Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. The little word “and,” we probably all know, is a conjunction. It connects things: “She is tall and thin” means she is ...

Punctuation basics are easy. A period ends a sentence. A comma represents a pause. A quotation mark indicates a quotation. An apostrophe shows possession. Most people get that. But the finer points — ...

A dependent clause cannot stand alone, though they often contain both a subject and a verb. Where independent clauses express complete thoughts, dependent clauses do not, and left on their own, ...

Clear sentence structure depends on establishing where a sentence ends and the next one begins. Every sentence must have an independent clause. The clause is called independent when it includes a ...

Semicolons must combine similar elements and are either used to combine complete sentences or items in a long, complicated list. Use semicolons in the following situations: Combine two complete ...

This is a column about nothing. It’s kind of like a show about nothing, just less entertaining — and a lot less lucrative. The nothing we’re talking about is the blank space around punctuation. And ...