Jay Wilburn

Does Anyone Really Know What Makes a Story Good?

While there are some writing conventions that are generally agreed upon, the subtle things that make a story good may be more intangible than we like to think.
Taylor Houston

Lessons from 10 Years of Writing About Grammar

In 10 years, I've given a lot of grammar advice. Some of it is bullshit now, but some of it is truer than ever.
Cina Pelayo

What Tools Do You Use to Edit Your Manuscripts?

Do you use any editing softwares to perfect your writing? Here is a sampling of tools available.
Taylor Houston

2020 Hindsight: 10 Years Worth of Grammar Advice

It's a new decade! Let's look back on 10 years of giving grammar advice.
Taylor Houston

10 Things You Didn't Know About Noah Webster, the Inventor of American English

Happy 260th Birthday to the man whose name is synonymous with “Go Look It Up!” (Which is the pre-cursor to today’s “Google It!”)
Holly Slater

8 Mini Grammar Studies in Modern Music

Music is a great way to remember specific details. When you take a closer look at the lyrics in certian songs, you can easily remember tricky grammar devices and spend less time looking things up.
Holly Slater

6 Tips For Cleaning Up Your Dirty Words (Grammatically, Of Course)

You don’t want your expletives to be too dirty. I mean, the fun kind of dirty, yes, but dirty, lousy with grammar and punctuation mistakes? No fuckin’ way.
Taylor Houston

12 Grammar and Writing Tips from Archer

The animated show 'Archer' is a grammar-lovers wet dream.
Susan DeFreitas

10 Mistakes (Almost) Every Rookie Writer Makes — Part Two

Or, Stuff That Makes You Look Wet Behind the Ears, Part Two: The Craft Edition.
Susan DeFreitas

Five (Dirty Little) Truths about Proofreading

No one wants your book to be perfect more than your proofreader. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.
Taylor Houston

The Dreaded R-Word: The Goods and Evils of Rhetoric

Seems like "rhetoric" is always in the news lately. And it's never good. But why?
Taylor Houston

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Writing Gender-Neutral

It's actually not that hard to write more inclusively, but it's more important now than ever to TRY.
Taylor Houston

5 Old School Writing Rules That Need To Retire

The article in which I call out my Alma Mater for being stodgy ol’ hypocrites.
Taylor Houston

5 Grammar Rules That Make No Effing Sense

Sometimes the rules make no effing sense. Here are few that drive me crazy.
Susan DeFreitas

5 Things the Grammar Nazis Get Wrong

The Grammar Nazi's mission in life is to point out all the ways that you, the writer, have managed to butcher the English language. Sometimes those people are right. But sometimes they're wrong.
Leah Dearborn

Stop Laughing at Yourself: A Loud Legacy of Exclamations

Exclamation points are like that relative who drinks too much every Thanksgiving. You can handle Uncle Charlie when he’s at the house, but taking him to a black-tie gala might not be the best idea.
Taylor Houston

Seven Grammar Tools to Love

Grammar gets a bad rap, but some grammar rules are actually there to HELP you. Here are seven tools I have learned to love.
Taylor Houston

Punctuation Pairs: How To Combine Punctuation

As if the rules of punctuation weren’t confusing enough, what do you do when you have more than one punctuation mark to contend with?
Taylor Houston

Typos: Funny or Foul?

Typos are a part of everyday life, but sometimes they can be downright dangerous. Here are three types, from the innocent to the egregious!
Leah Dearborn

The Eternal Duel: A History of Commas

The Oxford comma has been a highly divisive issue within the literary community for many years. But how did it come to be this way, and is one side actually correct?
Taylor Houston

Ask the Grammarian: How "snuck" sneaked in...

How "snuck" sneaked into the English language and we totally let it.
Taylor Houston

Ask the Grammarian with Taylor Houston - Now Taking Your Questions

I'm like your personal editor, so ask me a grammar or usage question!
Taylor Houston

Ask the Grammarian: Missing Semi-colons, Distinguishing Dashes, and Punctuating Quotations

The elusive semi-colon, confusing dashes, and where-oh-where to put the punctuation in quoted material.