Do You Capitalize Family Titles?

When terms denoting family relationships are used as proper nouns (as names), they are capitalized. However, when the terms are used as common nouns (not as names), they’re not capitalized. Generally, there will be a possessive pronoun (my, her, his, our) or an article (the, a, an) in front of family titles used as common noun.

It’s easy to get confused about whether you should capitalize family names in your writing. If you come across a family “title” such as mom or dad in your writing, ask yourself: Is this title being used as if it were a person’s name? Is the person being directly addressed?

Can I go to the mall once I finish my homework, Mom?

I know the crash was serious, Dad, but I’d really like to borrow your car.

What have you been up to, Grandma?

In the examples above, Mom, Dad, and Grandma are capitalized because they are being used like names. You could replace them with proper names without changing the rest of the sentence.

What have you been up to, Diana?

If a family member is not being directly addressed, but rather is being spoken about, his or her family title should not be capitalized, and an article or possessive pronoun should be used before the title.

Gracie asked her mom if she could go to the mall after finishing her homework.

I asked my dad if I could borrow his car the day after the crash.

Lorraine wondered what her grandmother had been up to.

When quoting a conversation, simply think about whether that person is being directly addressed in the conversation.

“We will all remember Aunt Bessie for her generous nature,” Melinda said.

“I feel for Melinda’s loss,” said the neighbor. “Everyone remembers her aunt’s generous nature.”

6 Notable People Who Experienced Imposter Syndrome

An imposter is a fraud, someone who pretends to be something they aren’t. Often, their motive is to steal or take advantage of others. However, some people who feel like imposters aren’t guilty of any crime. They haven’t intentionally misled anyone.

According to psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, imposter syndrome affects many high-achieving individuals. You’ll be surprised at how many successful people don’t feel they deserve the praise they receive.

Dr. Margaret Chan

Forbes ranked Dr. Chan as 2013’s thirtieth most powerful woman in the world. It’s easy to see why—Queen Elizabeth II named her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and she finished two terms as the head of the World Health Organization. You would think that her educational background and decades of medical experience would make her feel like an expert in her field. However, in Susan Pinker’s book, The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap, she admits: “There are an awful lot of people out there who think I’m an expert. How do these people believe all this about me? I’m so much aware of all the things I don’t know.”

John Steinbeck

He won a Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. Decades after his death, his stories are still inspiring others. For example, the 2016 film In Dubious Battle, starring James Franco and Selena Gomez, was based on Steinbeck’s 1936 novel of the same name and tells the story of a pivotal labor strike in California. So, would you say that John Steinbeck is a great author? He wouldn’t have said the same of himself, according to his journal: “I am not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people.” In fact, he admired his characters for being “so much stronger and purer and braver” than he was.

Jodie Foster

It’s not uncommon for people to compare themselves with others who they feel are more talented. When 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace interviewed Jodie Foster after she won an Oscar for Best Actress, she said, “I thought it was a fluke. I thought everybody would find out, and they’d take it back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, ‘Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else. That was going to Meryl Streep.’”

Meryl Streep

Of course, Meryl Streep would agree that she deserves an Academy Award, right? In one interview, she also describes her struggles with self-doubt: “I have varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing. . . . You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent . . .” In a later article in The Guardian, she revealed that those feelings first took root in her childhood. “I didn’t have any confidence in my beauty when I was young. I felt like a character actress, and I still do.”

Cheryl Strayed

In the novel Torch, the main character, Teresa Rae Wood, encourages the listeners of her radio show to “be incredible.” In contrast, the creator of the character, Cheryl Strayed, finds it hard to acknowledge that she’s a remarkable author. In fact, she suggests that questioning your skills is a normal part of the writing process. “Writing is always full of self-doubt, but the first book [Torch] is really full of self-doubt, and it was much more of a struggle to keep the faith.” By the time her second book ranked first on the New York Times Bestseller list, “doubt and self-loathing” were so familiar to her that she thought, “Okay, this is how it feels to write a book.”

Emma Watson

How would you feel if magazines such as Elle and Vanity Fair featured beautiful pictures of you on their covers? Emma Watson, the actress who plays Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, feels like an imposter. To her, the lovely lady on the magazines seems like someone different from who she is in real life. Her struggles aren’t limited to the glossy pages of fan mags: “I’d walk down the red carpet and go into the bathroom,” she recalls. “I had on so much makeup and these big, fluffy, full-on dresses. I’d put my hands on the sink and look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Who is this?’ I didn’t connect with the person who was looking back at me, and that was a very unsettling feeling.”

Imposter isn’t the word you might associate with famous, talented, and successful people, but many of these notable people suffer from feelings of inadequacy. Though these emotions may stem from childhood, psychologists Clance and Imes recommend communication. Their study concludes “If one [person] is willing to share . . . , [others are] relieved to find they are not alone.” How do you feel about your success?

Capitalization: The Days Of The Week and The Months

Capitalization: The Days of the Week, the Months of the Year, and Holidays (But Not the Seasons Used Generally)

Days, months, and holidays are always capitalized as these are proper nouns. Seasons aren’t generally capitalized unless they’re personified.

The maid comes on Tuesdays and Fridays.

My doctor’s appointment is on Monday afternoon.

Your birthday is in March, right?

Thanksgiving in November, Christmas in December, and New Year’s in January: North America has a lot of winter holidays.

The seasons aren’t capitalized unless they’re being used as a proper noun, such as when personified in creative writing or poetry. Consider the sentences below:

My favorite season is autumn.

Many animals hibernate in the winter.

It’s that time of year again, when Winter blankets all creatures with somniferous snow and whispers to them, “Rest, children, rest.”

Generally speaking, the days of the week and months of the year are capitalized, but there are exceptions to this rule.

Monday Motivation Hack: Manage Your Morning

If you win the morning, you win the day.

Mornings set the tone for your day. If your habits are bad or simply uninspiring, they’ll steamroll your productivity and focus for the whole day. This week, we looked at what a range of successful people do in the morning. Groups included up-and-coming millennials, productivity hackers, and various kinds of leaders. Here’s a sampling of what they had in common.

1Start the Night Before

For many, the morning routine actually starts when they crawl into bed the night before. Prep for the following morning can include setting out clothes, double-checking the next day’s to-do list, or disconnecting from technology enough to ensure deep, healthful sleep during the night.

2Get Up Earlier

The majority of successful people are early risers. When you analyze the benefits, it’s easy to understand why—you’re less likely to get distracted and you have more willpower. Plus, it’s great motivation to sit down at your desk and feel like you’ve already accomplished a lot because, see, you’re pretty amazing.

No matter where I am in the world, I try to routinely wake up at around 5 am. By rising early, I’m able to do some exercise and spend time with my family, which puts me in a great mind frame before getting down to business. — Richard Branson

3Move

Whether it’s yoga, a light walk, stretching, or a full workout, almost everyone tries to do some form of movement to shake off the grogginess of sleep.

4 Hydrate and Fuel Up

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Not one “successful” morning routine we found skipped breakfast and hydration. Some were quite regimented (8 oz of water with lemon upon waking, without fail), while others were more casual. Regardless of what works for you, make sure you get water or tea and some food in the morning!

5 Meditate or Practice Focus

Tim Ferriss claims in his podcast that more than 80 percent of the people he interviews practice some kind of focus training or meditation. This practice can help set a calm tone for the day while also helping your brain focus throughout the day. His suggestions for success include finding the right format for you—even listening to a song with focus and intent can work wonders—then practice a minimum of 5 sessions before you decide to keep or toss the activity.

I made a deal with myself: If you don’t have 10 minutes for yourself, you don’t have a life. There’s no excuse. So I have 10 minutes, and I do this little ritual. —Tony Robbins

6 Set Your Goals for the Day

Almost everyone made time to revise their intention for the day. Many people did this mentally and only wrote down their priorities once they got to the office, but you can also set aside time to tweak schedules, to-do lists, and priorities on paper.

7 Practice Gratitude

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. — Marcus Aurelius

Expressing gratitude in the morning helps to set a positive tone for your day and keeps any burdens during the day in perspective.

8 Work

A significant number of people make time to check and send emails, write, or work on personal projects. Even though they worked on different kinds of tasks, without fail everyone who did some kind of work did it as a very consistent part of their morning.

Tips for Starting a Morning Routine

Imagine and Plan Your Ideal Morning

It can be tempting to take Tony Robbins’ morning routine and try to replicate it step for step. While this may be a good starting point, you are a completely different person, living your own unique life. A fantastic routine is deeply rooted in knowing yourself and what makes you feel confident, accomplished, and motivated. Spend time imagining your perfect morning and mapping out three to five goals for every morning.

Don’t Make It All or Nothing

Once you understand what you want to accomplish every morning, give yourself some flexibility. Tim Ferriss recommends that you aim for at least a 60 percent completion rate of your morning goals. Life happens, and you may not always have your perfect breakfast or be able to squeeze in a forty minute run; be gentle with yourself.

Ease Into It

Though it will be exciting to start your new morning habits, it’s probably a bad idea to go whole hog. It can be painfully time consuming to adjust your sleeping schedule, let alone start exercising and making a full English breakfast every day. Prioritize your goals and introduce one at a time. As you get more and more comfortable with your new habits, keep tweaking, but take your time.

Do you have a morning routine? What is it like?

Looking for more productivity inspiration? Check out last week’s Monday Motivation Hack—taming your to-do list.

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Whether it’s a to-do list that never seems to get done, a less-than-inspired morning routine, or a tendency to get distracted (damn you, social media!), we’ve all got a hole in our productivity armor somewhere. Every Monday, we’re going to be analyzing common bad habits that could be holding you back and offer a hack or two to help you get more quality output from your time. Our Monday Motivation Hacks will help get you into fighting shape and give you some new tactics to try out on the battlefield.

A Style Guide Tutorial: Navigating the Citation and Formatting Jungle

You have to write a paper, or copyedit one, and you have a heap of style manuals in front of you. Which one do you use? Are they consistent? Is there a difference between them? Is it all arbitrary?

As you work on your text, it stares up at you, glaring with its colons, commas, and parenthetical citations. Where do they go? Are the lines single or double-spaced? How wide are the margins supposed to be? Wrestling the paper into twenty different shapes, you begin to hear voices: “the year, in parentheses, after the author’s name” and “no, no, the cited page number goes at the end of the sentence, in parentheses.”

Each style guide is specific, with literally thousands of differences between them. The waters get muddier. The overlap between the guides is enough to swirl in our heads like some alphabet soup. You think you find the right formatting guide and just when you become used to working with it, you discover another publishing house prefers something else.

It becomes clear that you should be at least marginally aware of several guides. Before you decide on one manual over the other, however, consider two questions:

• What are you writing?
• Who is your audience?

MLA Style:The MLA Style Manual is the ivory tower favorite. It had its genesis in the 1980s and quickly became the standard of university English majors everywhere. Not just limited to English papers, however, MLA is the style guide for a host of humanities disciplines, including foreign language studies. It is widely recognized as the preferred formatting style of scholars. You will find it used for any paper meant for publication in a humanities journal.

AP Style: The Associated Press Stylebook is the go-to manual for journalism. It has become the industry standard for broadcasters and newspapers, primarily due to its shortcuts. In this business, writing space is scarce, so little tweaks, like using numerals instead of written numbers, saves space, money, and time. Along with the Chicago Manual, AP is a formatting style often used by mainstream publishers.

Chicago Manual: If you write a paper on history, philosophy, or religion, it would be wise to become familiar with The Chicago Manual of Style. Also called Turabian, the Chicago Manual has flexible applications. Used by editors in multiple writing arenas, you are bound to bump into it. The differences between Chicago and AP can get rather cosmetic at times, but they are important differences. Editors are familiar with both guides and picking the right one can make or break your chances, if you are trying to publish.

APA Style: Created by the American Psychological Association, APA is the preferred citation style in disciplines such as business and medicine. APA’s system strives to help readers comprehend the material they are reading. Articles written for medical journals are formatted in APA style.

Bluebook: Created by the Harvard Law Review Association, the Bluebook is the bible of legal citation style. Most judges and lawyers were educated using the Bluebook. However, some courts have adopted their own systems. You should research a court’s specific formatting style before submitting any work to them.

Scientific Disciplines: When writing a scientific article, remember that nearly all of the disciplines have their own style guides, which are often specific tweaks on more mainstream guides. These tweaks matter, however. Whether it is the American Mathematical Society (AMS style), the American Institute of Physics (AIP style), or the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE style), there is a specific formatting guide out there exclusive to each.

If you are writing an academic paper, preparing a fiction manuscript for publication, or copyediting an existing manuscript, formatting is a key component to a polished product. Depending on your audience, or where you wish to publish the work, there are very specific guidelines concerning how a text should appear. A little research in the beginning will save you a lot of rewriting, and reformatting later.

What’s your preferred writing style? Share in the comments!

Writers on the State of Professional Writing

“We live in a content-saturated world,” your editor shrugs. Your coffee has suddenly gone cold, and so has the conversation.

What she means is that the commodity you’re offering – your writing – is hard to sell, because the web has made written words more readily available than ever. Honing a voice that stands out can feel like an impossible gig to take to the bank – which is where, if you’d listened to your parents, you’d be working, instead of haunting cafes and coffee shops with your laptop, trying to grind out a living as a writer.

The trouble is, for some of us, writing isn’t so much a choice as a necessity, akin to oxygen and Wi-Fi. And while writers who can afford spare homes along the French Riviera are the exception and not the rule, plenty of folks still succeed at making a career of it. Here’s what that looks like right now.

The Craft

Over the past decade, the mobile phone has supplanted familiar writerly standbys like word-processing software. Journalists use smartphones to quickly file breaking stories from the field. Novelists crank out tens of thousands of intimate words on tiny handheld keypads. The New Yorker published Jennifer Egan’s entire science-fiction story “Black Box” as a series of tweets, each one like a line from a poem.

Newfangled gizmos aside, there remains a place for old-fashioned pen and paper in the hearts (and desks) of certain writers – Neil Gaiman among them. The prolific Brit has written everything from comic books to novels to movies, and says writing in longhand helps him resist the allure of online distraction. You won’t find just one color among the pens in Gaiman’s bag, either:

Often I use two pens with different coloured ink, so I can tell visually how much I did each day. A good day is defined by anything more than 1,500 words of comfortable, easy writing that I figure I’m probably going to use most of in the end. Occasionally, you have those magical days when you look up and you’ve done 4,000 words, but they’re more than balanced out by those evil days where you manage 150 words you know you’ll be throwing away.

As Gaiman notes, writing remains hard work. Even titans of the field like John McPhee, the Pulitzer-winning pioneer of literary journalism, has confessed to The Paris Review that he can’t do it without first procrastinating mightily:

You’re out there completely on your own—all you’ve got to do is write. OK, it’s nine in the morning. All I’ve got to do is write. But I go hours before I’m able to write a word. I make tea. I mean, I used to make tea all day long. And exercise, I do that every other day. I sharpened pencils in the old days when pencils were sharpened. I just ran pencils down. Ten, eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four—this is every day. This is damn near every day. It’s four-thirty and I’m beginning to panic. It’s like a coiling spring. I’m really unhappy. I mean, you’re going to lose the day if you keep this up long enough. Five: I start to write. Seven: I go home. That happens over and over and over again. So why don’t I work at a bank and then come in at five and start writing? Because I need those seven hours of gonging around. I’m just not that disciplined. I don’t write in the morning—I just try to write.

Makes you feel a little better about your own morning struggles, no?

Getting Paid

Writers are often caricatured as a species of starving artist, just scraping by for little or no pay and trying to build a reputation, as essayist Tim Kreider reflects in The New York Times:

A familiar figure in one’s 20s is the club owner or event promoter who explains to your band that they won’t be paying you in money, man, because you’re getting paid in the far more valuable currency of exposure. This same figure reappears over the years, like the devil, in different guises — with shorter hair, a better suit — as the editor of a Web site or magazine, dismissing the issue of payment as an irrelevant quibble and impressing upon you how many hits they get per day, how many eyeballs, what great exposure it’ll offer. ‘Artist Dies of Exposure’ goes the rueful joke.

Indeed, compensation can range from checks so piddly that the bank teller might sigh audibly while cashing it for you ($50 for a light, quippy post) all the way to a hefty buck-per-word rate for specialized longform reporting.

While some writers bank on having other gigs – the aforementioned McPhee has been a professor at Princeton for decades – not all are broke. Senior writers in the world of medicine, for instance, can easily make double the salary of a plucky word-slinger mashing out vanilla web content.

Self-Publishing

While the Internet age has made it easier than ever to skip the middleman and publish lengthy works directly online, this is a mixed bag.

On one hand, self-publishing authors who sell their e-books for a few dollars per download on sites like Amazon (which pockets 30 percent of the royalties) now routinely dominate sales, particularly in genres like romance, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries and thrillers. A few even make their way to bestseller lists, lighting a path to bankable publishing deals. Of this evolution, Publishers Weekly has remarked, “what is clear is that strong indie sales will continue and indie books are now a significant and permanent part of the book publishing landscape.”

However, there’s always a risk your work will be stolen. Thieves may tweak a few words here and there, or flip the genders of a few characters and make the lifted work harder for plagiarism-detection software to catch before putting it online under a new title. As a result, plagiarists can rake in thousands before anyone realizes what they’ve done. For the authors getting ripped off, this can lead to a lot of heartache. Straightening out such ordeals – and getting paid back for the pilfered sales – can take a lawyer.

Also, indie writers who thrive in the world of online publishing have to traffic not just in quality, but also in quantity, because the system rewards authors who can quickly follow up on their successes. For some, this means churning out a new full-length novel every month or so – a grueling pace of 10 to 20 pages daily.

So what about you? How are you channeling your zeal for writing? In what directions have you found the industry to be evolving? We’re always eager to read more from you.

9 Things You Need to Give up to Be a Successful Writer

Written communication isn’t easy. If it was, there would be no misunderstandings on social media, and we would never have to go back and clarify something we’d written after the fact. But that’s not the world we live in.

The need to improve one’s writing skills isn’t reserved only for those who want to be published novelists or award-winning journalists—there are endless benefits to being able to communicate through the written word.

If you want to become a better writer, here are nine things you absolutely need to give up today in order to succeed. We’ve divided them into parts designed to help you do two things—write with precision and write with artistry. Precise writing is technically correct and easy to understand. Artistic writing conveys a message or story in a way that resonates with the reader. Improving both precision and artistry will make you a better communicator no matter what your writing goals are.

Writing With Precision

1Give up your time.

Good writing takes time. The less time you invest in dashing off a quick message, the more likely that message is to be misinterpreted. Slow your roll, wordsmith! Does that text you composed accurately convey your thoughts? Good written communication requires attention to detail. You can’t pay attention to details if you’re rushing.

2Give up filler words.

We sometimes write like we talk. Conversational writing can be good, but writing that’s cluttered with filler words and phrases that we often use in conversation is not. Here are thirty-one to eliminate. And here are more tips for cleaning up your dirty, wordy writing.

3Give up your disdain for outlining

Unless you’re drafting something short and sweet, an outline can be a lifesaver. A builder wouldn’t dream of constructing something as complex as a house without a plan. Constructing any sort of long-form writing is easier with a plan, too. Even the simplest of outlines can save you a lot of time organizing and revising later.

Of course, some writers follow the “pantser” (as in flying by the seat of your pants) method, and that’s okay. Just be warned that if you don’t take time up front to organize your thoughts, you may have to commit to a more grueling revision process after you finish your draft.

4Give up the belief that you don’t need to proofread.

Even seasoned writers need to review their work before they publish that article, post that tweet, or send that email. It’s essential to not only look for spelling and grammar mistakes but also make sure your writing is clear.

Pro tip: Read your writing out loud. Does it read smoothly? If you find yourself stumbling as you read, revise for clarity. Shorter sentences are easier to read and understand than long complex ones. Keep it simple . . . unless you’re striving to be the next Tolstoy.

Writing With Artistry

5Give up the impossible dream of a perfect first draft.

It’s important to write clearly and correctly. That’s a worthwhile goal. But you’ve got to get the words out first. Turn off the oppressive voice of perfectionism while you work on your first draft and focus on flow, instead. Try to write without stopping to make corrections—you’ll do that later. Instead, let the thoughts in your head spill onto the page. You’ll only get at those interesting and artistic thoughts if you stop interrupting them long enough to let them speak.

Perfect first drafts are like mythical unicorns—they exist only in our imaginations. Write first, edit later.

6Give up the belief that good writing depends on talent.

Thomas Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Innate talent won’t save a lazy writer, but hard work will help even a struggling writer succeed. If you don’t have a gift for writing, but you’re willing to put in the time to develop your skills, you can’t help but improve.

7Give up the need to talk about writing more than actually writing.

Aspiring creative writers and bloggers are often guilty of this writing sin. We love to talk about the writing we’re going to do and share the ideas we have, but when it comes to actually putting our butts in our chairs and our fingers to our keyboards . . . not so much. If you talk about writing more than you actually write, it’ll be difficult to succeed. See tip number one!

8Give up needless distractions.

Hey! You there! Step away from the smartphone.

If you’re going to write, just write. Silence your phone. Close those unnecessary tabs. Maybe go into full-screen mode to keep your writing space clutter free. You’ll be surprised how clearing mental space for writing allows the words to flow.

Here’s a tip: Try a distraction-free writing platform such as Ommwriter or FocusWriter if you need a little extra help blocking out distractions.

9Give up your excuses.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Writers write.” What does it really mean?

It means that if you want to call yourself a writer, you need to actually be one. If you find yourself making excuses instead of writing, it’s time to take a look at your priorities. Writers prioritize writing time—it’s as simple as that.

Comma Rules for Business Emails

Let there be no mistake—the comma wields a power far greater than its humble looks might suggest. “You will go you will return never in the battle you will perish” is the most famous example of it. This saying is usually attributed to the Oracle of Delphi, and it is supposed to be an answer to the question of whether or not to go to war. If you place a comma before “never,” the answer becomes a green light. Place it after “never,” and the answer becomes a warning against going to war.

In your average business email, a comma is very unlikely to represent the difference between life and death. Still, a misplaced one can change the meaning and tone of the message, which can cause confusion and undesired consequences. So let’s go over the two most important uses for commas in business emails.

Commas and Salutations

A business email starts with a salutation, and a salutation ends with a comma, right? Wrong. In business emails, the most formal way of ending a salutation is with a colon. So instead of “Dear Mrs. Johnson,” you should write “Dear Mrs. Johnson:” and then continue with the body of the message. In some cases, it might not be a faux pas to use a comma at the end of the salutation. You might write a business email where the utmost formality is not necessary, and in that case, the colon is not required. If you’re unsure, play it safe and end with a colon.

A salutation usually has two components: a greeting or an adjective, and the name or title of the person you’re addressing. In the previous example, the salutation is composed of an adjective and a name, and there’s no comma between the two. However, a comma should separate a direct greeting and a person’s name. So if you were to write “Good morning, Mrs. Johnson,” you’d have to place a comma between “Good morning” and “Mrs. Johnson.”

Commas, Coordinating Conjunctions, and Semicolons

The most common coordinating conjunctions are and, or, nor, so, but, yet, and for. We use them to connect elements in a sentence that are grammatically similar, such as two verbs, two nouns, two modifiers, or two independent clauses. A conjunction can be used to start a sentence, in which case it usually shouldn’t be followed by a comma:

But in the last quarter of 2015, we’ve seen an increase in consumer activity.

If a coordinating conjunction is placed in a list of two items, there’s no need to use a comma before it:

The departments that had most of the activity were toy stores and gift shops.

If, on the other hand, the conjunction is used before the final element in a list of more than two items, a comma may go immediately before it:

Toys, plastic Christmas trees, and spirits went out of stock.

If a coordinating conjunction joins two independent clauses, put a comma before it:

The suppliers were contacted immediately, so we were able to restock the missing items in time.

Sometimes, however, a comma and coordinating conjunction isn’t the best way to join two independent clauses. In fact, it can cause confusion, and that’s something you want to avoid in a business email. If you have two independent clauses that themselves contain a few commas, you should use a semicolon instead of a comma to separate them. For example, your first independent clause might contain an introductory element followed by a comma, and your second independent clause might have a nonessential element that’s between two commas:

In the meantime, the consumers were encouraged to look around other departments; and that’s what, it turned out, led to a small increase in sales of non-seasonal items.

In this case, the coordinating conjunction should have a semicolon in front of it.

So there they are—a couple of simple guidelines for using commas in business emails. With these in mind, you can stop worrying about offending your business associates by accidentally sending them informal emails. You’ll also enhance the clarity of your writing. But remember, the comma is powerful; you should study it in detail. Good thing you’re in exactly the right place to do that!

Imperative Verbs: Definition and Examples

Imperative verbs are verbs that create an imperative sentence (i.e. a sentence that gives an order or command). When reading an imperative sentence, it will always sound like the speaker is bossing someone around. Imperative verbs don’t leave room for questions or discussion, even if the sentence has a polite tone. Use the root form of the verb to create the imperative. Consider the examples below:

Give me that book!

Clean your room!

Do your homework.

Take the dog for a walk, please.

Don’t touch that!

Do come to visit us whenever you’re in town.

Push!

Examining the Language of Love

Although it topped bestseller lists around the world, E. L. James’ erotic romance novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, was widely panned by critics for its poor use of language. The Grammarly team reviewed the book for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, and learned that — although there were some mistakes — the errors were in alignment with similar gaffes in classic romantic literature.

Here are some of the top errors in Fifty Shades of Grey:

Punctuation errors in complex sentences: E. L. James is not the first author to include a comma in her work when a semi-colon would more appropriate, or vice versa.

Comma misuse: Many writers forget to include a comma when one is necessary, or include a comma when it is not necessary.

Wordiness: Actually, this is sort of a really common mistake. (Words like “actually,” “sort of,” and “really” add unnecessary length to your writing.)

Inappropriate colloquialisms: Although it is largely stylistic, the choice to use informal language — including contractions — can diminish the perception of your writing.

Accidentally confused words: Words like “round” and “around” are commonly confused in writing, and may not be discovered by spelling and grammar checkers.

Sentence fragments: Creating a sentence with no subject or no verb is one way to emphasize an idea. However, sentence fragments are technically errors in writing.

Determiners: Words such as “a,” “an,” and “the” help writers to be specific about what they are talking about.

Passive voice: Using the passive voice is a stylistic choice in writing — not necessarily a grammar error. However, using the passive voice can cause a lack of clarity in your writing.

Below you’ll find some classic quotes from romantic literature that show similar mistakes to those we identified in Fifty Shades of Grey. Grammarly has “graded” each quote based on its adherence to traditional grammar rules, but please note that creative writing requires that authors make stylistic choices that may be technical errors, but are not actually considered so in the context of their overall work.

So, it is in the spirit of fun (and not pedantry) that we aim to show you that the language of love really is a language of its own!

 

Beat Writer’s Block: 5 Tips for Writing Your Best

You’re sitting at your desk, staring at a flashing cursor and waiting for the words to flow. Every now and then, you write something, then mercilessly edit it or delete it all together.

Backspace . . . backspace . . . backspace . . .

You roll your head back and forth to work the kinks out of your neck and sigh. The words just won’t flow. You’re convinced you’ve got a serious case of writer’s block. But do you really?

Writer’s block is a myth.

I’m going to show you a trick to defeat writer’s block. First, place your fingertips on your keyboard. Once you have them comfortably poised over the home row, close your eyes. Take a deep breath, and repeat these seven magical words until you’re ready to write:

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s no such thing as writer’s block.

Better now? If so, then back to writing for you, word monkey! If not, have a seat and let’s talk shop.

I’ve been where you are. I’ve stared at my screen, dazed, until I felt like I could hear the tiny blood vessels in my eyes bursting. (No, you can’t actually hear them. It’s a simile. You with me so far?) I’ve convinced myself that the reason my works-in-progress were not progressing was that I had stumbled upon a horrible, irrevocable creative block, the likes of which I would never overcome. But then I did some soul searching.

Writer’s block, it turns out, is just an excuse for not writing. There’s a reason you never hear of librarian’s block or electrician’s block. Even when librarians and electricians feel less than inspired by the work at hand, they do it anyway.

We all have states of flow—those magical times when we’re bursting with creativity as if the muses themselves are whispering into our ears. And yes, those times are magical. But they’re also few and far between. Ultimately, those inspired times are not what being a writer is about. You’re not just taking dictation for the muses, dear wordsmith. The muses are fickle. It’s your job to write whether they show up or not.

Here are five ways to persevere and write even when you’re feeling stuck.

1 Give yourself permission to write terrible stuff.

If you sit around waiting for those mythical times when you’re at your absolute best, you’ll almost never get any writing done. So, just give yourself permission to be awful, and then write anyway. You’re going to edit later either way, right?

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’

—Maya Angelou

2 Set a doable goal.

Accomplished writers don’t sit around waiting for inspiration—they write whether the words are flowing or not. The only sure way to dig yourself out of a creative hole is to write through it.

Set yourself a goal that’s so easy you have no chance of failing. Tell yourself, “I’ll just write for five minutes without stopping.” Or maybe challenge yourself to write one full page, or even just a single paragraph. If you’ve done the goal-setting right, you should knock this writing task out easily.

Then stop. Only do as much as your goal dictates.

The next time you sit down to write, make your goal just a little more ambitious. Don’t go overboard, though. You want to establish a pattern of easily achieving your goals. Then, once you’ve got a few wins under your belt, go ahead and write for as long as the words and ideas keep coming. Your block has been vanquished!

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk—away from any open flames—to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

— George Singleton

3 Quit while you’re ahead.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but try quitting when your writing is going along splendidly and you’re excited about what’s coming next. If you stop writing when you run out of ideas, you’ll likely be just as out of ideas the next time you sit down to write. Instead, stop when you’re brimming with them. You’ll be energized and ready to get back to it when the time comes.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day . . . you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.

—Ernest Hemingway

Here’s a tip: When I quit writing for the day, I leave myself notes right on my manuscript telling me where I plan to go next. Not only does this give me the security of knowing that my next great idea will be waiting right where I left off, but it frees my mind to stop obsessing over it in the meantime.

4 Multitask.

If you’re not on a deadline, having several different creative endeavors that you’re working on can help you get unstuck. If one project stops clicking, simply switch to another until you get your momentum back. Either way, you’ll be making progress.

Sometimes a project needs a little time to think, a little time to breathe. So what I tend to do when that happens is I always have two or three other things that I’m doing at the same time. I can just go to one of the ones that’s working. Which is how I give this appearance of being prolific.

—Neil Gaiman

5 Move it!

Pounding your head on your desk doesn’t get the words unstuck.

I know, I know—shocker.

What does help unwedge those unruly words is physical activity. Even just taking a walk can give your creativity a boost.

I really wish someone had told me earlier that there’s a relationship between writing and exercise. Writing involves you being completely, revoltingly sedentary while your brain works overtime. But when you exercise, it’s the complete reverse – you more or less become brain dead while your body works like a bastard not to drown/collapse on the treadmill/die. Then after I exercise, I always come back to my laptop and it’s like I’m seeing the story for the first time. I know what I need to do.

― Benjamin Law

You’re not blocked, you just can’t think of anything good to write.

In the 1986 John Hughes classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris phones his friend Cameron to insist that he join him for a fun day of skipping school. Cameron declines because he’s already at home sick, and then hangs up the phone and moans, “I’m dying.”

As if psychic, Ferris calls back and says, “You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do.”

Your writer’s block is Cameron—it can’t think of anything good to do. And yet, anyone who’s seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off knows that Cameron not only goes on to have a memorable day, but to trash his dad’s beloved Ferrari and, in the process, have a major life epiphany. So, the next time you’re feeling stuck, try some of these techniques to see your way clear.

And if they don’t work, then hey . . . maybe just go to a baseball game.

Hey, batter batter batter! Swing!

These 7 Posts Will Help Your Job Search Pursuit

Your dream job is out there.

You can and will find it soon. How do we know this? Because you are driven, focused and have come to the right place for job-seeking advice. Grammarly is here to help.

Don’t be mistaken. Finding an ideal career path isn’t easy. Job interviews are tough. Plus, figuring out your perfect fit can be challenging. All of this is what makes the job-search process something most people dread.

Not you, though.

The necessary motivation, inspiration and practical tips on how to best position yourself to be successful and reach your long-term goals can be found here.

Grammarly’s blog has made it a priority to offer our readers actionable insights on how to approach a job search. Below you’ll find seven recent posts that cover the fundamental aspects of finding your ideal place of employment.

1 Organization is essential in beginning any job hunt.

Pro tip: Let technology be your friend. Spending endless hours searching is fine, even encouraged, but don’t be shy about using job sites to populate your inbox with relevant opportunities.

Now that you have an idea of what you’re looking for, you can start digging into job boards. Many will send you email alerts with new positions that match your skills.

Source: How to Get Organized During Your Job Search: 6 Helpful Tips

2 Your LinkedIn profile is becoming just as important as your resume.

Pro tip: Most job seekers overlook the value of a profile summary on LinkedIn. Use it wisely to add deeper context to your work experience.

The top of your LinkedIn profile is an opportunity to summarize what you’re about—to make an impression beyond the array of jobs you’ve held. You might try thinking of it as an opportunity to answer the question “What makes me an outstanding candidate for my next career move?”

Source: We Studied 750 Top LinkedIn Profiles. Here’s How to Write Yours Better.

3 Resumes, cover letters, and email correspondence will be the difference-maker in your dream-job pursuits.

Pro tip: In most cases, how and what you write is often the first interaction you’ll have with future employers. Make sure you spend extra time crafting your personal copy before applying for a new job.

In today’s competitive job market, how you communicate with potential employers can make your skills stand out. Making sure you effectively express yourself, accurately represent your abilities, and stay present throughout the process is what makes the difference in ultimately receiving a job offer.

Source: Red Flags to Avoid During Your Job Search in 2017

4 Once you’ve landed a job interview, what you say and how you say it will further demonstrate your abilities to perform the tasks required by a potential new company.

Pro tip: Don’t show up to an interview without any preparation. Thinking your way through potential interview questions ahead of time will give you comfort when having to talk about important topics like work experience and expected salary.

Taking the time to prepare can mean the difference between walking away from an interview with a sinking feeling and landing the sweet gig you’ve been hoping for.

Source: 10 Things You Should Avoid Saying in a Job Interview

5 The way you frame your skills is critical in the job-search process.

Pro tip: Demonstrate your enthusiasm for the position and explain why your experience aligns with the responsibilities that are needed by the company.

Remember that everybody starts somewhere, and hiring managers interview inexperienced candidates all the time. When you’re still growing in your career, there’s one positive quality you can emphasize to help you win over a potential employer—enthusiasm for learning. Show the employer that not only are you able to learn, but you’re excited by the possibilities.

Source: This Is How to Put a Positive Spin on Weaknesses in a Job Interview

6 Your professional-self and personal-self should be very much aligned during a job search.

Pro tip: Be cognizant of what you’ve posted on social media and how you present yourself in public forums, especially if your social-media activity is tied directly to the line of work you seek.

According to a CareerBuilder.com survey, 60 percent of employers research job candidates on social media, and over half are reluctant to hire candidates with no online presence. They’re mainly looking for professionalism, whether you’re a fit for the company, and proof of your qualifications. If your social media profiles show you in that light, you’re golden.

Source: 9 Things to Avoid on Social Media While Looking for a New Job

7. You’ve done everything correctly in the job search and now an offer is in your hands. What happens next?

Pro tip: Research the company you’re looking to join. Remember, you’re hiring them, too, in a sense. Sites like Glassdoor can show a glimpse into a company’s culture by offering candid reviews from current and former employees.

The important part when researching a company is to take into account themes you uncover from a variety of employees, and looking for reviews and details related to what’s important to you and your life in and out of work. What’s a bad review to one person may not be a bad review to someone else, so it depends on what’s most important to you.

Source: The Ultimate Guide to Analyzing a Company’s Glassdoor Page

How to Take Feedback, Even When It’s Hard

Getting feedback in the workplace can be a difficult experience. We each crave success, aspiring for praise from our leaders and peers that will, in turn, make us feel recognized and valuable at work. In reality, constructive criticism will be doled out more often and will play a more significant role in the dynamics of our relationships with co-workers and in our individual performance.

Trust me, I know how hard it can be to receive feedback. When I was working in my first job out of college, my manager sat in on one of my calls with a client. After the call ended, she told me that I needed to do a better job of conveying confidence by being less apologetic and not heightening my pitch as I ended sentences. I took her input horribly. I thought she believed that I was not cut out for the job and that I was one strike away from being let go.

Over time, I’ve learned to build thicker skin and use constructive criticism as a means to become more competent in my responsibilites. Here are a few of the key takeaways that have helped me in shifting my mindset:

Accept Your Imperfections

Receiving input can be uncomfortable. If you take it personally, or take it as a sign that you’re bad at your job, it will quickly affect your performance.

For example, when my manager told me that I needed to project more confidence with clients, I took the feedback as a reflection of my personality and generalized it as how others normally perceive me in most settings. This made me increasingly self-conscious and self-critical as I engaged with customers, colleagues, friends and family.

To get over this hump, I decided to acknowledge negative thoughts when they came up, but instead of believing them, I’d come up with positive alternatives. Instead of “I don’t think I’m coming across as intelligent or experienced,” I began telling myself “I believe in my training and knowledge, I can help this client.”

Another mental shift is to accept that you are not perfect. Perhaps you occasionally lose your confidence or get anxious when speaking with more experienced, older professionals. Whatever the case may be, it is important to embrace your imperfections and accept consultation so that you give yourself an opportunity to mature both professionally and personally.

Ask for Help

Is there a certain role that you’re aiming for? What are your goals for the next five years?

To ensure that you are on track to hit your objectives over time, feedback from colleagues who either work closely with you or are in roles that you desire will be critical. (A combination of both would be even better!) This will allow you to get a better idea of the skills that are required to be successful in those target roles and understand where you need to improve in order to get there.

If the peers and superiors you hope to seek feedback from are currently silent, there may be numerous reasons that explain why. They may be shy or perhaps feel like you’ll take it the wrong way. Whatever their hesitation is, your aim should be to unravel the feedback they have to offer. To do this, you need to be honest and give a good reason for why you’d like their input.

For example, you can say something along the lines of, “I’m really eager to improve in this role. What is one thing that you think I can do to get better?”

If you frame your question with a reason, your colleague will feel more comfortable in opening up and giving you their honest thoughts.

You are also helping the colleague that you’re seeking advice from. Not only does their willingness to help make them look good in front of their boss, but it also gives them the chance to feel important and valuable.

Follow Through

Feedback carries no value if you never follow up on it.

Your first step should be to investigate it further. Ask your colleague for specific examples. Review documents, recordings, or any other relevant materials for the areas that you need to improve on.

Once you fully understand what you need to work on, you can form a plan for improving and monitoring your development over time.

It’s also worth considering that people who took the time to help you will more likely begin to pay more attention to you as a result. Out of curiosity (and their own self-interest) they will want to see whether you implemented their advice and how it improves your performance.

If you ignore your colleagues, you risk coming across as someone who is not seriously considering their opinions. As a result, the likelihood of them helping you in the future will be compromised.

Feedback is a constant in the working environment. Your approach to receiving and acting on feedback will define your professional development, relationships with colleagues, and outlook on life. My feedback for you is to take action and ensure that you are in a position to receive and process constructive criticism effectively!

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Jon Gitlin is a Customer Success professional at a start-up in the East Bay Area. During his free time, he loves to watch the Warriors, go on runs, and listen to podcasts.