Danielle McLeod is a highly qualified secondary English Language Arts Instructor who brings a diverse educational background to her classroom. With degrees in science, English, and literacy, she has worked to create cross-curricular materials to bridge learning gaps and help students focus on effective writing and speech techniques. Currently working as a dual credit technical writing instructor at a Career and Technical Education Center, her curriculum development surrounds student focus on effective communication for future career choices.
The majority of English speakers struggle with apostrophe placement, especially when trying to show ownership. Does the apostrophe go before the -s or after? If you struggle to find the answer, you aren’t alone. However, despite their nefarious-sounding name, plural possessive noun examples aren’t tricky to understand. To prove this …
The students in my class regularly overuse commas, but the minute parentheses are included in a sentence, they are nowhere to be seen. This is due to the misconception that a pair of parentheses replaces the use of commas, but this isn’t always the case. This is a common issue …
Commas are probably one of the most confusing punctuation marks to use, and even I struggle to find ways to help my students determine where they belong. One of the most commonly asked questions I hear surrounds whether to place a comma before or after the word “and.” Unfortunately, the …
The curvy dash located towards the top of your keyboard is almost exclusively reserved as an accent mark for a few different foreign languages. Called a tilde, it offers a nasal pronunciation to the letter it is associated with, but it has very little use in the English language. Outside …
The pilcrow has a long and illustrious history as a topographical mark used to separate ideas and topics within blocks of text. Although rarely seen in modern times, it once was a common symbol drawn into the spaces scribes left to indicate a change of tone or subject in their …
The number sign can be more than just a symbol to indicate numerical uses. It also is known by multiple names and has a long history of use in computer programming and alternative communication via modern media. Look at how you can use this common typographical mark to help showcase …
Single and double quotation marks use varies depending on the country you are writing within, and keeping the basic rules of these punctuation marks can be confusing. Since this site is dedicated to the grammar rules associated with the US, we are going to focus on the differences between single …
Bullet points help create key points to grab a reader’s attention and work on clarifying and directing the main point. They can summarize, provide directions, highlight main points, and offer an easy-to-follow structure for the reader to follow. Take a look at how you can use bullet points to enhance …
When including titles of works in your writing, they must be appropriately punctuated. This helps emphasize their importance amongst the rest of the text. Although you may be creative in highlighting them, there are some broadly accepted rules for various titles of different works. The most important thing to remember …
The caret symbol may look familiar from your middle school editing lessons, but how can it be used for typed text? This informal symbol indicates basic editing needs, directs attention to previously written materials, and even works for mathematical equations. And, if you are unsure where it is located and …