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However should I use ‘however’? – Punctuation and word order with conjunctive adverbs

As is no big surprise when it comes to the English language, the question of how to use ‘however’ is complicated by the fact that the word has two different meanings: ‘in whatever way’ and ‘by contrast’. ‘However’ meaning ‘in

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Posted in Grammar, Punctuation

Punctuation IV: Colons

Are you using colons correctly? This post should help you find out. When using colons, the most common pitfall is to confuse their use with that of semicolons (you can revise semicolons with our previous post, Punctuation I: The Semicolon).

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Posted in Proofreading/copy-editing, Punctuation

Punctuation I: The Semicolon

Let’s take a break from homophones and consider the semicolon (;). Semicolons are frequently misused – I generally find that they are either overused (replacing colons and commas) or not used at all. There are three rules to remember when

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Posted in Punctuation