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Boldface text—which looks like this—has a few accepted uses. Style guides generally don’t recommend it for providing emphasis. That’s what italics and sentence structure are for. Because boldface text can be visually distracting, it is best used sparingly. Every publication has its own standards for boldface text, and some style …
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The older form, e-mail, is still preferred in a few corners of the publishing world, but email now prevails and is likely to grow even more common.
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One space is the standard style preference throughout all types of 21st-century writing, with rare exceptions.
As a teacher who has been in the classroom for over 20 years, I can unequivocally admit that I urge my composition students to avoid the pronoun you in almost 100% of their writing. Although some people feel that limiting the use of you in formal writing is unjustified, the …
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It is capitalized when it’s treated like a name (e.g., “I heard the voice of a God”). There is no logical reason to capitalize it when it functions as a common noun (e.g., “he is a cruel god”), yet many people capitalize it in such situations anyway.
Textish, sometimes referred to as textese, txtese, textspeak, texting language, txt talk, or SMS language, is our term for all those abbreviations and slang terms born of the necessity for brevity in text messages, instant messages, and social networking. Due to the ubiquity of these communication methods, Textish has made …
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There are different schools of thought on when to use italics, but most style guides agree on a few points: It’s okay to occasionally use italics for emphasis, but avoid doing it too much. Instead, use sentence construction to emphasize important words. Italicize foreign words or phrases that are unlikely …
You have likely seen dates are written out in various ways (i.e., date-month-year format vs. month-date-year format) and have wondered about these differences. Depending where you live determines which format you follow, although, for stylistic purposes, you may choose which is most comfortable to you – as long as you …
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There are many rules surrounding what to capitalize in a sentence, but specific rules apply to titles in general — and often cause confusion with new writers and English language learners. Titles include formal titles concerning the names of people or places, as well as the titles of books, speeches, …