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

Because of an extended conflict with the dreaded 2017/8 flu, I have not completed my notes on the 17^th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, but in the next edition of Word for Word you will receive more of that information. So far, no revolutionary revelations. Obviously, those of you who use reference lists and bibliographies—technical and academic writers, for instance—should seriously study the guidelines on reference to electronic sources, which have become probably the largest storehouse of information quoted. Few people are fond of composing reference lists, and internet and other electronic references can be difficult to assign to a specific format cubbyhole. If your field requires it, you have little choice but to learn.

 Questions

Techniques of storytelling are not necessarily effective in technical writing, nor are the tone and vocabulary of copywriting appropriate to academic papers. Just as paragraphs may be narrative, informative, persuasive, or descriptive, every piece of writing requires its own approach. In addition to your possibly unique personal usage and style conventions, the level of formality as well as the audience and purpose for your writing are factors in the tone, vocabulary, and sentence structure of your writing. 

In fiction, for instance, short sentences, strong words, and even the use of sentence fragments indicate rising tension and climax. They increase the pace and passion of a paragraph and give needed rhythm and flow to a story. Coming down from a high in the story, sentences are longer and more descriptive until they build back up to the next peak. Your reader must engage with your characters, and become invested in what happens, good or bad. This style is narrative—you are telling a story, and the main underlying purpose is entertainment. 

Informative language, as in academic and technical writing, does not use sentence fragments and emotional and passionate terminology. Sentences should inform, teach, clarify, explain, without bias.  Clarity, organization, completeness, and correctness are major concerns, and a neutral, precise vocabulary and a businesslike or even scientific tone are needed. Therefore, every sentence has the job of providing, clarifying, or illustrating data. The main purpose of informative writing is to transmit information, not provoke emotion or create tension, as in narrative writing. 

Persuasive writing is exactly what it says: It seeks to persuade the reader to do or buy something. It is found in copywriting and advertisements, or in the language of promotional speakers, who want to recruit listeners to their point of view. It can therefore be somewhat enthusiastic, depending on what the writer is trying to sell, and it is neither neutral nor unbiased. It presents only the viewpoint of the writer, and disregards whatever might contradict that viewpoint. It is a sales job. 

Although all four of the main styles to some extent overlap, descriptive writing does so most often. It draws a picture with words, but it is not overly emotional. It resembles a photograph, not an opinion. In stories, some scenes will be descriptive, as the writer imagines them; in an owner’s manual, there is apt to be technical description; and a commercial may describe the product it is promoting in glowing terms. 

Adapt your style to your audience. How much do they already know? What do they need to know? What will the reader use this information for? How formal or casual should you be with these readers? How do you connect with them? 

Adapt to your purpose. Are you entertaining, teaching, describing, or advertising? Does this reader want humor, or does he or she want only facts and explanations? 

What approach is most effective with what reader?

 Grammar Gripes and Style Stumblers

Some words are strong, complete; others may be virtually absolute in meaning. Linguistic overreach, and often overkill, has led to the casual and repetitious use of words such as 

amazing        consummate     sublime

awesome       crucial              unique

epic               cosmic              astounding

iconic            brutal                stupendous

galactic         viral                   insane

astronomical 

To compound the problem, since we have so abundantly watered down the meaning of such words, we try to bolster them with very, extremely, most, quite, somewhat or other modifiers, weakening them even further.  Amazing really isn’t amazing anymore, and very amazing only underscores the fact that it isn’t, while the writer or speaker is unsuccessfully trying to prop it up a bit. In today’s lingo, it means nothing more than the twentieth-century swell, neat, neato, groovy, cool, or super. It is not unusual to hear a speaker use the word four times in two sentences.  From its original meaning of astounding, astonishing, it went down to great, wonderful, and now, in fad-speak, has the approximate impact of OK, pretty good. Everything is amazing. Ice cream, toothpaste, the Second Coming, every product hawked on the internet or TV, your three-year-old’s artwork. 

Every bit of trivia on the internet goes viral, everyone who’s ever had his/her face or some provocatively displayed section of his (but mostly her) anatomy in front of a movie camera is a star, every story is epic, every athlete unique, and most performances iconic. The only takeaway from such statements is the evidence of a sterile vocabulary and a feeble imagination. Eventually, even the most ignorant speaker or writer will recognize the growing impotence of this usage, and move on to something else, leaving behind a used-up carcass. 

We wear out effective words far more quickly than we invent them. 

Let’s practice at our craft and use good words. The key to good writing is not crippled superlatives or obscenities. It’s language with soul.

 Terrible Twos

Forego and forgo sounds the same and look nearly the same. Forego shows up most often as a present participle used as an adjective (the foregoing statement) and means to come or go before. Forgo means to give up, do without, or sacrifice (I will forgo my revenge).

 Media Turkeys

“Some said they usually never voted in a local election,” wrote the reporter in a post-election article. So which was it—usually or never? 

ESPN (who else) commented on a changing atmosphere during a ball game: “This changed the complexity of the game.” What they were looking for was the complexion of the game. Its complexity was not an issue.

Potholes

Among the pitfalls of creative writing is our enthusiasm for the mixed metaphor, where two figures of speech collide. This one recently caught my eye: Blizzard conditions and subzero temperatures had put his frost-bitten limbs in a deep-freeze, as it were, but the more serious trauma to his eyes caused him to put his feet on the back burner. 

To thaw them out, I suppose.

 Everybody Does It

How often have you heard the proud announcement that someone’s child has graduated high school (and possibly flunked freshman English . . . )? Students graduate from high school, college, or whatever. Nobody graduates a school.