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A phrase is a collection of words that can't stand on its own and doesn't have both a subject and a verb. For instance, prepositional phrases, which begin with prepositions such as under, over, to, for, with, and through, often act as adverbs in sentences. For example, look at this sentence: "They ate the apples at the table." "At the table" describes where they ate the apples, making it an adverb phrase. Adverbs come in three basic degrees, positive, comparative, and superlative. The positive adverb is your basic adverb used to describe one thing or one group of things. A comparative adverb compares two things or groups, and the superlative establishes that one thing or group is better than several other sets of groups or things. To clarify, many adverbs can be expressed in degrees, such as "fast," "faster," "fastest." You could say, "She runs fast," which is the positive case. "She runs faster than my sister," is the comparative because it's comparing two things. "She runs the fastest in her class," is superlative because you're establishing it's the best out of many things. Position is also important in adverbs. Adverbs that connect sentences to other sentences are found at the beginning of sentences, such as "however." Adverbs that modify certain parts of the sentence often go in the middle, such as "only," which can change the meaning of the sentence if moved. Adverbs that modify manner, place, or frequency can sometimes be found at the end of the sentence. For instance, "afterwards" often comes at the beginning of the sentence because it connects it to the previous sentence: "We played games all afternoon. Afterwards, we ate ice cream." "Only" can move around in the sentence depending on what you want it to modify. For example, "They only ate pie in the afternoon," has a different meaning than, "They ate pie only in the afternoon." In the first sentence, they didn't eat anything else but pie in the afternoon. In the second sentence, they consumed pie just in the afternoon, rather than other times of day. Other adverbs end up at the end of the sentence: "He picked the bowtie that suited him best." "Best" is the adverb in this sentence, describing how it suited him. Sometimes, an adverb used with a verb is repetitive, and it makes your writing feel clunky. The verb often is enough to describe what is going on without adding extra words. For example, take this sentence: "She exclaimed excitedly." "Exclaimed" already implies excitement. Adding "excitedly" is redundant.
Keep in mind that adverbs can also be phrases. Pay attention to the degrees of adverbs. Pay attention to position. Cut out redundant adverbs.