A dangling expression is one that doesn’t fit logically into the rest of the sentence. It “dangles” — often because it’s a verb phrase in search of a subject which never turns up. Consider these ...

In this writing exercise, first, we will hand out copies of loser sentences from previous students’ psychology papers, and we will use these sentences as examples to help us define, recognize and spot ...

An independent clause is basically a complete sentence; it can stand on its own and make sense. An independent clause consists of a subject (e.g. “the dog”) and a verb (e.g. “barked”) creating a ...

Teaching students to write is no easy feat, and it’s a topic that has often been discussed on this blog. Penny Kittle teaches first-year writers at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was ...

A run‐on sentence is two or more independent clauses joined together with insufficient punctuation. This means that there are two or more complete sentences fused into one sentence. Use a colon: a ...