“Often businesspeople will use big $10 words because they want to sound intelligent. Instead, they end up sounding like they’re trying too hard.” Start by writing short, declarative sentences.

To reinforce this, I sometimes use this little undergraduate exercise: Find plausible example sentences to fill all the cells of the matrix below. I omit exclamatives because they are less ...

Use question words, such as ‘How much is …?’. Use a declarative sentence, such as ‘I would like … please’. Invert, or swap the order of, the verb and the subject to form a question ...

Sometimes when someone speaks their opinion, they use an “I” statement at the beginning of ... Often, an “I” statement can be turned into a declarative sentence by omitting the “I.” To argue a ...

Beachkofsky says to “Use (declarative language ... when you turn it into a declarative sentence. For example, “I’m worried you may run out of time if you don’t start your homework soon.” ...

Questions about its use arise, well, periodically ... Do you need to add a period when a declarative sentence ends with a quoted question?: 1) Joan said, “Is Jill going with us?”.