Good news, kind of. I discovered a new sentence structure I hate. It’s a pattern I see often but only recently, while editing an article, realized it belongs in my writing hall of shame. Why would I ...

Man in striped blue shirt and glasses: A sentence should open, introduce a subject, deal with that subject and then come to a conclusion. Man in blue jumper and hat: Start, middle and end. Man in ...

Modifiers are describing phrases or clauses which support or tell more about your idea. Therefore, they have to be placed next to what they modify. Misplaced Modifers: Dangling modifiers are those ...

The length of a sentence isn’t what makes it hard to understand— it’s how long you have to wait for a phrase to be completed. When you’re reading a sentence, you don’t understand it word by word, but ...

In the Higher English Critical Reading assessment, you will be asked to comment on examples of language in an extract from a Scottish text you have previously studied (and elsewhere in the text).

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. Years ago, a copy editor working on a reporter’s story changed some of the “whiches” to “thats” when they were being ...