Here's a grab bag of gifts for those who want to remove common errors from their writing. Common error No. 1: Misuse of a plural verb. "In the end, neither the ...

While in a master’s program in English, Mary Norris started reading The New Yorker and realized that academe was not for her. She jumped off the academic hamster wheel and entered an alt-ac career ...

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Social Media news every morning. “For want of a comma, we have this case.” So begins a ruling this month by David Barron, a US Court of ...

When you reach the end of a sentence, you need a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Phrases or subordinate clauses standing alone are missing a subject or a verb or are stated in such a way ...

One of my students once told me that when she writes something she always puts a comma wherever she thinks someone should take a breath. She defended this by saying this is what they do in a musical ...

There’s no denying that commas are helpful little flecks of punctuation. They allow us to separate written clauses and do good work when especially numerous or complicated groups of things exist in a ...

I am, unapologetically, an over-user of commas. Case in point: I could have written the previous sentence as, "I am an unapologetic over-user of commas," but opted not to. I wished to emphasize just ...

Punctuation plays a vital role in shaping how writing is understood. From full stops to semicolons, each mark helps guide meaning, structure, and emotion in a sentence. Misuse can lead to confusion, ...

Clarity is essential in life. A misinterpreted sentence, whether verbal or written, may have disastrous consequences. The importance of punctuation marks is clearly demonstrated in the difference ...