• 75 synonyms for the word "looked".

    Well Looky Here! 75 Different Synonyms for the Word “Look”

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    It’s easy to find yourself stuck when writing—you want to add color, depth, and description to your writing, but that requires, well, you know, words. Sometimes those words are hard to conjure up! We definitely get it. To help you out, here are 75 different synonyms to use instead of the word “looked.” (A word which can be used a few different ways, so for good measure we’ve given you a little bit of everything). So throw those watered-down verbs out the window, and start plugging these synonyms for “looked” into your writing today!

  • Grammatical Gray Areas: Subject-Complement Agreement

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    Celebrating National Grammar Day and National Proofreading Day March is a month that calls for grammar nerds—like us—to celebrate. After all, March 4 is National Grammar Day, and March 8 is National Proofreading Day. On days like these, authors, editors, and proofreaders finally get the respect we deserve! (Oddly enough, I’m still waiting for my Grammar and Proofreading Day gifts to come flooding in. . .) In all seriousness, we editors at Xulon Press have a passion for proper grammar usage. To celebrate grammar rules and style, we’d like to discuss a not-so-rare gray area that comes up frequently in…

  • 20 Commonly Misused Words

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    We remember it fondly from our elementary school days: if you can’t recall how to spell a word, sound it out! As adults, we might follow the same tactic when trying to rack our brains to produce that one word we know how to spell, but can’t piece together the correct letters. However, sounding out words in print instead of in conversation could lead to the right word being written, but maybe not the right meaning for the word. For example, “I’m going to take the plain” is not the correct spelling of the word needed: this form means traversing…

  • Passive Voice: It’s So Passé

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      Passive voice has a time and place in writing, as it serves to be a stylistic additive in many books and papers. In some cases, people prefer passive voice in creative pieces, such as poetry and prose; however, writing in passive voice too often in your fiction and non-fiction pieces can cloud your writing. The “passive voice” can best be described as writing that quietly emphasizes the subject in the sentence, rather than the verb. It also indirectly guides the reader to a course of action or situation without a direct voice, which can leave readers scratching their heads. It…