Style

Uncle Matthew: E-book or eBook?

by Matthew Stibbe on June 4, 2011

A question from one of my lovely readers: I am instructor at a local community college. A question has come up:  do we capitalize the "e" in eBook when it is the first word in a sentence? I replied: Yes, this is a tricky one. I have a client who sells equipment for eBanking and [...]

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Quantifiers are from Mars, Pronouns are from Venus

by Laura Connell on August 13, 2010

This is another great guest post from my intern, Laura Connell. According to The Gender Genie, a free online tool that analyses your writing for feminine and masculine keywords, a man has written seven of my eleven Bad Language posts – this post is especially manly. The Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an [...]

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Want to write well? Open with a punch, close with a kick

by Matthew Stibbe on November 23, 2009

There are two words that every writer needs to know: lede and kicker. A ‘lede’ is the opening sentence of an article. A ‘kicker’ is the last. If you can get them right, you can lift what you write to a whole new level. Five tips for a great lede: Open with a quote. As [...]

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