Do speakers of different languages build sentence structure in the same way? In a neuroimaging study, scientists recorded the brain activity of participants listening to Dutch stories. In contrast to ...

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 ...

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 ...

Structure, in this context, means how a sentence is built up or constructed. The following are some features you may notice while reading. If a list is present, look at the order in which the points ...

“Avoid the passive voice” is a favorite maxim of writing teachers. But for young learners, exposure to passive construction—and other more complex sentences in spoken language—may help children ...

A colon (:) or single dash (-) can be used to introduce an idea, a list or an explanation. A semicolon (;) may show contrast in the ideas before and after. The colon separates the clauses, adding ...