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When I was in elementary school and learning about measurements in the 1990s, my teachers used to tell us, “Don’t get too used to using inches! By the time you grow up, we’ll have changed over to the metric system!” So we learned our measurements with trepidation – but all for naught, it seems! In fact, according to Wikipedia, the United States is one of only three countries that do...
Read MoreStudying philosophy has given me a special appreciation for logical words and the work they do. Some of these words, however, are commonly misused. (I already touched on a few of them in my last blog post. ) Here are some more pointers! “Infer” and “Imply” The confusion between the verbs “infer” and “imply” is widespread. You might see something like this, for example, and think nothing of it: “Her...
Read MoreAs a freelance editor working for clients from all over the world (and currently based here in Portland, Oregon), I have to be aware of the differences that folks from different lands incorporate into their versions of English. There are four distinct English types: American, British, Australian, and Canadian. Today, I'm going to address how I, an American editor, approach working with clients requesting Canadian English. Our countries may...
Read MoreThey say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So when I recently came upon a text riddled with hyphens popped in willy-nilly where they didn't belong, I felt a bit sad (moderating my emotions in accordance with John Benbow's words of advice: "If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad"). If only the author had known the basics of hyphenation! Sure, we all know the overarching rule: hyphens...
Read MoreDon't get me wrong—I appreciate that the English language is constantly changing and evolving. And I know that my job as an editor requires me to recognize the difference between these micro-evolutions on one hand and plain errors on the other. But the academic in me can't help but grumble when I see these three increasingly common English morphs pop up in a text. 1. "Dilemma" Writers like to use the word "dilemma" as...
Read MoreWhile reading through the January/February issue of Quill and Quire, Beth came across a review of a title that sounded so interesting, she bought it right away (at Book City on the Danforth) and brought it to the office as an “office copy. ” A book we at TEC could all take a turn reading. The title? The Devil You Know, by Elisabeth de Mariaffi. I was lucky enough...
Read MoreRecently, we posted our second eBook publication, The Author's Guide to the Pre-Publishing Editing Process. In this blog and a few to follow, we want to offer a few insights that are included in the guide. Insights that can help you work your way through the editing process. You can download the full Guide here. Keeping Control of Your Work during the Editorial Process When an author is...
Read MoreOffice Happenings / Social Media & Community
Happy New Year to all! We hope you had a safe, meaningful, and enjoyable holiday season, and that getting back to the usual grind hasn’t been too arduous. Here at The Editing Company, we enjoyed a “Holiday Adventure” that took us to Ben McNally Books on Bay Street for an afternoon of browsing and book shopping, followed by an early dinner at The Gabardine: Fine Grub and Libations Restaurant. ...
Read MoreYou know the feeling, don’t you? You’ve composed an exquisitely worded email, tinkered with the phrasing to get it just right, and read it through several times to make sure it’s error-free. You’ve clicked on Send, and just as you’re about to lift your finger off the mouse, you spot it: an egregious typo that is irrevocably on its way once you lift your finger—which you’ll have to do...
Read MoreAs 2015 rolls around, our use of social media continues to grow. Now, more than ever before, authors (both academic and non-academic) are citing social media sources such as Twitter posts, blog comments, podcasts, and YouTube videos in their work. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is particularly vague on how to format these modern kinds of citations as endnotes or footnotes. Luckily for you, we’ve done the...
Read MoreHere at The Editing Company, we occasionally have to answer a familiar question from an inquiring caller: “How can you guarantee perfection?” This is an excellent question, and one I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss. How Can We Guarantee Perfection? Well, the short answer is that perfection cannot be guaranteed—a fact that holds true for pretty much every other profession out there (and life in general, actually). ...
Read MoreOffice Happenings / Social Media & Community
Why the square brackets around November? Because we were so busy that the end of November was upon us before we knew it. Of course, this is a wonderful thing. The only small drawback is that I fell behind in my writing schedule. Enough excuses, right? So what’s new since September/October? We’ve completed several copy editing and proofreading projects and started up a number of new manuscripts for...
Read MoreAhhh, the holidays. I don’t know about you, but I always love opening up the mailbox during the holiday season—there’s almost always a pretty envelope or two, containing thoughtful cards wishing me and mine well for the year ahead. You might send your own cards off to family and friends, perhaps even work colleagues, your boss, your references, etc. Your family might overlook a typo or two,...
Read MoreEarlier this year, University of Toronto Press’ Journal of Scholarly Publishing featured a book review of Michael Billig’s Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 2013). In it, reviewer Stephen K. Donovan talks about academic writing and the unfortunate trend of unnecessarily big words and complicated sentence structures. Academic writing has never been easy reading; no one expects you to...
Read MoreEditing. It sounds like a simple process, but what many people don’t realize is there are actually a few types of editing that aim to accomplish different things. The different levels involved are: copy editing, stylistic editing, and more in-depth substantive editing. You may not always need every level of editing on your work, but the one that is needed most often is copy editing. But what is...
Read MoreAt a recent social gathering, a woman I had just met cornered me. So, I was an editor? Where, she demanded to know, did I stand on the possible abolition of the apostrophe? The debate currently raging had left her uncertain, and she wanted to hear an expert opinion from the horse’s mouth. (Thanks. ) Or might that soon be horses mouth? I mumbled something about how, yeah, a...
Read MoreWhile some of us writers and editors pride ourselves on being early adopters, others may have a slight “not-fix-it-’til-it’s-broke” mentality when it comes to our technology situation. It’s understandable —after all, you and your computer spend so many hours working together, it can be easy to get attached and press your luck way past its best-before date. And as long as your outdated device isn’t affecting the quality...
Read MoreHere at The Editing Company, I wear many hats: editor, proofreader, layout designer, and social media editor. The last one links up to an initiative that senior editor Beth and I recently took on: working with inbound marketing firm HubSpot. Beth became interested in HubSpot because the company's software offers a number of tools (along with a vast amount of learning resources) that can help us build our...
Read MoreGrammar quiz: When is it appropriate to use “whom”? Answer: You would use "whom" when you refer to the object of a sentence. Use "who" when you are referring to the subject of a sentence. For example, it is "Whom do I love?" because you are asking about the object of the sentence—the target of your love! So when is it OK to use "who"? If you were asking about...
Read MoreLiving in downtown Toronto provides no scarcity of opportunities to both observe and participate in performances of middle-classness, or what I’ve come to tongue-in-cheekedly refer to as “class acts. ” So when TEC senior editor Beth proposed that this year TEC once again support The Word On The Street by “friending” an author who would be speaking at the festival, and circulated to our team of editors a list of...
Read MoreLeafing through past issues of The Editorial Eye, I am offered a glimpse of what it might have been like to be an editor in the 1990s. These issues feature regular columns with titles like “Software FYI” and “Untangling the Web. ” They are full of reviews of grammar-checking software like Grammatik and CorrecText—even Strunk and White’s electronic version of the Elements of Style—as well as recommendations for search...
Read MoreThe Editorial Eye was a professional newsletter for editors and writers published by the Editorial Experts, Inc. in Alexandria, Virginia. I began subscribing to the newsletter in 1990 when I launched my editing career. Topics covered in each of the issues ranged from copy editing to proofreading to substantive editing to newsletter design to technological developments. There were grammar tips and grammar glitches, book reviews and word...
Read MoreOffice Happenings / Social Media & Community
Such a great summer of conferences, mild weather, FIFA games, reading vacations, meditation retreats, bachelorette parties, 5K runs, TIFF … and now we are shifting into our fall season that begins on September 21 with Toronto’s exceptional book fair, The Word On The Street. At WOTS this year, TEC has “friended” Shawn Micallef, author of The Trouble with Brunch: Work, Class and the Pursuit of Leisure, published by Coach House...
Read MoreAhh, summer: a time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the sunshine (even though here in Toronto, our summer has been…not as hot as we usually prefer). A time when how you relax is up to you—some escape to the cottage every weekend they can, others plan a trip down to an island paradise, taking advantage of the travel off-season. Some people like to check out a new...
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