Introduction

What I Do 

1. Mechanical editing, which covers grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and so forth 

2. Substantive editing, which addresses content, organization, effectiveness, style, unity, appropriateness to audience, and the like 

3. Developmental editing, which guides the author through the planning and writing of a manuscript 

4. Seminars on grammar, composition, technical writing, business writing, and fiction 

I accept fiction, nonfiction, articles, and technical, academic, and commercial documents. 

What I Don't Do 

1. Documents on a level of technicality that requires an editor from the field 

2. Manuscripts I consider hateful, libelous, or pornographic   

Introduction 

Summer is nearly gone, at least in Alaska, and we are in a frenzy of hiking, kayaking, biking, rafting and such before those options are buried under snow and skiing is the only outdoor exercise left. And sledding, of course. Isn’t it nice that writing is an all-season activity? 

 Questions

Punctuation is a universal headache, and the topic of a good percentage of questions I receive. Many think of it as unnecessary, useless, or good enough with a hit-and-miss technique. Others throw up their hands and figure it’s too capricious to try and understand. Part of the problem is that although there are a few hard and fast rules (end a sentence with a period!), the use of punctuation marks is far more often a matter of choice or changing conventions (hyphenate or not hyphenate). But where would we be without it?                               

This is done in remembrance of the dead, Mother.

This is done in remembrance of the dead mother. 

A woman without her man is nothing.

 A woman—without her, man is nothing. (Not the same, equally sexist.) 

Jack says Amy, the boss, is gone.

“Jack,” says Amy, “the boss is gone.”

 Jack says, “Amy, the boss is gone.” 

And then there is the well-known book on punctuation by Lynne Truss, Eats, shoots & leaves. The title refers to a panda who eats at a restaurant, then shoots his gun in the air and gets up to leave. In answer to a bewildered waiter’s question, he throws him a wildlife brochure, which states that a panda lives in China and eats, shoots & leaves. (In case you just got out of bed: A panda eats shoots and leaves.)                               

Overpunctuation can make your writing awkward and halting: 

The pianist, who lives in Kentucky, and performed there yesterday, would not agree to play, unless a Steinway was brought in. 

Better: The pianist, who lives in Kentucky and performed there yesterday, would not agree to play unless a Steinway was brought in. 

Style guides follow common usage in most cases, and the current trend in punctuation is “as needed.” Rather than separating all clauses and phrases by means of commas, semicolons, dashes, or even periods, we should ask ourselves if adding punctuation enhances clarity and comprehension, or simply slows the reader down. To write well, we must know the few punctuation rules and guidelines that remain, and use the marks that move readers forward. Do not make them feel like new drivers trying to master the stick shift.

 Grammar Gripes and Style Stumblers

Wrong: Another love of cats are scratch posts.

Correct: Another love of cats is scratch posts. (The subject is love.)

Wrong: My greatest problem are mice.

Correct: My greatest problem is mice. (The subject is my greatest problem.) 

If this bothers you, turn the sentence around and you can have your plurals:

Scratching posts are another love of cats.

Mice are my greatest problem. 

And then the eternal danglers. This one is from a Good Samaritan who found an injured canine by the road, and turned around to help: 

After driving down the road the dog was laying there . . . 

Apart from the fact that the dog wasn’t laying anything—he was lying there—he didn’t do any driving, either. Try rephrasing: 

After I drove down the road the dog was still lying there . . .

After driving down the road, I found the dog still lying there . . .  

This sentence contains an introductory modifier, that is, a word or phrase that could not possibly stand alone—often a phrase containing a present participle and sometimes a preposition, like After driving . . .  When you read such a modifier aloud, your voice goes up, creating the expectation of further information to come. The trick is to make sure that the modifier is followed by a comma, and that whatever follows the comma is the subject of that modifier. After driving screams for the person who did the driving, not the dog. This also goes for a noun phrase, and almost any other phrase (a string of words that does not qualify as a sentence because it does not contain a subject and verb), as in An avid hunter, Jonathan took his gun everywhere he traveled. After driving down the road, and An avid hunter, are modifiers. They make no sense by themselves, unless used as sentence fragments, usually in fiction or other creative writing, often in dialog as the answer to a question. 

“Why does he take that gun everywhere. What is he—a hitman?”

 “An avid hunter.”

You have to wonder what kind of individual haunts these dangerous, forbidding mountains. Who could survive so far from civilization? Well, a hermit. An avid hunter. 

If your sentence does not fit these latter categories, use a comma after the modifier, and immediately after that, identify who performed the action of the modifier: 

Wrong: After washing the dishes, the dog got his daily walk. (Nice dog.)

Right: After washing the dishes, I took the dog for his daily walk. (A bit more realistic.)

Right: After I washed the dishes, the dog got his daily walk. 

On another subject, we have talked before about the fad of adding -ate to verbs, and even to nouns, to create a more complicated way of saying something. The latest I have seen is modificating (instead of modifying) and of course, the ubiquitous conversating. What is next, modificatifying? Modificatification? This is a phenomenon that seems to be the reverse of a back formation, that is, a word formed by removal of a real or imagined affix (prefix or suffix) from an existing word. For instance, because we have burglar and usher, we blithely assume that these are derivatives of shorter (verb) forms. Not so. Nevertheless, we have made up the back formations to ush and to burgle.

 Terrible Twos

Incidence is the rate or frequency of an occurrence. The high incidence of violence between gangs concerns residents of the city. They are not concerned just about a single incident, but about the extent and frequency of these incidents. Incidence implies repeated occurrences. 

Waiting on and waiting for are now also merrily mixed up. A waiter, a server, or a servant may wait on you, that is, they provide their services to you. When you are looking out the window to see if your guests are finally here, you are waiting for them. When your child reluctantly leaves the TV while you are honking the horn, you may yell, “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you!” When you watch traffic lights, you are waiting for the switch to green. 

Waiting on implies services to be rendered and may imply some subservience (he waited on her hand and foot). People may wait on or serve other people, but not things. 

Waiting for is about looking forward, sometimes impatiently, for something to happen or for someone to do something (I waited for you [to arrive] at the appointed place). You can wait for just about anything or anyone.

 Everybody Does It

Media Turkeys

Advertising agencies and wannabes are rich sources of clunkers and potholes. A tax consultant advertises on TV that “If you owe less than . . . “ now may be the most “opportunistic time” to achieve  more aggressive resolution plans with the IRS. 

This may be a Freudian slip, but I suspect that they were trying to say that right now is an opportune time to tackle the IRS. Merriam Webster defines opportunistic as taking advantage of opportunities as they arise, or (more often) as exploiting opportunities without regard to principle or consequences. The latter meaning is not complimentary. It has a sharklike flavor. We’re gonna get you while you’re down. 

Opportune, on the other hand, means “suitable or convenient for a particular occurrence” (an opportune moment), or “occurring at an appropriate time” (an opportune offer of employment).

Potholes

At a time when  public confidence in the integrity of the media is, well, low, it seems strange, if not downright astounding, for a news station in Alaska to advertise that “the sole purpose” of their news organization is “to give you only the news you need to know.” They are apparently quite happy to decide what we need or do not need to know. Does anyone read this stuff before they broadcast it? Do they pay someone to come up with these gems?