The Case of Like and As

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The Case of Like and As
Strictly speaking, the word like is a preposition, not a conjunction. It can, therefore, be used to introduce a prepositional phrase ("My brother is tall like my father"), but it should not be used to introduce a clause ("My brother can't play the piano like as he did before the accident" or "It looks like as if basketball is quickly overtaking baseball as America's national sport."). To introduce a clause, it's a good idea to use as, as though, or as if, instead.
•    Like As I told you earlier, the lecture has been postponed.
•    It looks like as if it's going to snow this afternoon.
•    Johnson kept looking out the window like as though he had someone waiting for him.
In formal, academic text, it's a good idea to reserve the use of like for situations in which similarities are being pointed out:
•    This community college is like a two-year liberal arts college.
However, when you are listing things that have similarities, such as is probably more suitable:
•    The college has several highly regarded neighbors, like such as the Mark Twain House, St. Francis Hospital, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the UConn Law School.
Omitting That
The word that is used as a conjunction to connect a subordinate clause to a preceding verb. In this construction that is sometimes called the "expletive that." Indeed, the word is often omitted to good effect, but the very fact of easy omission causes some editors to take out the red pen and strike out the conjunction that wherever it appears. In the following sentences, we can happily omit the that (or keep it, depending on how the sentence sounds to us):
•    Isabel knew [that] she was about to be fired.
•    She definitely felt [that] her fellow employees hadn't supported her.
•    I hope [that] she doesn't blame me.
Sometimes omitting the that creates a break in the flow of a sentence, a break that can be adequately bridged with the use of a comma:
•    The problem is, that production in her department has dropped.
•    Remember, that we didn't have these problems before she started working here.
As a general rule, if the sentence feels just as good without the that, if no ambiguity results from its omission, if the sentence is more efficient or elegant without it, then we can safely omit the that. Theodore Bernstein lists three conditions in which we should maintain the conjunction that:
•    When a time element intervenes between the verb and the clause: "The boss said yesterday that production in this department was down fifty percent." (Notice the position of "yesterday.")
•    When the verb of the clause is long delayed: "Our annual report revealed that some losses sustained by this department in the third quarter of last year were worse than previously thought." (Notice the distance between the subject "losses" and its verb, "were.")
•    When a second that can clear up who said or did what: "The CEO said that Isabel's department was slacking off and that production dropped precipitously in the fourth quarter." (Did the CEO say that production dropped or was the drop a result of what he said about Isabel's department? The second that makes the sentence clear.)