntarily scowl, then you do not have a proper understanding of commas. Yet ...

When combining two complete sentences with a conjunction ("and," "but," "or," "for," or "yet"), precede the conjunction with a comma. Example: Still, the sun is slowly getting brighter and hotter, and ...

In the first part of the series on “Understanding the conventions of academic writing”, I discussed these two common error patterns: i) Missing comma after ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it seems, is a little obsessive about commas. According to press reports, he’s been sending out directives to staff that they should follow certain strict guidelines.

While we all slip up from time to time, there are some basic punctuation mistakes you should never make in formal writing. For example, don't confuse "it's" and "its," don't use an apostrophe to ...

When we write things down, it's important to keep things nice and clear, so it's easy to read. Sentences help us give an order, ask a question, state a fact, or express an emotion or idea. Words are ...

The 2010 NAPLAN tests of language conventions reveal inherent design flaws. As was the case in the 2008 and 2009 papers (see our On Line Opinion article of March 2010), many items fail to show the ...

Letters represent sounds. Words are built from letters. A group of words makes a phrase. Add a subject and verb, and you have a clause. If that clause expresses a complete thought, we call it a ...

Feelings about the semicolon run strong. Its proper use is a hallmark of literacy. Traditionally, the semicolon has three uses: it can replace a comma in a series that includes interior commas, such ...