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How much thought do you give to the ways you start a sentence? Because you do it every ten, fifteen, or twenty words, it’s easy to overlook the first few words you use. Maybe you don’t realize it, but are your sentences often beginning with I, he, she, or the or an? Perhaps, there is, and…

All you want to do is check your grammar and spelling, but many grammar tools now are so full of useless and over-the-top AI suggestions. Instead of making it easy to spot grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and typos, some try to rewrite your entire sentence or replace your style like a mind-reading robot. It’s really…

When you need to describe silence in writing, it can be a little bit challenging. How do you explain something you can’t see or touch? Added to this is that silence not only means quiet. It can also mean peace, unease, awe, or even fear or dread. Finding better ways to say it was quiet,…

To describe a night vividly in writing, you must move beyond weak adjectives like “dark” or “quiet.” Instead, use a sensory noun phrase followed by a strong action verb to show the setting. Focus on elements like moonlight, shadows, or shifting temperatures to create an immersive, atmospheric scene for your reader. When you describe a…

TL;DR: De-escalate (with a hyphen) is the preferred spelling in almost all major dictionaries, including Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge. It’s the version you should use for almost any type of professional or published writing. It also applies to other double vowel words such as re-enter, co-owner, and anti-intellectual. Using a hyphen in these cases prevents…