Category: Writing Tips

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A Medical Opinion – A State of Shock

Hi everybody! I’m Stella, a medical student with a passion for writing who’s tired of authors getting things wrong. In this column I hope to answer medical queries of YWS members so that they...

Why is zero plural? 6

Why is zero plural?

I have zero giraffes. I have one giraffe. I have two giraffes. It seems somewhat of a grammatical oddity that when used in a sentence, zero is plural. After all, plural means two or...

4 Foods for NaNoWriMo 0

4 Foods for NaNoWriMo

  Like any other organ in your body, your brain needs food! Just as you shouldn’t exercise without at least eating something like a banana first, it’s generally a good idea to snack on...

Show, Don’t Tell: What the heck does that even mean!? 2

Show, Don’t Tell: What the heck does that even mean!?

It’s one of the most common axioms you’ll encounter in reviews online, to your English paper, and even by your peers: “Show, don’t tell.” Unfortunately, this is only a vague piece of advice. Of...

How to get more reviews 0

How to get more reviews

If you share your writing online, such as the Young Writers Society, you’ve probably run into the reviews problem; that is, sometimes it can feel like you’re pushing against the tide just to get...

Its vs. It’s, and how the Constitution of the United States got it wrong 4

Its vs. It’s, and how the Constitution of the United States got it wrong

It’s one of the most annoying peculiarities of the English language, instilling dread in both elementary student and published author alike. I speak, of course, of its versus it’s. Normally, to mark the possessive...

Defuse or Diffuse the Situation? 3

Defuse or Diffuse the Situation?

Native speakers often learn phrases by ear before they learn the written words that comprise them. Even if you’re not sure which word and spelling is correct in the phrase, you’ve probably heard news...

Comma Splices and Fun With Semicolons 1

Comma Splices and Fun With Semicolons

I’m pretty sure that I never learned how to properly use semicolons or how to avoid comma splices in school. If I did, then it was relegated to a brief lesson back in seventh...

“A” versus “An”: More complicated than at first glance 1

“A” versus “An”: More complicated than at first glance

Image Credit: http://theteacherwife.blogspot.com/2012/02/when-to-use-or-a-quick-writing-lesson.html It may seem like the simplest rule in the English language: use “a” when it precedes a word that begins with a consonant, and use “an” when the word begins with...