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The Editing Hour: Save The Em-Dash!

I bet you had no idea the em-dash was endangered, did you? Well, when Julia Scheeres commented on my post about semicolons that she loves to use em-dashes as well, I remembered having read a tweet that said the em-dash had gone out of vogue with flared jeans and peasant shirts. I was shocked. So […]

The Editing Hour: The Semicolon revisited

A quick note about semicolons. I’ve blogged about them before: how to use them to connect two independent clauses and alternatives you can use instead: a period and a capital or a comma and a coordinating conjunction, or FANBOYS. But what I didn’t say was use them sparingly. It’s tempting when you learn a new […]

The Editing Hour: Creative vs Academic Writing

When editing and critiquing submissions, the academic in me wants to copyedit every sentence until it’s grammatically and typographically perfect. That means, if I’m following the Chicago Manual of Style, I may want to add a comma before “and” in a series: “I love ice cream, cake, and pies.” Or I may want to make […]

The Editing Hour: The Semicolon

I love semicolons, when they’re used correctly. There are several ways to connect two independent clauses (ie complete sentences): using a coordinating conjunction or FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), using a period and a capital, or using a semicolon. When using a semicolon, make sure the two sentences are closely related. They […]

For Fun: An Editing Quiz

I’ve been home with a cold the past couple of days, so here’s a fun editing quiz from the Times until I return tomorrow.

The Editing Hour: The Comma

When I’m editing, one of the most common mistakes I see is the absence or misplacement of the comma. People, put commas, in places they don’t belong and they leave commas out of places they do belong. There ARE rules for when, and when not, to use commas. Here they are:

When to use a […]