My Aunt Jane used to read cookbooks like they were novels, and she was the best cook I’ve ever known. I think I understand the correlation, now that I work with style guides. If you take the time to dig deeply into them, you can learn so much about the craft of editing—and about your
I’ve been designing, decorating, illustrating, and organizing for over 20 years. I never imagined I’d make a career out of it. It sort of just happened by accident. I’ve always been that person who sees a design or a project and says, “I can do that.” That’s what I did all through college. Even when
As a person who deals mainly with numbers on a day-to-day basis, I still need to be able to communicate effectively with my coworkers and bosses. The biggest grammar challenge I constantly second-guess myself on is when to use “affect” or “effect.” Now, I know that “affect” is usually a verb, and “effect” is a
The American Copy Editors Society hosted a recent Twitter chat on keeping your focus on editing during the summer. The ensuing conversation had some great tips for breaking up a long work day and managing time. My recommendation for revitalizing your editing is to read Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by
If you’re anything like me, your social media presence consists almost exclusively of talking baseball. I’m a Washington Nationals fan. Many of those posts are a poor attempt to relieve my frustration by venting about the team and our misfortunes—and mishaps. And mistakes. I never feel better afterward, but, as an editor I at least
The 2015 edition of the Associated Press Stylebook became available in late May 2015. The guide includes a “What’s New” page at the beginning of the book, noting changes including new entries in the Sports, Fashion, and Religion chapters; an updated Photo Captions section; and words from the Social Media Guidelines now appearing in the A–Z Stylebook,
In July, I was cruising around Amazon and a suggestion popped up. You’ve seen them: You might also want to buy these items. It said I should take a look at Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I’m not really an impulse buyer, but I quickly added his book to my
HOW Design has a hashtag that has me laughing each time it pops up on my Twitter feed: #TenThingsNotToSayToADesigner. It’s not really 10 things, but a list of phrases designers often hear that can drive us a little crazy and give us a good laugh. People from across the web have joined in and tweeted. Here are
Spell-checking features are often lifesavers, but they are not all-knowing. An editor learns quickly to read every there/their/they’re and you/your/you’re carefully to make sure the correct version of the word is used for the particular context. As you get to know your clients, you should also build a list of their most easily mistaken words.
My sister, who is a second-grade teacher, gave her students a seemingly simple assignment: List three common nouns. This was part of a lesson on proper versus common nouns, which included teaching the students that common nouns are lowercase and proper nouns are capitalized. Turns out the assignment wasn’t so simple. Being 7-year-olds, most of
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