Category Archives: Copy Editor

SITW: calve muscles

In an exercise manual that I am editing, the author refers to “calve muscles”, which would be nowhere near your calves (plural of calf). I personally have not “calved” in almost 15 years and plan not to do it again … Continue reading

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Should Headings Be Capitalized?

As is often the case in writing and editing, the answer is: it depends. Capitalization of headings is essentially a style issue. There was a time when some amount of capitalization in headings was expected, but that is no longer … Continue reading

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Fantastic New Resources

I know that these are not new to everyone, but there were new to me fairly recently. TERMIUM, the Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank, is a fantastic language tool for finding just the right word, using the … Continue reading

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Mixing up similar words

When editing or proofreading a document, unfortunately, it is far too easy to miss incidents of similar words getting mixed up. Emphatically, empathically and empathetically seem so similar when reading silently that I totally missed the errors the first couple … Continue reading

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SITW: Hungry?

“Tourist menus in Iceland provide full meals of high standard for a basic price of $18. Children under 12 are 50% off.” A classic editing/proofreading problem of trying to shorten up a sentence to be more punchy, or just to … Continue reading

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Editing in front of the fire

The best setting for editing and proofreading at home is one that meets both working needs and emotional needs. Total isolation isn’t good for most people — certainly not me! Continue reading

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A classic: it’s versus its

I think the confusion arises from the ‘s used to make possesive nouns. Continue reading

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SITW Wednesday

SITW: International organisms Continue reading

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What is collaborative writing?

Collaborative writing can be defined as one person working interactively with one or more person and drafting a document based on the ideas of the person or persons. Continue reading

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Hyphenation: thirty odd people

“Is anal retentive hyphenated?”
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