A Blogger’s Style Guide

Following on logically from yesterday, I thought it’d make sense to provide a general style guide for writing blog posts. As I said yesterday, you can feel free to do your own thing, especially as there are different conventions for doing certain things. I just want to write about what works for me, and should produce writing that’s easy to read and intelligible. If you want something more detailed, have a look at the many respected style guides online such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and Oxford (which I think is the one that’s accessible and logical for most people). If you’ve already got used to a particular style guide from university, then of course feel free to stick to that. Continue reading

How to Write a Title for Your Blog Post

This is something that occurs to me now and then: what are the conventions for writing a title, specifically a blog title, which will be most relevant for most of you reading this. It mainly occurs to me while I’m writing my own titles and thinking about whether I should capitalise a word or not.

The first thing to be aware of is that these are just guidelines. If you’re writing an academic work, then you have to respect the style guide of the institution where you’re studying. But for blog posts, there’s no body issuing guidelines, so you can do what you want. That being said, I find following the general rules for writing titles of essays, articles etc. works well for blog posts too. So let’s get into it. Continue reading

Quintessential

Recently I read something or other which featured the word quintessential, and was struck by that prefix. Quint-, as in five. The word doesn’t seem to have an obvious link to the number, so I went looking for more information. Continue reading

Doing Dutch with Duolingo: Klomp!

I feel like it’s been ages since I started using Duolingo, but it’s really become part of my daily routine. The only real gap was last week when I was on holiday last week. Overall, things are still going ok, but I’m beginning  to feel much more like a typical learner of English feels, and my complaints are really starting to mirror theirs. Continue reading

Promote Your Blog Here!

A space to share your blog and find new blogs to follow, kindly provided by My LifeOnline.

Restored to Your Former Glory

You may know the feeling: you’re on holiday and you’ve been walking around sightseeing all day. You’re tired, you’re hungry, and need to stop to eat. So, you pop into a little restaurant, and you feel satisfied and re-energised. Restored. And it’s no surprise really, because that’s what a restaurant’s for. Continue reading

What’s Black and White and Read All Over?

A newspaper!

Ha!

I’m sorry, I can’t resist a classic bad joke. But have you ever wondered why the past simple and past participle forms of the verb to read look identical to the present form, but sound different (“red”)? Continue reading