Whether you are sending an important e-mail, mailing off a book proposal (does anyone even send paper mail anymore?), or handing off your manuscript to a copyeditor, there are three things you should do first. If you are sending your work to a copyeditor, you will save some money by saving your editor some time. If you are sending something important to someone, you will just look better!
1. Hire an editor! Obviously, if you are sending your work to an editor, you already have. However, no matter what you are sending where, you never want to send a mess. Always read something over first. So, the editor will be you or possibly a friend or coworker. It is often difficult to spot your own mistakes, so it is usually helpful to have someone else look over your writing. If you don’t have another pair of eyes, reading your writing out loud can often help. I know it is a pain to proof your own work. I don’t like doing it either, but it is embarrassing to send something with silly mistakes in it.
2. Run some type of spell check. No, it won’t catch your its and it’s, or of instead of on, but we still do make other spelling errors and typos. I have received some manuscripts to edit where the author has obviously not even run spell check. I always run it, but if there are relatively few errors already, it saves time for me and money for the author.
3. Make sure your writing is consistent. This is something everyone can do. If your writing isn’t consistent, you will look careless. If the manuscript you give me to edit isn’t consistent, it will take me a lot of time to make it so. What do I mean by consistent?
- Either use the Oxford (series) comma or don’t, but be consistent throughout one piece of writing.
- If you are using certain jargon, make sure you use the same words or group of words to mean the same thing, and capitalize it the same way each time you use it.
- You might be using some compound adjectives that fit the particular piece of writing. For example, maybe you are using the term compound-complex sentence. Don’t suddenly switch to compound/complex sentence. Your work will look ragged. If an editor has your work, it will take her or him time to straighten it out (and you will keep getting e-mails asking you questions).
- If you want to use bold to emphasize certain things, don’t suddenly switch to quotation marks or italics.
I guess there is one more thing if you are sending an email: Make sure it is not only ready to send, but that you actually want to send it. Make sure you won’t regret it once you press “send.”
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The Grammar Diva apologizes for the short post this week, but she is very busy trying to finish The Best Grammar Workbook Ever! The book is done and off to the designer for final changes. She is excited about the launch event at the Petaluma Copperfield’s on Friday, May 15 at 7 p.m., and she hopes to see all her local friends there! Yes, there will be cake, and it will be chocolate!
Happy Belated National Grammar Day (March 4)
Have to agree. If you haven’t time to go over it yourself, get someone to do it for you. If you’re going to write for others to read, make sure it’s your best– that may mean going over it three times yourself, that may mean hiring out for an editor. Don’t let Internet “quick publishing” send buttons get the better of your writing, it may be the only thing between you and your client / readers!
peace,
revel.
Thanks, this is such great advice. Long, long ago, before e-mail, we used to write on pieces of paper, fold them up, put them in envelopes, and drop them in these funny blue boxes on the street to be carried off to their recipients. Even then, you could experience sender’s regret… what if you changed your mind after the mailbox swallowed the letter telling off your boyfriend or berating your parents? The actions and emotions haven’t changed since then. It’s just that the time between writing and sending has been radically compressed and the effort reduced to nearly zero, so we need to be extra careful these days to think before we act.
Great comments, Audrey! Agreed!
Consistency is helped if you create a personal style sheet for a long document (or book manuscript). “Style sheet” makes it seem like a big job! But, it’s really quite simple.
As you write/proof your document, whenever you encounter a particular usage, such as the spelling and punctuation of a complex item, just note it on a pad of paper that you’ve divided up by the alphabet. Example: when I worked at NASA, we often had papers refer to the “Navier–Stokes equations” when discussing aeronautics. This is the type of thing you might want to add to a style sheet (since it is unlikely that your spell checker will have a clue and it might be easy to treat this differently in different locations in the paper (article or book).
Indeed, I was one of those who participated in developing a local style sheet for NASA at Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA). We gathered together the editors I supervised, along with editors who worked for other divisions and branches. Over a period of a dozen meetings or so, we agreed on standard treatments for hundreds of terms that were unique for our NASA facility. It surprised me that Navier–Stokes caused a lot of debate, but after vigorous debate, it was concluded that Navier and Stokes be separated by an “N-dash.” I note that this is treated similarly in the Wikipedia Article about these equations.
The point being … it is a great convenience to establish standardized ways to deal with various aspects of one’s writing. At NASA we first would follow the suggestions in the Chicago Manual of Style, where that reference was less than clear, we’d then follow the U.S. Government Printing Office manual of style, where than reference did not settle an issue, then we’d refer to a NASA style sheet — and finally, we’d refer to the Ames Research Center style sheet.
If you’re a self-publisher, realize that every publisher has a “house style” that is supported by a style sheet. (Most publishers use the Chicago Manual of Style (while newspapers almost always use the AP Style manual (AP=Associated Press). Magazines use ether Chicago or AP (I’ve seen both, but Chicago seems to hold the majority among the publications I regularly read).) However, the ‘house style” comes in when Chicago or some other style doesn’t adequately (or in some cases doesn’t even consider) particular issues that a publisher encounters regularly. The types of issues on a house style (in addition to spellings) might include the aggressiveness of hyphenation … more hyphenated words will make the type seem more evenly set. How many stacked hyphens are allowed. (A stack is having successive lines end with a hyphen.) Most academic presses limit this to two lines, but many commercial publishers put the limit at three lines. Another house style issue might involve spelling out numbers or using numerals — some say spell out zero to ten, then use numerals for 11 and more.
Yes, style sheets and guides are important. I always create one when I a editing someone’s document, so I stay consistent. Of course, it is easier if the writer has maintained some degree of consistency, especially when a similar word of phrase is used repeatedly. When I worked in tech publications in high tech, we used Chicago, but I also developed a department-wide style guide. Actually, I think it was a company style guide. Most companies have them.
As someone who writes and edits articles (usually of a technical nature, but intended to be read by policy and decision makers), I recognise (with an “s” as I write for British publications!) this good advice! One other piece of advice: switch off the predictive text function otherwise some strange words will likely creep into your text.
Yes! That autocorrect on my phone has made up some pretty silly things! You are so right!