The em dash is an essential punctuation mark—one that the writers of the Style Manual think the Australian public is not intelligent enough to use. According to the sixth edition of the Snooks & Co. Style Manual—as well as all the most significant texts on the correct usage of Australian English—the em dash has…
Welcome back to our series on ‘Commonly Confused Words’! This series aims to explain the difference between a few of the most misused or misunderstood words in academic writing. We’ve already covered the difference between ‘practice’ and ‘practise’, and ‘their’, ‘they’re’ and ‘there’. We’d love to hear from you: what…
Welcome to Part Two of this two-part series on the ‘Use—and Non-Use—of Dashes and Hyphens’. Part One delineated the myriad of functions served by the various dashes. Part Two faces a greater task, for the hyphen, though marvellous, serves as much as a mark of punctuation as it does a subject of contradiction.…
‘A dangling modifier is a phrase (or clause) out of place, as a weed is a plant out of place, making a mess of the garden.’ (Treddinick, 2008, p. 201) This is one of the most commonly encountered errors in editing: the dangling modifier. As Treddinick suggests, it truly does…
We recently started a series, ‘Commonly Confused Words’. This series aims to explain the difference between a few of the most misused or misunderstood words in academic writing. In addition to providing definitions and examples, we will share tricks for remembering the difference between these words. You can follow this…
Quotation marks—sometimes called ‘speech marks’, or more colloquially ‘quotes’—are used to indicate direct speech. Depending on where you are, the quotation mark may be different. Australia and the United Kingdom use single quotation marks: ‘ ’ North America uses double quotation marks: “ ” In this article, we will reference to Snooks…
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A semicolon (;) is a punctuation mark that has two main functions: Semicolons separate items in a complex list. For example, The Council is comprised of ten members: three from Sydney, Australia; four from Auckland, New Zealand; two from Suva, Fiji; and one from Honiara, Solomon Islands. Semicolons join two closely…
Affect, effect or impact? Good writing is effective, but great writing affects readers. Or does it effect readers? Can it impact them? Let’s try to reduce the confusing effects of grammar … First, consider the following definitions: affect (verb): to act on; produce an effect or a change in effect (noun): that which…
Microsoft Excel is an extremely popular spreadsheet program that’s used to collect, organize, calculate, and analyze data. Excel is used by many companies, organizations and individuals to make it easier for them to organize their data and numbers. Excel can be used for both personal and professional purposes. Excel is useful for…