Editing Diversity

Having so much access to American television here in Australia means we grow up seeing words spelt the way they spell them the United States. Different to us and mostly not acceptable for Australians to use at school, Uni or in business. Even our spell checkers default at the US spelling often. It drives me nuts when my daughter who is seven says, candy instead of lollies, flashlight instead of torch, drugstore instead of chemist, sidewalk rather than footpath and states she is taking a shower instead of having one. One thing that's easy to remember is that Americans use 'z' in many words, where we use 's' and even pronounce 'Z' contrarily. Examples of 'Z' usage; antagonize versus antagonise, analysed and analysed, appetizer and appetiser and so on. Americans often also shorten words by removing a letter such as, anesthetic and anaesthetic, archeological and archaeological, mold versus mould, favor as opposed to favour and behaviour and behaviour. There are word alterations like center versus centre, color versus colour, tire and tyre, plow and plough and so on and on. So, who have we to blame or thank for all this American drama? The nineteenth century, American lexicographer, Mr Noah Webster, of the dictionary fame. He supposed making the changes away from British language would make America more superior and set them aside. It has certainly set them aside.

The Oxford comma, Harvard comma or serial comma. There are supporters for and against the use of it. It is also known as the pretentious comma and at the end of the day is optional and up to the author unless following a particular style. We in Australia don't use it as often as Americans although there are arguments that it clarifies meanings within sentences that may be confusing otherwise. What is it? It is the comma positioned directly before the coordinating conjunction such as: and, or, or nor in a sequence of three terms or more. An example using the Oxford comma is: I have a recipe, a pot, and an oven. Not using the comma would look like: I have a recipe, a pot and an oven.

€‹The exclamation mark has been called the cheap whore of punctuation. My thoughts are, there is a place for it, but professionally it does not belong. The more the merrier also should not apply and as F. Scott Fitzgerald said 'Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.' It's a useful way of conveying emotions, irony, annoyance, or friendliness when used six at a time for instance as a text, or on Facebook, email or any other electronic means. In addition, this sets up the foundation for others to respond similarly with 17!!!!! or ???????, such as, 'I just jumped out of a plane and my parachute opened!!!!!!' Really?????? Cool!!!!!!' Ridiculous.

I love the logogram ampersand (&) which epitomises 'and' but when used correctly. Not for use willy nilly or in some haphazard manner. It does not save on your word count students. An ampersand originated from Latin of course, as et which meant and. An example of good use could be in a business title like Anders & Wallace Editing or in academic references such as (Anders & Judd, 2007). It wouldn't be appropriate to use to write something like, 'They put the bricks & mortar against the wall.'

Font use looks like fun. But there's a place for countless font practice like on a circus banner or in a comic. That's right people comic sans as whimsical as it is, should be used in a comic - and nowhere else. Particular fonts work better on hardcopy (times new roman, courier or fonts with feet/serif) and others better on screen (Sans-serif, Helvetica, Century gothic, Verdana, Arial or fonts without feet/sans serif). Although pixel resolution has changed you still need to consider small devices. I think use of a particular font or fonts can really affect readability so my advice is not to 'blend it up'. That's okay when making a mixed tape but not for a letter or other document. Keep your readers. Don't use impact for a whole page, or kitch it up with pages of Bradley hand and papyrus... well pffftt. I have no idea what wingdings is for.

As an editor and proofreader, my role is to sort through the diversity and confusion of the written word to guide and advise for excellent readability and credibility. 

http://www.kirstieanders.com

Ask me

Not Noah’s boat that housed millions of coupled animals, no. This is a language disaster. Try though I may I just can’t get past it. When someone says to me ‘Arks your friend if I can borrow her pen’ or ‘I'm arksking you to come over here', I could die...well almost. I will never, ever be ready for 'arks'...unless of course it’s God sending a message about it raining for 40 days and 40 nights to drown us right out.
Ark ɑːk/ noun 1. (in the Bible) the ship built by Noah to save his family and two of every kind of animal from the flood; Noah's ark. o archaic a ship or boat. plural noun: arks

People!!!! - get it right. It’s ASK. Arse-K. Always has been (well since the 1600’s), always will be. ‘Ask me a question’, or ‘Ask me what my favourite colour is’...I don't care, just don't arks me...it’s wrong, it's frigging lazy and it's a boat built cubit by cubit. My thoughts are, if it’s cultural, that’s okay. If it’s a speech impediment, that's okay...if not...don’t use it. It discredit’s you. Most of you are not gangsters, rappers or from the Caribbean. Back in Chaucer’s day he used ‘I ax’...Chaucer wrote between 1374 to 1386. The olden days. Even Shakespeare used ‘Ask’. Stop it...it’s ARRRSSSKKKK...Ask. It’s just ask.

Why is a real person best?

People! Don’t trust your spell check only. Well not to capture more than misspelled words anyway and sometimes it finds it hard to distinguish between US spelling and Australian spelling so may still get it wrong.

Don’t rely on tools for digital accuracy either; they may pick up spelling but not always grammar mistakes and if they do pick up some grammatical errors they sometimes replace them with incorrect suggestions. You just can’t beat the eye of a human proofreader. Digital will cost you in more ways than one and will get you 50% but not 100%. A real proofreader/editor will cost you too but you can often negotiate and your work will be dead right.

There are a number of online programs you c

an use such as Ginger, Whitesmoke, Text to speed, After the deadline, Microsoft word, Online correction, Grammar check, Reverso, Spellcheck plus, Paper rater, turnitin…just to name a few and then there’s me. Try them yourself. On their landing page they give you an opportunity to trial a passage. I tried with all of the above and not once did it pick up all the errors. Truthfully they often managed 80% of the spelling errors, sometimes more but missed the grammatical errors nearly 100% of the time. I looked into these programs to be a backup for my editing and proofreading work but was disappointed with the results. Certainly for spelling but then just go with Microsoft word which is free and more accurate than the other programs I trialled. If you're keen to get it right first time check out my website and contact me for a quote via my website www.kirstieanders.com

Facts about editing and proofreading

Use of 'single' and "double" quotations

I grew up always using “double” quotation marks but Australia generally follows England’s lead rather than America’s when it comes to grammar and spelling. So these days, there is a partiality for ‘single’ quotation marks. Universities can vary with this however so it’s worth checking but I would air on the side of caution and go with single quotes. Using a quote within a quote though, calls for “double” quotation marks. For example, ‘Frank told me he didn't want to come by, he said he was “too busy” to hang out doing nothing with me’. I also feel that many double quotes can change the readability of something, making it too busy and dense. Other rules around quotation marks are where to place punctuation…before or after the quote mark? It depends whether the punctuation is part of the sentence within the quote, for instance, using a question mark, ‘Is it today you fly to Adelaide?’ demonstrates that the punctuation is part of the question, rather than ‘I asked you if you would be flying to Adelaide today’?

Capitalisation

Capital letters are also on the decline, making reading less full on and top heavy. The main rules apply naturally in terms of proper nouns, the first word in a sentence but in a heading for example, it is no longer imperative to capitalise every first letter of every word and we certainly don’t capitalise conjunctions like and, in, the, of, or others. For example, a heading is just fine being, ‘Proofreading and editing service’ rather than ‘Proofreading and Editing Service’. Only the first word and proper nouns need to be capitalised, such as ‘Proofreading and editing service in Brisbane’. Always make ‘I’ a capital no matter what. It is also a proper noun so the rule applies. Historical events like World War One, and in acronyms even if there are no capitals when spelled out like PTO, (please turn over). Mum and Dad can be tricky but when I'm talking about my dad I use a lower case d. When I say ‘Hi Dad, come over for dinner’ it’s a capital D.

Fonts

There are a plethora of fonts available now and it is so tempting to try many of them. Trust me, this looks ridiculous and unprofessional on any page and comic sans should be banned. Over used and made for comics…nothing else. The truth is some fonts work better for hard copies and some for reading on a screen although web fonts have certainly moved away from the web-safe Verdana, San Serif, Arial and Georgia fonts. Some fonts look pretty but are incredibly difficult to read, and some you would simply get tired of . I think if you are scribing something that was supposed to be brief and written by a child then this would be fun and for blogs perhaps and they can give a web page a real personality but they need to be assessed properly, fitting browsers, the style of page and platform used. A serious website about a legal practice for example would look ludicrous and unprofessional being done up in a preposterous font. Keep in mind that many institutions have strict rules about fonts such as Times New Roman 12 point, 1.5 space in between. There is no deviating. 

Proofread

Proofreading your own work is incredibly important and doable. It's about examining what you have written carefully to correct typographical faults. Prior to proofreading your document, ensure you have given yourself some space from the text especially if you have just finished writing it. Print it off and read it aloud. This can help with picking up run-on sentences and other issues you might miss reading to yourself. You can also read it backwards, the words come in a strange and unusual order and will make it easier to pick up errors. It is easier to pick up mistakes from a printout rather than on screen. You are also able to feel more intimate with the work on paper. You can use a computers spell check however, but this may not discern variances between US English and Australian English and may miss some properly spelt words in incorrect places such as their, there and they're and weather and whether or which and witch.

Proofreading is done following editing, which involves inspecting content to make certain that concepts are expressed clearly, logically forming an intelligible and meaningful whole. Proofreading is done in finer detail and is last so needs to be flawless. This is why often, it's worth looking at an independent proofreader. When you proofread work that you have written yourself, you are so familiar with it that you see what you think you have written rather than what you really wrote.

A professional proofreader examines text critically and carefully and is expected to be consistently accurate in focusing on surface errors like spelling mistakes, or errors in punctuation, syntax and grammar. A proofreader will also check your clarity of expression. A writer of any document works hard to get the right words down and after working on something for some time, can start to miss common slip-ups and often don't have the time to spend to ensure professional and high quality work. Fresh, qualified eyes on a project can make all the difference with regards to a writers reputation, making a proofreader indispensable. Proofreaders can proofread novels, academic papers, people whose second language is English, corporate or government official papers, business documents such as manuals, websites, marketing materials, personal documents such as resumes, letters and emails.

In any case, it is important to be clear and avoid embarrassment. It's important to get merit for your work not your English writing ability. Get marked for your ideas rather than your grammar. Work with someone who consistently returns timely documents that have been proofread and/or edited with precision.

Please see my website for all your proofreading work. http://kirstieanders.com

I use Microsoft Word's Track Changes. Every suggestion I make on your document will be 'tracked', and any query or comment will appear in the margin.

When I return your copy edited documents with the tracked-changes and the completed copy, it will show all changes and queries. This will give you, the author, complete control over the final version. You can go through the tracked-changes, and accept or reject any changes, reading my comments in the margin, and you can choose whether or not to take on my suggestions. It will always be your work and your say.