MODIFIERS give us information about a noun or pronoun in a sentence. They are important because they help to paint the true picture of the information we seek to convey to our reader or listener. The ...

So how do we produce readable and clean scientific writing? One of the good elements of style is to avoid adverbs and adjectives (Zinsser 2006). Adjectives and adverbs sprinkle paper with unnecessary ...

When dealing with compound modifiers, heed this advice from The Associated Press Stylebook: "Do not use a hyphen between adverbs ending in '-ly' and adjectives they modify." For example, no hyphens ...

For comparisons that are negative or downward, ‘less’ and ‘least’ are used before the positive form of the modifier. To make your writing clear and concise, be careful to avoid using two modifiers ...

One of the regular features we do on Twitter is "Why we need hyphens": phrases that have different meanings depending on whether there's a hyphen. These usually occur when a noun has a compound ...

Russ in New Jersey had a question about hyphens: In “northwestern California landmark” should “northwestern California” be hyphenated? “I’m not sure if it’s simply a matter of preference or if the ...

TO better appreciate the value of free modifiers, particularly of the kind that works in the same league as resumptive ...