‘Your’ is a word that denotes possession, for example: “Class, please take out your workbooks.” ‘You’re’ is a contraction of the phrase ‘You are’. Since we are shortening ‘You are’ to ‘You’re’ we insert an apostrophe to show that some letters have been omitted. For example: “You’re not going to believe what I just heard!” In my editing and proofreading […]
During my recent web redesign, while collecting all the elements for my web designer, I noticed that three books I edited all have ‘Remains’ in their titles: Remains – a novel by Mark W. Tiedemann What Remains (originally titled Immediate Family) – a novel by Bart Baker All That Remains – a poetry anthology by Peter Serchuk I hadn’t realized […]
You know how some days you wake up feeling blah and you just want to crawl back into bed and shut out the world? Then other days you feel like the day ahead holds so much promise and potential! Today I’m feeling especially grateful for all the blessings in my life—let’s keep in mind those in Oklahoma who lost possessions, […]
Just for a bit of fun, I thought I’d post my favorite limerick of all time here. Enjoy and have a great weekend! There once was a man from Dumbarton Who thought he could run like a Spartan On the forty-ninth lap His braces went “snap!” And his face went a red Scottish tartan Yours in crisp, error-free writing Jessica […]
It’s amazing how often I come upon this error when proofreading book manuscripts! In fact even my husband gets this one wrong. I suppose the confusion comes about because of the “oo” sound in lose. It sounds like “oo” but is spelt as “o” so most people see “loose” and assume it must say “l-o-o-z-e.” What they don’t realize is […]
Okay, so call me old-fashioned but when I read a book I prefer to hold the book in my hands vs. reading it on an electronic device. Of course when I edit and proofread I mostly do it on computers—usually in Word or Adobe—unless the client specifically prefers me to edit on a hard-copy version of their manuscript. When I […]
Have you noticed how certain words roll of your tongue like water off a duck’s back? For as long as I can remember my favorite word has been ‘cascading’—I love the way the word sounds, but I also love the images it conjures up. The rushing whoosh of the water as it crashes over the waterfall’s edge makes me feel […]
It’s interesting to me how people see things so differently! I’ve had people tell me they don’t know how I look at documents every day and find all the errors—they say the pressure of that freaks them out! For me the opposite is true: just thinking of the pressure of staring at a blank page and having to produce words […]
While doing research for this new website, I realized that several of my past clients have passed away. It made me sad, so I felt the need to write their names here and memorialize them in some way. Denis J. Will, Come Cook With Me, edited in 2003 Bradford Berg, Of Dreams & Addiction, edited in 2007 Herman H. Rappaport, […]
Yes, yes I know it’s grammatically incorrect to use one-word sentences—definitely for a mere mortal, and certainly for someone who does this for a living—but I felt a big event like my first-ever blog post was enough of a justification to get into the car, whip out my poetic license and begin driving… And as long as I’m playing the […]