Want to make yourself unpopular? Correct someone’s grammar. And yet, for a writer, grammar isn’t just making sure you’ve got the right their-there-they’re, it’s about understanding how sentence structure and punctuation can be used to make your writing more effective. My students have often jumped to point out e e cummings’s lack of adherence to […]
Grammar is Your Friend Read More »
Flying to the first residency of my MFA program five years ago, I was still having second doubts. The first class I entered—8 a.m., everyone bumping and muttering with Styrofoam coffee cups in hand—was standing-room only. The topic: punctuation. That’s right, not something sexier, like “truth” in creative nonfiction or how to publish your first
Andromeda: “Just” Punctuation Read More »
Thanks to Maia Nolan-Partnow, our March featured guest writer and today’s grammar expert! I’ve seen a lot of talk on Facebook lately about serial commas, or, as the kids are calling it, “the Oxford comma.” Apparently now it’s the hip thing to have very strong feelings about whether or not to use a comma immediately
Nolan-Partnow: Mechanics Matter–Writers and the Fundamentals Read More »
