Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. So how do we produce readable and clean scientific writing? One of the good elements of style is to ...

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 ...

Adverbs are great, right? They let you describe how an action went down — whether it was walking quickly or sleeping soundly or yelling loudly. But if adverbs are so great, why do editors like me ...

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 ...

Remember that part of speech called the adverb? It is often overlooked as a possible resource – one that can enliven our letters, reports, and whatever else we may be composing. Today’s column reminds ...