Call me Allan. Yeah, Allan. That’s A_L_L_A_N. Not Alan. Not Allen. Not Allyn. I’ve spent decades dealing with the misspelling of my given name. I have no idea why my parents spelled…
Grammar and style
Over the river and through the woods: A practical guide to prepositions
Memorization: the bane of many students. I was no different, and my disdain for all…
A brief history of dashes
If you’ve perused the Leff blog before, you may have picked up on the fact…
The worst jargon of 2020
In the spirit of this blog post from December 2019, I’m taking the opportunity to…
Roundup: Our most-searched grammar posts
If our search results tell us anything, it’s that people want clear guidance on how…
Commas vs semicolons vs em dashes: A magical mystery tour
Ah, punctuation. It breaks up our sentences with visual markers, structures our syntax, sets the…
How to punch up your writing
If you write or edit for a living, it’s likely you’ve been asked to make…
Four misconceptions about copy editing
Copy editing is an often-misunderstood science. Some writers believe it undoes the work they have…
The art and science of editing
Most skills are a combination of art and science. A good friend of mine is…
Title case vs sentence case: What’s the difference?
As writers, we make stylistic choices to convey clarity and tone. Titles are no exception.…