What Does an Editor Do?
I’m amazed at the number of first-time writers who think that they can call me up, send me their manuscript (MS), and let me go through it once — then send it off to McGraw-Hill, Penguin, or Scholastic and have the next Harry Potter on their hands. It just doesn’t work that way. I’m a […]
ETAOIN SHRDLU
Do you know what it is? “Etaoin shrdlu” is a nonsensical phrase used to indicate nonsense or gibberish. It originated with the Linotype compositor, whose keyboard was set up with the letters in order of frequency of use in the language. The twelve most commonly used letters in the English language are (in order) e, […]
25 Easy Steps to Gooder Grammar
This came in my e-mail, but it was so wonderful I have to share it. It’s not often that you get a forwarded e-mail that is both amusing and educational. Don’t abbrev. Check to see if you any words out. Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct. About sentence fragments. When dangling, don’t use […]
Quoting Queries….When to Play Doubles, When Singles
Quite some time ago, a fellow blogger named Kiwi.Writer posed an interesting question in one of her posts; she was perplexed about the use of single and double quotation marks. It seems that Kiwi submitted a paper for review, and her instructor marked out all the double quotes surrounding dialogue and marked them to be […]
Getting Started in Freelance Editing
This is a bit of a bio / instruction list. So it runs a bit long. I’m a freelance copyeditor, typesetter, and writer. I started editing when I was in high school, and was the editor of my college’s literary magazine for three years. When I was in college, I started a typing service (that […]
People, Please! Use Your Dictionary!
Or, if not your actual, hardback, unabridged, at least type things into dictionary.com before you post a spelling that makes you look like a sloppy, uneducated wanna-be writer. In flipping through blog titles this morning — just titles, mind you — I came across at least a dozen misspellings. Most of these might have simply […]