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engbites1English Bites! are practical, bite-sized tips to help you improve your English for work. Published twice a week, the articles include useful advice covering different aspects of business English including grammar, vocabulary, writing, speaking as well as fun topics. It'll take just a few minutes to read each tip. You can subscribe to English Bites! from the Newsletters link above. After that, you'll receive notifications of all new tips by email.

Report Writing: Prepositional Phrases to Describe Change

23 Mar 2023

reportsWhen writing reports or proposals it’s often necessary to describe change, i.e. when and by how much something changed. When doing this you will also need to know how to accurately use prepositional phrases. See the table below:

Preposition Examples
at to describe static situations. Sales peaked at $25 million
verb + by + change Sales increased by $2 million.
Turnover fell by 20%.
noun + of + change Sales reached a high of $25 million.
This was a rise of 10%
in to describe the area affected by change/time period. Last year there was a rise in net sales.
20xx saw a 15% fall in exports.
in + month, year, quarter, etc in June
in the first quarter
in 20xx
from (specific time) to (specific time) from June to August
from 20xx to 20xx
between (specific time) to (specific time) between June and August
between 20xx and 20xx
 

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