Proofreading & Editing Tips
Fun Catches: When the Word Is a Word but Not THE Word
Every so often, editing serves up a little treat: the “fun catch”—a word that is spelled correctly and is perfectly ordinary, but it’s the wrong word. These slip-ups often sneak past spellcheck because they are real words. Homophones are common culprits: “their” for...
Make It Sound Like Them
Early in my editing career—on my very first assignment, in fact—I learned one of the most important lessons I’ve carried with me ever since: An editor’s job is not to make the writing sound like them. It’s to make the writing sound like the best version of the author....
A Good Speller Is Irrisistable
The other day, I took a spelling test. Among the words it asked me to check were committment, wholey, principly, slurr, and totaly. These misspellings felt like old friends—words I’ve corrected in manuscripts time and again over the years. I dutifully fixed them to...
The Sketchy Apostrophe: Do “Kids Club” and “Farmers Market” Need One?
My oldest daughter has a pretty nifty job working with kids. As she gears up to plan summer programming, one of her ideas is a daytime club for kids—full of crafts, games, snacks, and sunshine (the last one is debatable, though. After all, we live in the PNW). “Mom,”...
whatifwedidnteverusepunctuationandcapitalization
It’s minimalist. It’s chaotic. It’s a little bit poetic in a defiant way. whatifwedidnteverusepunctuationandcapitalization brings a certain vibe to writing—equal parts experimental and rebellious. It dares readers to slow down and decode rather than skim. And for a...
Why Is Bill the Nickname for William? A Church Pew Mystery, Solved
I attend a small Lutheran church with pretty stained-glass windows. It’s a beautiful place filled with kind people and, as my youngest daughter recently pointed out, a surprising number of men named Bill. The comment came after I told her a story about one of the...
The Art of Anaphora: When Repetition Makes Perfect
Let it land. Let it linger. Let it echo. You've just experienced anaphora. While your high school English teacher may have scolded you for repetition, anaphora proves that sometimes breaking the rules creates the most memorable writing. What Is This Fancy-Sounding...
The Power of Parallelism: Creating Rhythm and Impact in Writing
Have you ever noticed how certain phrases stick in your mind long after you've read them? Many memorable quotes and powerful statements share a common literary technique: parallelism. What Is Parallelism? Parallelism is a figure of speech in which two or more elements...
“Her and I” or “She and Me”? Grammar Made Simple
We’ve all had those moments when grammar gets tangled, and we commit what I like to call a speech-o—like a typo but spoken. One of the most common mix-ups I hear is this: “Her and I went to the store.” Not nearly as often, maybe once in a blue moon, I'll hear...
Short, Sweet, and to the Point
At 5 feet tall, I’m shorter than most Christmas trees, filing cabinets, refrigerators (I never see their tops without a stool), arcade machines, and the average moose. Maybe that’s why I have an affinity for things that are compact and efficient—I like difficult...