Hello, I am a comma after

a greeting

Complex sentence

seeks simple comma

Avoid clichés like the plague

Repeated modifiers

really, really need a comma

Students, use a comma

after a direct address

Conjunctions: grammar’s own glue

A sentence ending in

“too” needs a comma, too.

Say it with direct speech

The full stop: a cracking

way to end a sentence.

Nothing says possession

like an apostrophe

Get excited about

exclamation marks!

Health Warning:

Apostrophes give you

contractions

“Direct speech needs

talking marks.”

Extra information

can go between your

brackets

An ellipsis is for trailing off

and...

Semi-colons join two

sentences; this works

well.

Use your colon for definition

The mark that gives you the

answer: the colon.

Dash follows sudden stops

Hyphen: turn two words into one

Don’t question question-marks for questions

Repetition strikes again

Rhyme is the same final

sound, all the time.

Assonance: rhyme for

vowels

Alliteration: when words

have the same sound at the

start

One idea: one

paragraph

Metaphors are gold

Similes are like gold

Anaphora is effective.

Anaphora is fun.

Antithesis: the best of

techniques, the worse of

techniques

Understatement is just okay

Hyperbole is the best

thing, ever

We should all believe in inclusive language

Who doesn’t need

rhetorical questions?

Heroes use emotive language

Authorities say, “appeal to experts”

Onomatopoeia: what it

sounds like

Concrete nouns have

weight

Abstract nouns are things, too

Verbs do

Nouns are really

something

Add to your verbs with adverbs

Adjectives should be called ad-

nouns

Dependant clause needs independent

clause

Independent clauses can stand alone

Spoonerism: a spigger of

feech

Acronyms: when you need the

information PDQ

Indirect speech gets

the point across

THE definite article: there can be only

one

The indefinite article: a is an answer

A Strunk of collective

nouns

Pronoun: the stand-in

Verb phrases: many words do verb work

Noun phrases:

when more is more

Although you don’t want to

overdo it, you can start a sentence

with a conjunction

Predicate: what

happened?

The future tense will be

great

The past tense was...

The present tense is

happening

Prepositions are where it’s

at

It’s always means “it is”

It’s not all right to write

“alright”

Well-behaved commas

don’t join two sentences

The contention is what it’s all

about

I wish this were in the subjunctive

Personification is my

excellent friend

93% of statistics influence readers

Bias is bloody awful

Stories are the anecdote to boredom

Generalisation is always

wrong

Puns are pun

It is really is fine to boldly

split the infinitive

Use imperatives

Topic sentence: say

what you mean

If you don’t know your

idioms, you’ve got Buckley’s