Editing / Grammar / Usage / Style / Editor/writer

Although you’re unlikely to find many writers or editors willing to give up the hard copies of their dictionaries or style and usage guides, working as a writer or editor in the 21st century has its perks: the list of reliable online editorial resources gets longer every year. Here’s a great listing to get you started.   Online Style Guides Online bastions of editorial integrity include well-known editorial authorities such as...

Book Reviews

As the subtitle suggests, Rachel Toor's Write Your Way In (University of Chicago Press, 2018) is a book about writing an application to an American undergraduate institution (what we’d call “universities” on this side of the border). In fact, it is mainly about just one part of the application: a short personal essay that is meant to introduce the person behind the academic and extracurricular achievements detailed in the rest of...

Office Happenings / Social Media & Community

If you’re thinking about holiday gifts for the editor in your life, look no further! This gift guide is your ultimate resource for picking out that special something to make even the most professional editor put that red pen down!   The Editors Canada Calendar   This calendar has become an absolute favourite at the TEC office. We have one in every room! The calendar has a simple, yet charming design. Some pages...

Office Happenings / Social Media & Community

It’s an exciting time in the TEC office — we have our new working space set up, our new website is launched, and our new editor is joining our team. And to top it off, we are welcoming back our Week of Indulgences to celebrate the holidays, December 17 to 21!   We first celebrated the TEC Week of Indulgences in 2016. We each brought in baked treats, opened up...

Office Happenings / Social Media & Community

It has been quite the whirlwind of a year at TEC! We’ve had a lot of changes throughout 2018, many of which have culminated just within the last few months. At times it seemed overwhelming, but now that the dust is settling, we’re back in the game and eager to get back to helping all our clients, and clients yet to come.   A New Office  Perhaps the biggest change this...

Business

We have had a few calls recently from clients looking for help with business writing projects, so we thought we would repost this timeless blog to help others improve their business writing as well!  *****   Good business writing is clear and succinct. There are no unwanted words. The meaning is delivered with precision. The right tone, correct usage, and elimination of jargon strengthen the message. Rene Cappon, former...

Editing

  Citing sources from the internet is something most academic writers do all the time; papers can be written without consulting a single sheet of paper. But citing web sources seems to be a continuing source of confusion, trouble, and headache.   Dynamic Development Part of the confusion comes from how citation styles have developed alongside the internet: no one knew exactly what place web sources would take in academic work, so...

Language & Editing

Inclusive writing is often confused with politically correct writing, but political correctness isn’t an author’s main goal when writing inclusively. Instead, inclusive writing seeks to limit reader alienation by avoiding the use of phrases and terms that include some demographics at the expense of excluding others.   When writing inclusively, a glossary of politically correct and incorrect terms could be used as a reference, but this glossary would act as...

Books And Reading

    The summer is drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean the festivities are over! For booklovers out there, you’ll be happy to know that a number of literary festivals are only beginning to kick into high gear. Check out our list of FREE Toronto festivals you should check out before the summer’s up!  Pivot Reading Series – SEPTEMBER 13 8:00–10:00 PM Tranzac Club Donations are accepted   The Pivot Reading series is...

Book Reviews

Have you heard of any strange or amusing idioms, or perhaps have one you like to use? At TEC, we’re always interested in wordplay, so we were excited when we recently received an unexpected package at the office — a large envelope from Simon & Schuster Canada filled with pre-publication copies of Watch Your Tongue: What Our Everyday Sayings and Idioms Figuratively Mean by Mark Abley. We loved the...

EBook Technology & Services

Recently, Beth and I were able to partake in a webinar put on by Editors Canada, entitled “The Editor’s Place in Ebook Development. ” It was a fantastic learning experience, and the host, Kevin Callahan of BNGO Books, was a great teacher with a lot of knowledge to pass on to us. Here are some of the things we picked up from the webinar.   E-book or Epub? One of the...

Usage

    For centuries, questions of proper usage have provided editorial professionals fodder for debate. Although publishers’ styles are often defined by usage rules, such as never ending a sentence with a preposition, when exposed to a bit of research these rules are often revealed as illogical modern constraints placed on the historically flexible English language. That said, there are some usage rules that even staunch descriptivists must respect when...

Editing

  The publishing world has well-developed rules and guidelines for describing and citing work that exists as printed text. Things can be less clear for a writer when dealing with other kinds of cultural production. Visual art works, for instance, pose particular questions and challenges.   Description as Interpretation and Framing No matter how we go about describing the visual in words, the process inevitably involves imposing a certain way of...

Social Media / Editing & Marketing

Being good at social media is important for everyone. And I mean everyone. From Starbucks to The Editing Company to your own personal account—recognizing the potential of a robust social media presence is key! For the rare breed of niche and underground businesses, not having some or all social media could potentially be a component of their brand. For the rest of us, social media efficiently tackles...

Usage

    Punctuation marks are the signposts of prose. They indicate what’s important and where to pause. They add rhythm to your sentences. They help your readers follow the twists and turns of your thoughts.   But there are so many different kinds of punctuation marks that it can be tricky to decide which one to choose. Periods and commas are the most common, but trying to write with...

Event

If you're looking for an intimate one-person show, a Mirvish-level musical, or a production somewhere between the two, Toronto is a great place to catch any kind of show. With a number of different venues and theatre companies to choose from, it can be difficult to see even half of the productions on offer each year.   The Big Names However, quality live theatre isn't confined by the boundaries of the...

Publishing

  So, you’re moving into the finishing stages of writing your book and you’re beginning to think about acquiring an agent. At TEC, we work with non-fiction writers, academic and business writers, and recently I worked with an author on her memoir to help her shape her manuscript before sending to an agent.   Finding yourself an agent can be a huge step forward in getting your book...

Usage

Commas, for any copy editor—or, for that matter, any copy writer—are a most familiar tool, as well as a potential source of frustration. Correcting punctuation for grammar and clarity is a key part of any copy editor’s job, but commas also play a role in shaping elements of writing that aren’t as simple as “correct” and “incorrect” usage. The comma, we’re often told, corresponds to a “slight pause”...

Usage

Back in September 2017, The Editing Company's own Barbara Kamienski wrote a great blog post about the linguistic challenges presented by subject-verb agreement. As Barbara points out, there are certain subjects that, especially when used in the same sentence, can make it difficult to determine whether verbs in any given construction should be plural or singular. One of Barbara's examples draws particular attention to this difficulty: None of the...

Editing / Usage

      The postgraduate student researching the rise of postmodernism in the postwar period found herself with post-traumatic stress disorder. A wealthy dealer gave the famous post-impressionist artist a post-dated cheque for his painting of a post-apocalyptic landscape. The soccer coach thought it would be best to postpone the weekly postgame festivities and throw one major postseason party instead.   The prefix “post,” it would seem, follows us everywhere. But...

Usage

As a keen-eyed reader, you have no doubt noticed that those little horizontal lines between words and numbers come in varying lengths. As a keen-eyed typist, you'll also have noticed that your keyboard is equipped with only one key: the hyphen/minus key. And you may have observed that sometimes when you type in two hyphens to set off an interjection -- because you just know that a simple hyphen isn't up to...

Editing & Technologies

We loved this blog when Nina first created it back in 2011. We are reposting it this month in honour of this month's TEC theme of comics! Check out last week's blog for Michael's take on creative heroines of the comic book industry, and this month's newsletter for more comic fun.   *** It's official: "LOL" has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. So has "OMG," for that matter....

Editing New Media

      The American comic book industry has historically been a male-dominated enterprise. The names of famous male artists, writers, inkers, and colourists come up over and over again. But, male-dominated as the American comic book industry is, a number of pioneering women have played important roles in creating or developing the characters and settings that make these episodic narratives what they are today.   In fact, there are so many...

Editing / Style

The Latin word ibidem, better known these days by its short form ibid. , is one of the technical tools of academic writing and editing. Literally meaning "in the same place," it's used in footnotes and endnotes to mean that a note refers to the same source as the previous note. This little bit of Latin has long been a way of inducting a writer (in high school...