As you begin a new year filled with new writing projects, it’s helpful to think about how to have an effective relationship with your editor. Here are some tips to remember: Your editor isn’t hoping to rip your writing to shreds. You want your editor to be honest with you and to do his or […]

Said the editor to her client, Do you see what I see? At first, the client didn’t see what the editor saw on the nonfiction document. The client didn’t see the redundancy, the wordiness, or the ambiguity. The client told the editor he intentionally used inconsistencies in punctuation because he liked how it looked. He […]

As we dash to the end of 2016, it’s important to remember there are different kinds of dashes: the hyphen, the en dash, and the em dash. Writers often confuse these marks and use them inconsistently. (This confusion originally began with the switch from typewriters to computers; typewriters have only a hyphen.) Each kind of […]

This Thanksgiving, what would happen if you placed an uncarved turkey on the table and told your guests to start eating? They wouldn’t know how to eat it. They’d wonder why you missed the most important part. And they might never want to have Thanksgiving at your home again. When your turkey is finished cooking, […]

Homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings or spellings) can be confusing. They’re one of those things that makes English a challenging language to learn. People often confuse which, witch, and wich. Which is an interrogative pronoun. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines it as “being what one or ones out of a group.” It’s […]