ClearTips: Stunning sentences

Contractions

It used to be that contractions were all but forbidden in formal writing. Then, in the mid-1980s, they began to appear in the news—and since, more broadly. Conversational, they imbue sentences with an (often needed) air of informality.

He's just another yuppie on a power trip.

Some editors would still turn this back to He is.

Given this climate, it's hardly surprising that Satan should have metamorphosed from a pitchfork-wielding fiend into the Armani-clad guy next door.

C'mon fellas—time to go all the way.

It was the best forensic advice I'd ever seen a candidate get, and Gore had made the most of it: he'd soared that night, skewering his opponents on defense policy.

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