by Phil Williams | Jan 9, 2024 | Punctuation
Reaching the end of my series on commas, here’s another brief extract from Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English to look at how commas are used with adverbial phrases. This fits into my wider guide to commas that I’ve been adding to on the site;...
by Phil Williams | Nov 14, 2023 | Punctuation, Writing skills
I know a few people would like a proper introduction to commas and how to use them, so I’ve compiled a guide here based in part on the chapter on commas in Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English. Some of the specific areas I’ve gone into more detail on in the...
by Phil Williams | Apr 11, 2023 | Definitions, Grammar, Punctuation, Writing skills
A problem many native English writers and foreign English learners have in common is combining independent clauses without the appropriate punctuation or conjunctions, often seen with what we call comma splices. I thought this would be an interesting topic to cover,...
by Phil Williams | Nov 8, 2022 | Punctuation, Writing skills
Today I’m going to look at another specific use of commas in English, particularly how we use them in lists, and how the controversial serial comma or Oxford comma works. This builds on a couple of articles about specific uses of commas that I’ve shared in the past:...
by Phil Williams | Nov 20, 2018 | General English, Writing skills
Emphasis is when a particular stress or importance is given to something. Many exceptions to grammatical rules in English relate to emphasising particular words or ideas, making it a very important and also very broad topic. Structure, word order, vocabulary choice,...