Grammar Girl here. Today guest-writer Bonnie Trenga will help us talk about three punctuation marks: one you undoubtedly know how to use, another you possibly misuse, and yet another youve likely never used. If youve ever wondered when to favor paren...
by Mignon Fogarty Today's topic is active voice versus passive voice. The podcast edition of this article was sponsored by GoToMeeting. With this meeting service, you can hold your meetings over the Internet and give presentations, product demos and...
Grammar Girl here. Today, Julie Wildhaber, who trains writers and editors at Yahoo!, will explain a few strategies for keeping copy compact and for getting rid of deadwood: words and phrases that add length but not value. The podcast edition of this...
Todays topic is the use of feminine nouns such as actress and comedienne. These days, people often see such terms as sexist, but it's also common to hear at least some of them. So what exactly are the modern rules for using such terms? Actually, this...
Today, Julie Wildhaber, who trains writers and editors at Yahoo!, will explain what it means when people tell writers to find their voice, and also how to understand the difference between voice and tone in writing. What Is a Writing Voice? Voice is...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is how hit the right tone when you give characters accents and dialects. Guest-writer Charles Carson writes, To flavor a novel and provide authenticity, authors often use dialect in their written dialogue. But the use...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is capitalizing titles. In an email, Michelle from Manila asked, Should I capitalize all the first letters of the words in a title or just the first letter of the first word? This is one of those style questions. For...
Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is readability. And just to mix things up, Im bringing in Adam Freedman to host todays show. Adam is the author of The Party of the First Part, a witty, entertaining book about legalese that goes on sale September 4. I...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is how to treat URLs when you have to use them in text. Also, keep listening through to the end of the show because I have another writing contest for you. Web addresses are strange beasts; they seem more like equatio...
by Mignon Fogarty Today's topic is style guides. It's true that when it comes to grammar there are a lot of hard and fast rules; but it's also true that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of issues that are dictated by style. I know it would be so...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topics are style guides and how to deal with book titles. Joe called in with this question: With all of the style guides that are out there -- APA, MLA -- why would anyone use Chicago? I was finding it very hard to believe...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is the word xeriscape. This is kind of a self-indulgent podcast for me. I've been house hunting lately, and I swear if one more real estate agent tells me about a property's wonderful zeroscape, I'm going to rent for...
Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is Nothing Ages Writing Faster Than Slang. Guest writer Sal Glynn writes Slang is made of informal words and phrases that originate in speech, and often includes substitutions for formal words, like ride or wheels for...
Grammar Girl here. Today I'm going to play two listener comments that will lead us to a discussion of wordiness and idioms. Wordiness First, here's Tod in Canada from the todbits.com website: Can you help me correct people? Everyone that I know seems...
Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is whether you can use the word woman as an adjective. Ann in Baltimore, Maryland, asked why people were referring to Nancy Pelosi as the woman Speaker of the House instead of the female speaker of the house, and Amy...
