“The strongest compulsion in the world is not love, and it is not hate; it is one person’s desire to edit another person’s copy.” — H.G. Wells “Infuriating” “Frustrating” “Upsetting” These are some of the words that people use in my trainings to describe their experience when someone in their organization changes their writing without […]
Editing for Others: Don’t Change Just for Change’s Sake Read More »
There are two kinds of people in the world. I call them get to the point people and have a nice day people. Get to the point people want you to lead with your main point. They do not want you to wish them a nice day. In fact, they might not even care whether
Get to the Point” People vs. “Have a Nice Day” People Read More »
Great thinkers and writers often have pithy things to say about the writing process. Here are a few quotations to make your writing day go more smoothly. Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood. – Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) The most valuable of all talents is that of
Quotations About Writing: “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” Read More »
The Oxford or serial comma is the comma that separates the conjunction (such as or, and) from the last item on a list. Furious controversies have erupted over this small punctuation mark. Millions of worthy people maintain that the Oxford comma is a necessity in every list. Millions of other worthy people claim that it
The Oxford Comma Turns Out to Be Worth Real Money Read More »
What’s wrong with me? Both speakers and writers seem averse to correctly using this basic pronoun. Instead of using me when appropriate, they end up sounding hoity-toity by asking, “Could you bring a glass of Merlot for the lady and myself?” or “Let’s keep it just between you and I.” In both of those examples,
