By Paragraphs, Hyphens

"Businesses like banks and bakeries are closed." To be absolutely clear, I would say: "Some farmers refuse to evacuate because the harvest season is approaching." "As" can be used to mean "because," and your use here is correct; but I would prefer...

Overall, not bad. But the second paragraph needs tweaking. I don't think you can improve your English by having someone proof your work. That's why I usually highlight the things you can fix yourself. Hope this helps. By the way, are you a CityU English student? A friend of mine wrote an...

Nona The Brit wrote: They are quite long with complex structures, so they are only suitable for a formal context. Thank you, Nona. These are two paragraphs for a PG essay I'm writing, so I think a formal register is appropriate. Mister Micawber wrote:3-- the South Korean GDPno comma after...

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a (truly is a hollow adjective here) superb reality show that first aired on December 3, 2003. Each 60 minute episode features a team of designers, contractors and several hundred workers who must race against time: (you could subsititute the colon with a...

Ever since its birth, this dog has been with Larry. Now, the dog was malodorous, old, crippled and blind, but Larry was always with it. (The adj. stinky is too colloquial to be employed in written English.) Larry's roommate, John, wanted to get rid of the dog because he was bothered by the...

Forgive me, but what do you mean by a “dash.” All the examples here show two hyphens. These are not dashes. There are three types of dashes, namely Hyphens, Em Dashes and En Dashes The hyphen is the shortest of the three and is used most commonly to combine words (compounds such as...

Hello, all. What a great forum! I'm not sure if this is the right spot for this question; if not, let me know. Here's a paragraph I'm working on, in which all numbers are to be written out. I'm confused about the rule on hyphenation when it comes to quantity and as modifiers. Can anyone...

Here's a paragraph I'm working on, in which all numbers are to be written out. I'm confused about the rule on hyphenation when it comes to quantity and as modifiers. Can anyone help? The troublesome paragraph: "...the numbers are staggering: in the mid-nineteenth century, over seventy-five...

You might add a couple of hyphens: 20- or 30-minute rugged-looking But otherwise, a perfect native paragraph! MrP

Sorry to be so long, but I have been looking for a good comprehensive internet source on dashes; all the information seems to be in bits and pieces, and some of it is quite contradictory. Here is a good excerpt, however, from the Get it Write website: 'A number of you have written to ask us to...