Words That Are Commonly Confused

English is a tough language to master–even when  it’s your original language. The recent Arby’s ad campaign shows how words that are spelled similarly aren’t pronounced the same–Good Mood Food. We also can’t count on simple letters to help us–send some sugar (shouldn’t all words that start with s followed by a vowel have the “SSSSS” sound?).

Here’s a list of commonly confused words that I’ve seen in manuscripts I’ve edited.

• Accept – Except. Accept is a verb that  means to receive. Except is generally used as a preposition. Examples: I accept your nomination.  Everyone is here except Susan.
• All ready – already. All ready means everything or everyone  is ready. Already is an adverb modifying an adjective, verb, or another adverb. Examples: We took a poll and discovered we are all ready. He is already ten minutes late.
• All together – altogether. All together means everyone is co-located. Altogether means completely. Examples: The team was all together at the quarterback’s wedding. You are altogether incorrect in your assumption.
• Allusion – illusion. Allusion comes from the verb allude and means reference. Illusion means erroneous judgment. Examples: His blatant allusion to her error shows his true feelings about her. She thought she saw his car ahead of her, but it was an illusion.
• Amount – number. Amount refers to quantity. Number refers to things counted. Examples: The amount of sugar in this cereal is shocking. I noted a number of errors in your calculations.
• Fewer – less. Fewer is used when things can be counted. Use less for quantity. Examples: The express checkout line is for people buying fifteen items or fewer (note that less is incorrect grammar even if we see it every day in stores). The police report shows less crime than last year at this time.
• Anxious – eager. Anxious is used when anxiety is involved. Eager is used when something is highly desirable. Examples: I was anxious when I saw my child get hit with the hockey puck. I am eager to start my new job.

This list is long enough for one post, so I’ll continue the list of commonly confused words in my next post.

Happy writing!

Dashes–Do They Help or Hurt Your Writing?

One of the most perplexing punctuation marks for writers seems to be the dash. Because dashes are so powerful, many writers don’t use them at all.

The hierarchy (from least to most powerful) of punctuation is comma, parentheses, colon, dash.

Commas are commonly used and there are numerous reasons to use them (but that’s a different blog post).

Parentheses are stronger than commas when showing a reader something is unnecessary (parenthetical) to the writing, but helpful to create understanding. Commas are used for that purpose as well, but there are many other reasons to use commas.

Colons are used when the writer wants to  create anticipation. Example: (note the colon creates anticipation that I’ll give you an example).

Dashes are used to get the reader’s attention. They provide a sharper break in the sentence than commas do, and they offer a more dramatic alert that something’s being inserted in the sentence than parentheses do.

Here’s when dashes help your writing.

• Use the dash for emphasis. Example: She had to make a decision regarding her career–and she made it this morning.
• Use the dash to indicate an abrupt change. Example: When they went to the casino, he hated to see her lose–or win–since both kept her gambling.
• Use the dash to summarize. Example: Every argument has two viewpoints–the other person’s and the correct one.
• Use a pair of dashes instead of parentheses to enclose parenthetical information. Example: Her thoughts on dieting–if she thought about it at all–were few and far between.

To complicate matters more, there are two kinds of dashes–the em-dash and the en-dash.

The em-dash is so named because it takes up space equal to the letter m. It is the most commonly used dash and the default of most word processing programs.

The en-dash is so named because it takes up space equal to the letter n. It is used between inclusive numbers.

Do dashes help or hurt your writing? When used correctly, they definitely help. When overused, they hurt.

Happy writing!

Comma Sense

In the writing classes I teach at the college, I assign a comma exercise. I provide students fifteen sentences and instructions to add commas in the appropriate place, provide the reason for the comma, or mark the sentence with a C if it is correct (no commas needed).

The textbook I use contains a glossary with the most common reasons for commas, and I encourage students to use the appendix.

For most students, this is one of the hardest assignments of the semester. Sentences without punctuation are difficult to read. Knowing where to insert a comma is tough, but knowing why is even more difficult.

Here are some common reasons to use commas.

• Insert comma between two independent clauses joined with a conjunction. Example: Louise thought John would be late, but John made it on time.
• Use commas between three or more items in a series. Example: Larry, Moe, and Curly. NOTE: Some writing manuals require the comma before the conjunction in a series (Chicago Manual of Style and APA, for example), while others do not.
• Use a comma after introductory phrases. Example: When the sun goes down, the night creatures come out.
• Use a comma to set off contrasting words or phrases. Example: The more you edit, the better your writing.
• Use commas for sentence interrupters. Example: She is, or thinks she is, a wonderful person.
• Use commas to set off explanatory equivalents. Example: My mother, Jane, is a huge baseball fan.
• Use a comma in a direct address. Example: Mary, can you babysit Saturday night?
• Use commas with direct quotations. Example: Tom said, “I’m trying out for the lead in the class play.”
• Use commas between modifiers. Example: the thorough, concise, readable manuscript.

Make sure you have a reason for inserting a comma (and the reason is not “That’s where I stop to take a breath.”). Your comma sense will show and you won’t go comma-crazy.

Happy writing!

Keep Colons in Your Punctuation Toolbox

Technology changes many things, including the formality of some of our written communication. Email is less formal than letters, for example. Many people don’t bother with a salutation (Dear Ms. Doe:) when writing email, but if they do, they keep it informal (Hi, Jane,). You’ll note in the formal salutation example that a colon is used while in the informal salutation a comma follows the greeting.

So, when do you use a colon?

• Use a colon after a formal salutation (Dear Mr. Jones:).
• Use a colon after an introduction before  a list , a summary, or a long quotation (A good writer does these things: reads a lot, considers the reader, free writes, revises). By the way, capitalize the first letter in what’s written after the colon only if what follows is a complete statement, a quotation, or contains more than one sentence. Otherwise, keep what follows the colon in lower case.
• Use a colon to indicate dialogue (Mary: I’ve missed you. John: And I’ve missed you.).
• Use a colon after the words the following or as follows–even if the words are implied rather than stated (She required the event include: entertainment, food, cash bar, and table decorations.).
• Use a colon when stating ratios (The odds are 3:1.).
• Use a colon to separate a title from a subtitle (Why I’m Blessed to Have You as a Friend: The little things that mean a lot).

One caution: Do not use a colon directly after a verb (Her three favorite authors are: Ernest Hemingway, J. K. Rowling, and Agatha Christie.).

Happy writing!

How Hard Can It Be to Use an Apostrophe?

Most of us probably give little thought to the appropriate use of an apostrophe. I say that because I see it used incorrectly in printed messages on the television screen, in periodicals, and even online. And this stuff is written by writing professionals!

People plug in an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong and they don’t insert one when it’s required.

Here’s a primer to help you with this misused punctuation.

• Apostrophe shows possession. Example: writer’s block.
• Apostrophe indicates omission of letters or numbers. Examples: ’90s (notice the apostrophe precedes 90 rather than comes after it because the numbers 1 and 9 are omitted) and they’re (this is the contraction for they are and omits the letter a).
• Apostrophe forms some plurals. Example: She earned all A’s.

There are only three basic rules for using an apostrophe, so I ask, “How hard can it be to use an apostrophe?” Not so hard, really.

Troubleshooting Your Manuscript

Most writers know what they expect of their editors–grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization are the minimum.

For a little more money, they can expect content editing where the editor looks at clarity, conciseness, redundancy, flow, etc.

But what about troubleshooting? What about pitfalls? What about those things that impact author credibility? After all, the author, not the editor, is responsible for providing original content.

No reputable publisher knowingly publishes material that involves copyright infringement, plagiarism, hoax, libel, obscenity, or even examples that could hurt author/publisher credibility.

In our publishing company, Expert Publishing, I’ve suggested authors reconsider using examples of Toyota, Enron, etc. that were good examples when the manuscript was originally written, but not so good for the duration a book is in print. I’ve also required authors to change words that were potentially offensive to readers. Better to have readers excited about your book than concentrate on one or two negatives and talk just about those.

Add the cost of litigation (because you pay the lawyers to defend you whether or not you win the case), and it’s just not worth not troubleshooting your manuscript for potential problems.

So, who’s responsible for the troubleshooting? You, as author, are ultimately accountable. When Doris Goodwin Kearns faced plagiarism charges, the media wrote about her, not her editor. When James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces was exposed, Frey, not his editor, faced Oprah.

If you have an editor who suggests potential trouble spots to you, you are fortunate. Be sure you consider any warnings or suggestions offered because your published work is around a long time.

Here are some things to correct in or eliminate  from your manuscripts.

• Words or terms that offend a specific group of people
• Incorrect dates
• Words consistently misspelled
• Mislabeled photos
• Unattributed directly quoted material
• Incorrect names for people
• Incorrect spelling of people’s names (if you’re sloppy on spelling their name, how sloppy is the rest of your research?)

I understand anything humans do won’t necessarily be perfect, as none of us is perfect. However, the more we strive to eliminate trouble in our manuscripts, the more errors we catch.

Happy writing!

The Craft of Editing

Some writers think of editing as a necessary evil they have to deal with if they want to sell their writing. Others embrace working with their editors because they’ve had good experiences with editors improving the writing.

So what’s the difference? If an editor changes your writing to reflect the editor’s viewpoint or style preference, that’s not a good thing. If an editor comes to your writing with the reader in mind, you’ve got the basis for a good editing experience.

But editing is more than that. Editing also entails following standards–Chicago Manual of Style for books, Associated Press Stylebook for periodicals, and APA (American Psychological Association) for most academic work (although there are other manuals for academic work as well).

When you hire an editor, make sure you check that the editor you hire knows which manual to use and uses the correct one in editing your work. Anyone can say he/she is an editor. In fact, many writers hire English teachers/professors as editors. This may or may not be a good practice, depending on the teacher’s familiarity with when to use which manual. Just because someone knows a verb from a preposition doesn’t make that person an editor–it makes them knowledgeable in that one part of the craft of editing.

You also want to be clear about what type of editor you’re hiring. If you want grammar and punctuation edited, you’ll want to hire a copy editor. If you want content and clarity edited as well, you’ll want to hire a content editor. If you simply want someone to look for typos and check spelling, you’ll want to hire a proofreader.

All of these are part of the craft of editing. But, just as you don’t go to a pediatrician for cardiac care in the elderly, you don’t want to hire the wrong editing expert.

Connecting with an editor you can work with and who respects your voice can make or break your writing career. Whether you’re looking for someone to slash and burn your text down to bare bones (technical writers may be looking for this type of help) or creating fiction that requires an eye for content and timing and detail, you can find the right editor for you.

Happy writing!

Good Editors Ask These Questions

I was looking at a publisher’s website the other day. It was a publisher who advertises itself as a “self-publisher,” which is a misnomer unless the only author that publisher publishes is himself. That made me wonder how accurate that publisher was in other aspects of publishing, so I clicked around and discovered that they “edit as needed.”

That allows all sorts of leeway in what one can expect from their editors.

Writers deserve better and here’s a list of  questions good editors ask when editing a manuscript.

• How clear is the author’s message to the reader (sentence by sentence)?
• What does the reader need to know and does this sentence meet that need?
• Am I suggesting this revision because that’s how I would say it or because it improves the author’s voice and clarity?
• Have I consulted the appropriate manual (Chicago Manual of Style for books, Associated Press Stylebook for periodicals) regarding the suggested change?
• Have I done my best to verify facts or references I thought needed verification?
• How well did I proofread (typos, spelling, capitalization)?
• Have I examined every punctuation mark?
• Have I considered legal issues regarding quoted material, allegation, etc.?
• Have I looked for overuse of favorite words, sexism, ethnocentrism, etc.?
• How does the organization work overall for the piece?

The next time you get your piece back from your editor, you’ll be able to tell if your editor asked these good questions by the changes suggested. If your editor did not, you may want to look for a new editor.

Happy writing!

Remember to Get Permission to Use Other People’s Stuff

If you’re borrowing stuff written (which means presumably owned) by other people, you’ll want to get permission to use their intellectual property in your work.

While I’m not an attorney and am not giving any legal advice here, I am trying to make you aware that you cannot just take other people’s writing (including song lyrics) and plunk their words into your writing.

There’s no specific number of words or other easy measure of what you can quote without permissions, so err on the side of protecting yourself from legal action by asking for permission or talking to an intellectual property attorney prior to using copyrighted material.

Some things you may need permission for:

• song lyrics
• quotations from literary works
• illustrations
• long passage of text

You don’t want to be the next author making news because you “inadvertently used someone else’s words” in your article or book, as happened in 2002 to well-respected, Harvard-connected historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. (NOTE: You’ll have to click past the intro  to the site to get to the Forbes’ article.)

When looking for permission, be aware you need to obtain it from the copyright owner, as no one else can grant it.

Works deemed in the public domain can be used as you wish, but professionalism requires you provide attribution and give your reader your resource. However, as long as you’re not trying to deceive your reader that the information you’re using from a public domain source is original with you, you don’t have to give credit. Still, I can’t imagine any professional, ethical writer who wouldn’t. Why risk a fraud charge?

Fair use is one of those concepts that’s hard to pin down. As I said, there’s no specific word count, which makes sense since written material comes in different lengths.  It is my understanding that the key thing to look for in determining fair use is whether or not you’re infringing on the copyright owner’s ability to market (and profit) from his/her original work. If you offer the main point, if you offer the slogan, if you offer the poem or song lyric, you may be doing just that, no matter how many words you’re using.

When in doubt, ask an attorney or get permission. If you guess something’s fair use and you guess wrong, you’re setting yourself for a copyright infringement case and you don’t need that.

Happy writing!

Don’t Let Your Editor Get Away With Changing Your Intent

In our book publishing company, Expert Publishing, Inc., I’ve had the opportunity to work with several editors. Sometimes I’ve had to re-do their edits because they changed the author’s intent. Obviously, I don’t rehire those editors.

Every author (including me) needs an editor. Authors know their topics so well that they don’t know when they’re not being clear to the reader. Authors also may not know the various editorial manuals as well as an editor does (for example, periodicals don’t use the serial comma–the comma before the conjunction in a series–but books do).

One editor we hired was very well versed in the Chicago Manual of Style, the book  publishing industry standard, but he changed the author’s voice in the manuscript so the text read the way the editor would have written it, not the way the author wrote it. Of course, you expect your editor to improve your work, and you should trust your editor completely, but the final decision to make a change should be yours, as the author whose name is on the work.

Another editor we hired worked on a book that contained several scriptures. Chicago says to include the translation (KJV for King James Version, for example) next to the scripture reference. The author did that and the editor changed Version to Volume. Clearly, this was not an editor familiar with scripture. Had we not checked her work, it would have been a disaster for both the author and us, as publisher.

By all means, hire an editor when you think you’re in the final draft of your manuscript. BUT never allow the editor to change your intent. The editor’s job is to improve your work. You are the author and your name is on your book or article, so it should reflect your words, not the editor’s.

On the other hand, hire an editor you trust to challenge you to be as clear to the reader as possible. You won’t go wrong.

Happy writing!