Should you write "don't" or "do not"?

It depends.

Contractions are the default in everyday writing such as emails, dialogue, and conversational prose. But they're almost always absent in scholarly papers, legal writing, formal business documents, and (surprisingly) newspaper journalism.

Match your tone to your audience. Casual and approachable? Contract away. Formal and authoritative? Spell it out.

Read more: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/when-you-should-use-and-avoid-contractions/

@grammargirl It also depends if you’re a robot, android, or computer, all of which can’t apparently do contractions.

@michaelgemar @grammargirl

My first thought was the Peter Capaldi Doctor Who saying, “Robots and contractions; I could write a book.”

@michaelgemar @grammargirl

There was a senior copy editor at one of the celebrity magazines who fought unsuccessfully to get the magazine to remove a contraction from their cover headline: "It's a Boy!"

I heard that from a much younger copy editor at the same magazine. I never understood how anyone could work as a copy editor for forty years and think that that was the appropriate register for that context.

It still haunts me, in fact.

There's people what's strange I guess.

@grammargirl Also helps distinguish Lore from Data.
@grammargirl You can also use both within the same piece, depending on the tone you want to convey at any particular moment. (I'm doing just that as I write a new blog post.) I'm surprised how often this isn't mentioned!
@grammargirl don’t or do not? There isn’t no try.
@grammargirl so what about “can’t”, “can not”, and “cannot”?