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Category Archives: Writing

What does a proofreader do?

01 Jun

When most people think of “proofreading”, they are actually thinking of copyediting, which I’ve discussed in a previous post.

Proof-reading is, officially, checking proofs of a publication just before they are published.  So when I’m proofreading, I’m effectively looking for different things to when I’m copyediting.  For a start, the document is often different – for example, when I’m working on a magazine or book, the text I copyedit is usually presented to me in a word processing programme like Word, whereas the proofs come in pdf format.  That’s because that’s how, essentially, they will go to the printer, so they represent the final, finished form of the book or magazine.

All of the grammatical, punctuation and spelling stuff should have already been covered by the copyeditor, and the facts checked by the copyeditor, editor, author or fact-checker (whether or not I’m one of these people in the project too).  What I’m now looking for is inconsistencies and errors in how the text and the surrounding “business” appears on the page.  So I’ll check for …
for books and magazines:
– page numbers being sequential and starting at the right point
– pictures having captions and the captions describing the correct picture
– widows and orphans – individual words or lines which get left alone on either the previous page to the main text (e.g. if a paragraph starts at the bottom of the page or, worse, there’s a short phrase introducing a quotation or the beginning of a text box) or the page afterwards (the last few words of a paragraph or text box, for example)
– changes in font size that weren’t intentional
– the contents page or list matches what’s there in the publication
for books in particular:
– the running headers being correct, i.e. one has the publication name and the other has the chapter title (for the correct chapter)
– chapters all starting on a right-hand page as you hold the book open
– all extra material (bibliographies, index … ) included and in the right order

As it’s in pdf format at this point, I’ll use my software to annotate the pdf and then send it back to the client.  Sometimes I’ll get a second look at it once these corrections have been made.

And that’s what a proofreader does.

 
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Posted by on June 1, 2011 in Business, Copyediting, proofreading, Skillset, What Do I Do?, Writing

 

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There, they’re and their

30 May

This should be a popular one as it’s a very common set of mix-ups (and I know it’s not a pair, but a trio: think of it as a Bank Holiday Bonus)

There – regarding a place. “Have you been to Wales? Yes, I’ve been there.”

Their – possessive of “they” – belonging to them “Don’t take their wellies without asking!”

They’re – less formal, abbreviated form of “they are” “Are Linda and Freddie going to be at the party? Yes, they’re going to the party!”

So, if some people are visiting a female relation who lives on the other side of the valley: “They’re visiting their aunt, who lives over there”.

That’s it, really!

For why we don’t add an apostrophe to “theirs”, see my article on the apostrophe.

For more troublesome pairs, have a look at the category cloud to your lower right, or click here!

 
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Posted by on May 30, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Lead or led?

26 May

Another potentially troublesome word pair: “lead” and “led”.

Here, we’re only talking about the sense involved in taking someone or something from one place to another, not the soft metal that’s made into roofing, the thing that connects your computer to your printer, or the thing that connects your hand to your dog …

This is quite a simple one: lead is the present tense, and led is the past tense.

So, we can differentiate thus: “lead” is used in the present, including when we’re requesting something at this moment: “Lead us not into temptation” – “Every morning, I lead the cows into the field and I still do that now”.

Contrast this with use of the past tense: “Every morning last July, I led the cows into the field, but that was in my old job and I do something different now” –  “He led me into temptation”.

“I’ll lead the horse today; you led him yesterday”.

If you want to see more pairs of words, click on the “Troublesome pairs” link in the category cloud to the right of this page …

 
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Posted by on May 26, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Cafe reviews

23 May

Ooh look – we’ve inspired someone else to write wifi cafe reviews! I really enjoyed reading this one and will visit the cafe next time I’m in Glasgow …

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2011 in Reviews, Writing

 

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Affect or effect?

19 May

Welcome to the first of my weekly mini-posts on troublesome pairs of words.  Keep on suggesting new pairs on the comments to my original post!

So, today it’s affect and effect.

Quite a simple one – if you AFFECT something, it means you have an EFFECT on it.

Well, not quite that simple …

Affect is (mainly) a verb, which means “to have an effect on”, or to “make a difference to.”  Effect is used mainly as a noun, the difference that is created when something is affected.  It’s an end result or consequence.

Although you can also “Effect a change in something”, this is a different verb used in a different way.  And an affect is also used in other senses, such as to denote pretending or as a precise term in psychology, but we won’t worry too much about those uses, as they’re not the ones that tend to get mixed up.

Examples:

Bill’s injury affected his ability to play in the team, and had a bad effect on the team’s morale.

Bill affected the morale of the team when he got injured.  The effect was to make them play less well.

I will affect the balance of this blog between grammar and opinions when I post all these mini-posts.

When used in combination with another drug, this drug can affect the side-effects in a positive way.

The effect of the water on the runner was marvellous; he perked up immediately.

Sarah effected a change in the way the meetings were structured.

Thanks as usual to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and New Hart’s Rules for helping back me up!

 
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Posted by on May 19, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Can, may and might

10 May

A request has come in from a reader to write about distinguishing between “can”, “may” and “might” – so here goes. Again, my sources of reference have been the Oxford English Dictionary, New Hart’s Rules and the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.

Can vs. May
Can implies the ability to do something. “Can she play the piano?” – is she able to, at any point in time, play the piano? Is she capable of it? Has she learnt to play it?
May implies permission to do something or the possibility of doing something. The latter is probably the easy one – “She may play the piano if she feels up to it” introduces the possibility of her doing so. “May she play the piano? ” is asking for permission to do so.
An amusing way to remember this – “May I play this piano?” – “Of course you may. But CAN you play the piano?” – “No, I never learnt to do so!”
You do also find this one in discussions with parents and teachers. “Can I leave the table?” – “You are certainly ABLE to leave the table, but whether you have permission is a different matter!”

May vs. Might
I admit here that I had to do some research on this one. Traditionally, may is used in the present/future tense, and might in the past tense. So: “I may have some coffee after dinner if I’m still thirsty” vs. “He might have known his attacker.”

All clear? Oh, and while we’re on cans and mays … “cannot” is preferably used as one word, rather than “can not”. The only exception is in constructions like “He can not only do this, but also the other.”

 
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Posted by on May 10, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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Capital or lower case?

27 Apr

When do you use a capital letter to start a word, and when do you use lower case?

This is one of those things that has changed through the years. Think about Dr Samuel Johnson’s Twitter-feed for example – it’s partly effective because of its use of capitals. But nowadays, it’s “less is more”.

Of course, we always use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, and traditionally we use one after a colon, too (although this is no longer set in stone – the rule is: be consistent).

Proper names are still capitalized, so: Liz, the city of London (when referring to the place as a whole) but the City of London when referring to that specific region of the city.

Some words are capitalized (or not) to distinguish between an abstract and a concrete use of the term. For example, the Methodist Church as an organisation, but a Methodist church as a building. In a similar way, State is capitalized when you’re talking about a particular state – New York State, or the State of New York as an entity, but when talking about the states of New York and Wisconsin, no capital. And when you’re referring to something you’ve mentioned before, such as the University of Birmingham, you call it “the university” thereafter. The same with people: Prince William, but “the prince said”, etc.

Although this isn’t strictly a “troublesome pair”, the rest of them are here.

 
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Posted by on April 27, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Troublesome pairs, Writing

 

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On the humble apostrophe

20 Apr

I wasn’t sure I was going to write anything on the apostrophe, as it seems such a basic thing that people like me who work with words tend to go on about (we don’t really roam the streets, Sharpie in hand, looking for hapless greengrocers … )

But then I noticed more and more confusions, and a friend or two mentioned that they still weren’t sure, so: the humble apostrophe.

Turning to the dictionary, an apostrophe is “an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person or personified thing.” Oh – not the one we want. OK, it’s “a punctuation mark (‘) used to indicate either possession or the omission of letters or numbers.” That’s better.

Let’s move on to Hart’s Rules, which, oddly enough, contains the rules of English. The following information is summarised from Hart’s. Please do pay attention to all but the ones I mark as terribly hard – they are the ones where you need to know there’s something funny about them and you’ll need to look them up. That’s what we all do, just to check …

The apostrophe is used in two ways – to show possession (ownership) and to mark where letters or numbers have been missed out.

Possession
Easy …
– Use an apostrophe and an s with a normal single noun or indefinite pronoun to show possession – the girl’s job, the box’s contents, anyone’s guess.
A bit harder …
– Use the apostrophe and s combination for plural nouns that don’t end in s – people’s opinions, children’s toys.
– Do NOT use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns: hers, its, ours, yours, theirs – theirs is the kingdom of heaven, a friend of yours, give the dog its dinner (it’s easier to remember the “its” rule if you think of it belonging to this section).
A bit harder still …
– Use the apostrophe alone (no s after it) after plural nouns that DO end in s – our neighbours’ gardens, other countries’ borders.
– In compound and “of” phrases, the apostrophe (and the plural, in fact) go after the last noun – my sister-in-law’s son, the King of Spain’s estates.
– Use an apostrophe and s with personal names ending with an s, x, or z sound – Charles’s, Dickens’s, Marx’s and Jesus’s.
Ever so hard (to be honest I sometimes have to look these up and I don’t often see them used correctly) …
– Use an apostrophe and no s when talking about time passing – in a few days’ time, a few weeks’ holiday. But if it’s in the name of a war, no apostrophe – The Hundred Years War.
– A double possessive (making use of both “of” and an apostrophe) may be used with nouns related to living beings or personal names – a speech of Churchill OR a speech of Churchill’s. But it’s not used with nouns referring to organisations, etc. – a friend of the National Gallery.
– A double set of nouns – apostrophe and s go after them if they are acting together – Broomfield and Dexter’s “The Rules of Grammar” – but not if they’re separate – Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s tragedies.
– Apostrophe and no s for a singular noun that ends in an s or z sound combined with “sake” – for goodness’ sake, for old times’ sake (times here is a plural so has the apostrophe after the s). This is the one I have to look up. Maybe you should save this blog post for those purposes.
Believe me, there are more obscure rules, for example those dealing with Greek names. If you need to know, ask me!

Plurals
Just – don’t. If you really, really need to differentiate, you are just about allowed a small, occasional one, only in examples like – dot the i’s and cross the t’s, find all the number 5’s. But that’s it. And there’s not one with numbers any more, although this has changed in the last decade or so: the 1980s not the 1980’s.

Contractions/omissions
Easy …
Use an apostrophe when a letter or number has been missed out: won’t, we’ll, bo’sun, ’70s, it’s warm out today.
A bit harder …
Don’t use an apostrophe before a word that’s been shortened but is now in general use – flu, cello and phone, not ‘flu, ‘cello and ‘phone.
If the apostrophe replaces the beginning or end of a word, it has a space before/after it to make the word stay separate – rock ‘n’ roll. If the apostrophe replaces a letter in the middle of the word, no space – ma’am, o’er.
Madly hard to remember …
An apostrophe is used before the suffix when an abbreviation functions as a verb – KO’d, OD’ing.

References
Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th rev. ed.) Oxford: OUP, 2008.
New Hart’s Rules Oxford: OUP, 2005.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Punctuation, Reference materials, Writing

 

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March and April

06 Apr

So, it’s time for a new “What I’ve been up to” post, since my readers seem to like those, and that covers the “March” bit of my title, but I also want to look forwards into the new financial year and say thank you to my clients for the past financial year. That’s the April bit.

First of all, what I did in March …
– Continued working on my Taiwanese client’s essays – the English is really improving in these; I’m proud of both of us for that
– Continued working for my US agency client on their client’s web pages and publications
– Finished writing the content for the two websites I’ve been working on for a while
– Continued working for my translator client, including a wide range of interesting topics
– Transcribed an interview for my ongoing journalist client and read a couple of articles she’s created out of interviews I’ve transcribed (which I find *fascinating*)
– Worked on my physiotherapist client’s blog posts, including tidying up the posts themselves, adding categories to those that didn’t have them and creating a set of tags for the posts and applying those to them too, copyedited her website and turned two e-books into one
– Did a transcription of a radio show about music for a previous PhD client who’s now working on a new project
– Copyedited several third year and Master’s dissertations on economics, one on art, and one on sports science
– Copyedited a chapter of a thesis on international law

Now, here’s the April bit. It’s the start of a new tax year, and also my new financial year. I’ve run my accounts for the year and am pleased with and proud of what I’ve achieved this year. And, while obviously I’m grateful to Matthew for his support (including technical support); and my friends for their understanding as I guiltily check the Blackberry while I’m out and about with them, or dash home to finish a project; and my copyediting and small business peers for their help and advice, I want to say a big thank you to my clients.

Dear Libro clients: Thank you for taking me on in the first place, either because you’ve seen my adverts or I’ve tweeted to you or however else you found me. Thank you for trusting the person who recommended me and approaching me. Thank you for responding to my questions quickly, for making decisions if I’ve needed you to make them, and for keeping me informed of your plans and when you’re going to send me things. Thank you for understanding that I do need to work around my day job (and eat and sleep occasionally!). Thank you for your kind comments, your references for my website or on LinkedIn or Facebook. Thank you for either coming back to me for more work, recommending me to your friends and colleagues, or both! I really enjoy the work I do, I love learning about all the different things you all write about, I love creating new text for you or helping you hone what you’ve created yourselves.

Here’s to a happy, busy and successful 2011-2012 for all of us!

 
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Posted by on April 6, 2011 in Business, Celebration, Jobs, Organisation, What Do I Do?, Writing

 

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On a different type of language

30 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Gary Jones. I met Gary through my hobby of BookCrossing and have done some copyediting work for him to complement his web development skills. I really like this beautiful meditation on a very different kind of language from that usually discussed on here.

Here’s what Gary sent me when I asked for a biography – I can’t put it better myself, so I won’t!

Gary Jones is a freelance web developer from Basingstoke with a keen interest in anything to do with the web. He specialises in WordPress sites using the Genesis theme framework. You can follow Gary on Twitter.

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I write code for a living. It could be in one of many languages, but all require careful checking as one misplaced or missing character could cause a fatal error and kill a website completely. Debugging code can be fun, or it can take hours to find where one single comma or semi colon is missing. There are many types of error within code, but pretty much all of them can come down to one thing – human error.

Code can have a beauty of its own. Whereas an author might weave a lavish scene with in-depth explanations of intricate details, the most impressive code is often the smallest fragment that does most of the work; one line of code that culminates from the conditional logic, foreach and while loops, switch statements and concatenations that kick-starts the application into life.

Encapsulations, polymorphism and synchronicity await those who dare to delve a little deeper. Code patterns, gradual degradation, progressive enhancements, refactorisations, even the terms related to code are elegant, and that’s just what good code should be – elegant, accurate and concise.

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2011 in Guest posts, Language use, Writing

 

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