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Write positively
Use positive language rather than negative language. Tell people what they “can” do, not what they “can’t.” Look out for ”n’t” words — can’t, won’t, don’t. They’re notoriously negative.

Good — To learn to fly, you first have to jump.
Bad — You won’t learn to fly unless you jump first.

Also in our case, a double negative doesn’t make a positive. So don’t use them.

Good — You can achieve anything when you’re always learning.
Bad — You can achieve anything when you’re never not learning.

Write positively
Use positive language rather than negative language. Tell people what they “can” do, not what they “can’t.” Look out for ”n’t” words — can’t, won’t, don’t. They’re notoriously negative.

Good — To learn to fly, you first have to jump.
Bad — You won’t learn to fly unless you jump first.

Also in our case, a double negative doesn’t make a positive. So don’t use them.

Good — You can achieve anything when you’re always learning.
Bad — You can achieve anything when you’re never not learning.

Write positively
Use positive language rather than negative language. Tell people what they “can” do, not what they “can’t.” Look out for ”n’t” words — can’t, won’t, don’t. They’re notoriously negative.

Good — To learn to fly, you first have to jump.
Bad — You won’t learn to fly unless you jump first.

Also in our case, a double negative doesn’t make a positive. So don’t use them.

Good — You can achieve anything when you’re always learning.
Bad — You can achieve anything when you’re never not learning.

Ampersands
They’re the curlicue “&” symbol. They mean “and.” But don’t use them as an “and” replacement. Only use them when they’re part of a proper, official name, like Johnson & Johnson or AT&T. Every other time, just use “and.”

When you using them to abbreviate things like Research and Development, don’t use a space on either side of them (R&D).

Apostrophes
They look like a little jumping comma or half of a quotation mark. They may look cute, but they can get complicated. Most commonly, they’re for making a word possessive or creating a contraction (can’t, y’all, it’s, etc.).

When making any word possessive, if it ends in any letter besides “s” (even if it ends in an “s” sound), we use an apostrophe plus an “s.” If a word ends in “s,” we use just an apostrophe.

Luis ate Tara’s lunch.
Tara ate Luis’ lunch.
But they were still hungry, so they ate their managers’ lunches too.

Those rules hold except in these very specific scenarios.

• • No apostrophe for possessive personal pronouns that end in “s” (yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs).
  • When a word that ends in an “s” sound is followed by a word that starts with an “s,” you use just an apostrophe (for appearance’ sake, the appearance’s cost)
  • Don’t add an apostrophe to a word that ends in an “s” and is used as a descriptor (a Cincinnati Reds infielder, the kids department, the artists art). Think no apostrophe if when written long-form you’d use “for” or “by” (an infielder for the Cincinnati Reds, the department for kids, art by artists). If the word is plural but doesn’t’ end in “s,” then use an apostrophe plus “s” (children’s hospital, people’s elbow).
    
  • If you’re using quantities, normal apostrophe rules apply before nouns (two weeks’ notice, three month’s pay), but no apostrophes when before adjectives (two weeks late, three months pregnant).
    

Less common but still important, you can use an apostrophe when you drop letters or numbers from a word. Be sure to check that the apostrophe flips horizontally when it’s at the front of a word. But honestly, keep this whole thing to a minimum.

I think I was born sometime in the ‘90s, but I’ve been hit in the head a lot.
It’s ‘bout time I see a doctor.

There’s also the rare apostrophe plus “d” to replace “would” or to create a new verb form. These are fine.

I DIY’d myself a sweater.
I’d say I did either a bad or very bad job.

Dashes and hyphens
There are two types of dashes, en (–) and em (—) dashes, and one type of hyphen (-), which is technically a dash, but for whatever reason, its too good to use its family name.

Hyphens (-)
The shortest dash. Use them when you’re linking two words into one word or adjective. Never use spaces on either side of a hyphen or hyphenate adverbs. When an adjective is more than three words, use quotation marks instead of a bunch of hyphens

I bought a “blow your socks off fast” go-kart for my hyper-active nephew.

En dashes (–)
The middle child of the dashes. Type opt + hyphen to make one. It gets its name because it’s approximately the length of an “n.” Use them for date and number ranges, to connect compound nouns, and to separate a word from its definition. Never put spaces on either side of an en dash.

It lasted from March 23–April 9 when he crashed it into a lake on the US–Canada border, starting an international incident.
Tomfoolery – foolish or silly behavior. “My nephew got up to some tomfoolery on the 9th.”

Em dashes (—)
The longest dash. Type opt + shift + hyphen to make one. It gets its name because it’s approximately the length of an “m.” Use them to offset an aside. They work the same way as offsetting with commas or parentheses but choose them when you want to draw more attention to your aside. Always use a true em dash, not two hyphens or en dashes (— not — or ––), and make sure you always have a space on both sides.

He stuck to the story, ”It wasn’t me. I was studying,” — clearly, a lie — until his little brother, a notorious snitch, ratted him out.

Exclamation points
They show strong feelings or excitement. You get one exclamation point a day. Use it wisely! And don’t use more than one at a time or use them to add emphasis to negative messages.

Good — This was a poor use of my one exclamation point today!
Bad — I can’t wait until I get more tomorrow!!!
Bad — Your exclamation point account balance is overdrawn!

Question marks
Question marks end questions. They’re like quizzical periods. They go inside quotation marks if they’re part of a quote, but outside all the rest of the time.

Mark said, “Why can’t I decide on the perfect blue?”
Did you hear Mark say, ”I finally decided on the perfect blue.”?

Tildes
They’re this squiggly “~” mark. They’re for adding ~whimsy~. You’ll rarely if ever, have a use for them. The double tilde “≈” is used for approximations. You’ll need to use one of them approximately zero times.