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I recently edited two non-fiction books with a lot of parentheses. They were mostly used for witty asides or extra detail. (Both authors...

I was watching a TV show recently (it was Gilmore Girls , if you must know) in which the main character’s hairstyle kept changing from...

It may seem counterintuitive to push business away, but sharing my preferences and editing style is a great way to find out if our...

I recently copyedited a non-fiction book with a trigger warning. It was the first time I’d read – or edited – a book that had one. (I...

When I first trained as an editor, the process was simple. I received a hard copy of the manuscript, used copyediting symbols to mark up...

As a copyeditor, I’m often briefed to remove wordiness. But why is it a problem and where do you draw the line? Understandably, there's a lot of confusion around this topic because wordiness is subjective – and how much you get away with depends on your style and audience. So in this post, I'll explain what wordiness is (with examples), when it's okay and how you can minimise it to make your writing more impactful. What is wordiness? Wordiness, sometimes called overwriting, i

‘Write now and edit later. ’ I hear this mantra all the time. Writing teachers push it because it helps you beat writer’s block and speed up your writing. But does it work? Or rather, does it work for everyone? Okay, I'm gonna make a confession: I edit as I go. I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember.    Whether it’s fiction, content or copy, I write the first lines and then go back and tweak them. It’s mainly vocabulary or structural changes, depending on how the

Editors are trained to do a lot of things: fix typos, correct spelling and grammar, eliminate wordiness, and improve the logic and flow...

One of the most common errors I see in manuscripts is unhyphenated compound adjectives. It’s not surprising – adjectives with two or more...

When I first started freelancing, I worked with local book publishers who paid me industry rates. After all, they understood the time,...

A year ago, I lost a copyediting job because I didn’t want to edit in Google Docs. Everything was going swimmingly until I mentioned my...

If you've ever worked with an editor, you'll know that we ask questions – lots of questions. That's because we need to make sure we're a good fit and that we meet your project's needs. But we can't do that if you haven't thought deeply about your writing or publishing goals (and trust me, you don't want to answer these questions on the fly). So if you want to speed up the editing process and get the most out of your editor–author partnership, here are some questions you shou

Sending your manuscript to a copyeditor can be a nerve-racking experience – particularly if you're a first-time author. While everyone has a slightly different process, below is a sneak peek at mine . Full disclosure: this workflow can change depending on the length of the project, the type of book being edited and whether I'm working with an author or a third party (such as an in-house editor). Whatever the circumstances, it should give you an idea of how a non-fiction copye

After spending months (maybe years) writing your non-fiction book, you're finally finished. Now it's time to find out if it's any good!...

Did you know that some punctuation rules are optional? Now, I’m not talking about bending the rules in your experimental fiction class or leaving out punctuation in your texts. I’m talking about punctuation that can go either way, depending on your preference. An obvious choice that comes to mind is the Oxford (serial) comma, particularly in simple horizontal lists. But that's an editorial minefield, so I'll leave it for another post. Today, I'll be covering the use of commas

Grammar apps like Grammarly, Hemingway and ProWritingAid are in everyone's workflow these days (well, if you're someone who tinkers with...

Two things come to mind when I hear the word ‘splice’. The pine-lime popsicle I used to eat as a kid. And splicing tape in a sound...

Have you ever looked at your writing – and I mean really looked – and thought there was room for improvement? Maybe you’ve got fallback phrases you use a lot, like ‘what’s more’, ‘in fact’ and ‘let’s face it’. Or maybe you confuse contractions like ‘its’ and ‘it's’. You could even be a speedy touch-typist who sometimes misses letters, like writing ‘poo’ instead of ‘pool’ or ‘chorine’ instead of ‘chlorine’. (Can you tell I’ve been writing for the pool industry lately?) That do

Here's what I've discovered after working with dozens of business clients and self-publishing authors: few know the difference between...