Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
July 14, 2025
Yours truly is commonly used as a sign-off before your name to end an email or letter. You typically use it when you’re writing to someone you haven’t communicated with before.
Yours truly consists of the possessive pronounyours and the adverbtruly (which is often misspelled “truely”) and is followed by a comma. It’s used in a similar way to Sincerely yours. However, “Sincerely yours” is traditionally used for people you have communicated with before. Nowadays, this distinction is no longer as strict.
When using “Yours truly” and other formal sign-offs, you should always capitalize the first letter of the first word. You can use the QuillBot Grammar Checker to check for this and other spelling and grammar mistakes.
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
March 21, 2025
Sense is a noun that means “awareness,” “good judgment,” “particular meaning,” or “vague impression,” or a verb that means “to feel.” It’s also used to refer to the five sensory faculties (smell, touch, taste, hearing, and sight).
“Sence” is a common misspelling and should be avoided. Words with a similar pronunciation are sometimes spelled with a “c” (e.g., “pence”), but others are spelled with an “s” (e.g., dense). Sense belongs to the latter category.
Examples: Sense or sense in a sentence
That doesn’t make any sence to me.
That doesn’t make any sense to me.
My sence of smell has completely gone since my cold.
My sense of smell has completely gone since my cold.
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
March 21, 2025
Hers is a third-person singular feminine possessive pronoun. It’s sometimes written as “her’s”—with an apostrophe—but this spelling is incorrect.
Possession is typically indicated by adding ’s to a word, but possessive pronouns are an exception to this rule. This means that “her’s” is always incorrect.
This is also true for other possessive pronouns, such as ours and theirs. The QuillBot Grammar Checker will fix this and other common mistakes automatically.
Examples: Hers and her’s in a sentence
I forgot my charger, but maybe I can borrow her’s.
Forty is sometimes misspelled as “fourty”—probably because 4 is spelled as “four”—but “fourty” is not a real word. This is also true when “forty” is used as part of a larger number, such as “forty-two” or “two-hundred-forty.” QuillBot’s grammar check tool will fix this and other common mistakes automatically.
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
March 12, 2025
At your earliest convenience is a phrase commonly used at the end of a professional email to request someone to do something as soon as reasonably possible.
The phrase is typically considered professional and polite, but it’s not specific and might cause confusion or miscommunication. In some cases, it’s better to use one of our three alternatives to end an email to make sure the other person understands the level of urgency.
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
March 20, 2025
Into and in to are pronounced the same, but they have different grammatical uses.
Into (without space) is a preposition that describes insertion, collision, transformation, or entry. It is also used to express that someone is involved with or interested in something.
In to (with space) is a combination of the two prepositions “in” and “to.” These words are kept separate when they are not connected, such as when “in” is part of a phrasal verb (e.g., “the teacher stepped in to break up the fight”).
Examples: Into in a sentence
Examples: In to in a sentence
Sorry, I’m not into men!
The criminal was turned in to the police by his own mom!
Luke quickly raninto the bathroom before the meeting.
I was just checking in to see how you’re doing.
The artist put a lot of thought into each brushstroke of the masterpiece.
Do you all want to chip in to buy a gift for Samuel?
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
March 21, 2025
Beck and call is the correct spelling of the phrase that’s part of the expression “to be at someone’s beck and call,” which means “to be ready to follow someone’s commands.”
Beckon call is a common misspelling of the phrase and should be avoided.
Examples: Beck and call or beckon call in a sentence
Damien is at the beckon call of his mom.
Damien is at the beck and call of his mom.
You don’t have to be at my beckon call.
You don’t have to be at my beck and call.
The nounbeck is related to the verbbeckon, but they have different meanings and can’t be used as synonyms. Beck is typically only used as part of the expression beck and call.
Published on
June 27, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
January 28, 2025
A cliché is an overused and unoriginal expression. For example, when having to decide between two unfavorable options, it’s common to say “caught between a rock and a hard place.”
The word cliché functions as a noun (e.g., “I removed all the clichés from my writing”). While some dictionaries recognize it as an adjective (e.g., “The movie had a cliché storyline”), others list clichéd as the adjective form (e.g., “He had a clichéd perspective”).
Examples of ClichesAvoid it like the plague.
Better late than never.
Published on
June 25, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
December 18, 2024
The difference between “sale” and “sell” is that “sale” only functions as a noun, whereas “sell” can be used as both a noun and a verb.
“Sale” primarily refers to the event of trading goods and services for money (e.g., “All my art work is for sale”).
“Sell,” on the other hand, conveys the action of exchanging goods and services for monetary payment (e.g., “I will sell you this bike”). “Sell” can also be used as a noun to refer to the act of selling something, but this is less common (e.g., “That’s a hard sell”).
Published on
June 14, 2024
by
Julia Merkus, MA
Revised on
February 19, 2025
Systematic sampling, also known as systematic random sampling, is a probability sampling technique that involves selecting every nth element from the population, where n is the predetermined sampling interval.
The sampling method provides you with a representative sample of a population as long as the order of the population is random or near-random (e.g., alphabetically ordered). The data collected from this sample can be used to draw conclusions about your entire research population.
Systematic sampling exampleA university wants to study the academic performance of students in a particular course. The course has 500 students, and the university wants to select a sample of 50 students to conduct a survey about their learning experiences.
To conduct the survey, the university decides to use systematic sampling. They start by creating a list of all the students in the course, numbered from 1 to 500.
To select the sample, they decide to use a sampling interval of 10. This means they will select every 10th student from the list until they’ve reached their desired sample size.
