editing « We Write For You

One space, not two spaces, after a period. Period.

October 22, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Old School | Tags: AP, AP Stylebook, colons, copywriting, editing, editing tips, grammar, periods, spaces, spacing, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

A sign showing an exclamation point. For many years, writers were taught to include two spaces after periods and certain other punctuation marks, such as colons. There was good reason for this at the time: Typewriters produced a typeface that made it aesthetically unpleasant to have only one space separating sentences.

However, those days are long gone. The fonts computers produce have made the two-space method unnecessary. Today, every major style manual (including the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook) makes it clear that one space is proper.

Does it matter if you still use two? Actually, yes. Anytime we see two spaces in an article that was written in recent years, we immediately think “amateur hour.” And that’s the last thing you want your reader to think about you.

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Persuasive Writing: when “more” is “less”

August 28, 2009 | Posted in: Competitive Writing, Fundraising, General Writing, Grantwriting, Public Relations, Resumes and Cover Letters | Tags: brochures, business writing, compete, competition, copywriting, document, editing, funding, Fundraising, grant writing, Grantwriting, marketing, persuade, persusive writing, private donors, proposal, proposal scores, Public Relations, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, winning grants, writing, writing tips |

Most of the time, persuasive writing is used in competitive situations.

It is the resume, when you compete with others to get the job. It is the grant proposal, when you compete with others to get funding. It is any time you compete with peers to get donors, votes and even “your way.”

More is less in persuasive writing when you use words that say the same thing. For example, “Our approach is economical, efficient and frugal, freeing up manpower, materials and money for other uses.”

It is obvious to the reader that your plan will save money. In fact, it is obvious over and over and over. The reader tunes out when statements include unnecessary words; and worn out by the repetition, gives little attention to the rest of your statements.

Imagine the sentence above being followed by “Think what we could do with the resources this method saves our organization.” When your sentences repeat the message, you suggest to the reader that you (in a resume) or your plan has no other good qualities; that much of the document is really filler.

In conclusion, when you write a resume, proposal or sales document, don’t use unnecessary adjectives and redundant sentences. Let each unique point you make stand out.

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Now, that’s an embarrassing typo: AP Stylebook edition

August 7, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Old School | Tags: AP, AP style, AP Stylebook, AP Stylebook 2009, business writing, editing, editing tips, FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions, grammar, proofreading, style guides, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

If you’re ever uncertain about how to spell a word, it’s always worth the time to look it up. As we mentioned in this earlier post, it takes only seconds to look up a word on an online dictionary.

By the same token, if you write quite a bit, it’s definitely worth the $15 to get online access to the AP Stylebook, the best go-to guide for proper usage. It’s a phenomenal resource you can check out here.

However, a visit to the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page reminds you that anyone can make a mistake. The FAQ’s second item reads:

Is the 2008 Associated Press Stylebook available? No, it has sold out and is not going to be reprint. The ISBN number is 978-0-917360-52-7

The obvious goof here is that “reprint” should be “reprinted.” But if we’re going to be picky (and you just know we are), the answer also is missing a period at the end.

And that’s not simply a “style” consideration, ironic as that would be. All of the other answers in the FAQ (including another that ends in a series of numbers) end with a period.

Again, we strongly recommend a subscription to the AP Stylebook to anyone who writes professionally on a regular basis (rest assured, we don’t receive a commission or anything else from the Associated Press).

But we have given the AP a heads-up about the FAQ goof, and we’re curious to see how quickly it gets fixed.

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Can you find all 14 writing mistakes?

August 3, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: business writing, copywriting, editing, editing emails, editing tips, grammar, proofreading, proper usage, spell check, spell checker, spellcheck, spelling, usage, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing tips |

Here are some basic mistakes that do not get flagged by a spell checker. Can you spot all the errors?

I consider people talking loudly on there cell phones in public to be offense of. They should of taken care of business at home or at there work sight. Do they have more rite to be herd in public then others?

I mite just go up to a loud cell talker and say, “Are thoughts could be as important as yours. We cant here them because your so loud. You deserve an Olympic mettle for rudeness!”

There are 14 words used mistakenly in context. Did you find this type of writing to be a turnoff? One friend told us, “When I read something like this, I die a little inside.”

As we’ve said before: you must review and edit everything you write.

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Winning grant proposals must be error-free

July 31, 2009 | Posted in: Competitive Writing, Grantwriting, Nonprofits | Tags: editing, grammar, grant writing, Grantwriting, judging, nonprofit, not-for-profit, proofreading, proposal scores, scoring, scoring criteria, selection criteria, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, winning grants, writing tips |

A winning grant proposal is error-free.

In the last post, we talked about how clear and grammatically-correct writing alone is not enough to get your proposal funded. On the other hand, a proposal that meets funding criteria and is submitted by a worthy organization will not be funded if it contains writing and grammatical errors.

Some proposal reviewers (judges) score sections filled with grammatical and typographical errors in the lowest range of points available for the section. Even I, a copyeditor and grammarian, am amazed at the large number of points often deducted.

These are the explanations I have been given:

“A sloppy proposal indicates that the organization would operate a sloppy project.”

“They must have put this proposal together overnight, since they clearly didn’t have it proofread.”

“I don’t think these people can be very bright.”

“The proposal was too hard to read – the sentences went on forever and there were no commas to indicate pauses or necessary separations between words.” (more…)

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The Best Writing Tip Ever: Put your words in the right order

July 24, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, The Best Writing Tip Ever, Uncategorized | Tags: Bale, Batman, Christian Bale, Dark Knight, editing, editing tips, Farmiga, grammar, Heath Ledger, Joker, Ledger, Orphan, Sarsgaard, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing tips |

When one guys wearing makeup and the other ones wearing a mask, its rather important to know whos who.

When one guy's wearing a mask and the other one's wearing a wig and makeup, it's rather important to know who's who.

For our latest installment of the Best Writing Tip Ever series, let’s touch on a subject that seems like a no-brainer, but it’s a mistake that can appear in everything from a text message to, let’s say, an article in the Los Angeles Times.

Case in point: today’s Times review of the psychological thriller Orphan. Glenn Whipp’s brief article reads just fine until this sentence:

The film does boast fine, slumming performances from Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, playing John and Kate, the couple coping with Esther’s alarming antics.

True, Whipp writes elsewhere that Orphan boasts a surprising twist, but we’re pretty sure the twist isn’t that Vera plays John and Peter plays Kate.

Granted, Whipp didn’t use the word respectively in his sentence to indicate “in the order given,” but switching the order mid-sentence still makes for confusing reading.

And if the error wasn’t clear because of the genders, we’d be left thinking the actors played the wrong roles.

For example: either of the two people who never saw The Dark Knight certainly would get the wrong idea if one wrote “Christian Bale and Heath Ledger provide dynamic performances as the Joker and Batman.”

See more entries in the Best Writing Tip Ever series by clicking here.

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Spell check is not your friend: discreet vs. discrete

June 20, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: business writing, editing, editing tips, grammar, proofreading, spell check, spellcheck, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, Word, writing, writing tips |

Here’s the first appearance of another new segment at the wewriteforyou.com blog: Spell check is not your friend.

Sure, spell check can be a useful utility. But it is not necessarily your friend. Because as soon as you start to rely too much on your spell checker, it will toss you under the bus.

That’s because spell checkers do a fine job of recognizing words from non-words, but they’re still a long way (mostly) from knowing whether you’re using the right word.

Today’s case in point: the homophones discreet and discrete. With growing regularity, we’re seeing writers using discrete when they mean to use discreet. (We almost never see it the other way around.)

Discreet means “prudent” or “tactful” — many people also use it to mean “subtle,” which we suppose is okay. Discrete, however, means “distinct or “separate.” For example… (more…)

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More on resume basics: one thing you need to know to get the job

June 10, 2009 | Posted in: Resumes and Cover Letters | Tags: cover letter, editing, editing tips, experience, fast food, interviewing, interviews, job search, job searching, Lindsay, Lindsay Lohan, Lohan, marketing yourself, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

Resumes seem so simple — but they’re not. Not the good ones, anyway. Not the ones that actually lead to job offers.

The last time we talked about resumes (read it here), we talked about how a resume is a marketing document (it’s marketing you, of course) and what contact information to include.

This time, we at wewriteforyou.com want to address another resume tip that makes all the difference and yet very few people follow it. Here it is:

Instead of having a single, universal resume and using it every time you apply for a job, you should tailor your resume every time to the job you’re after.

Listing ALL of your experience -- at a burger joint, for example -- might actually work against you on a resume. (And you definitely won't get an interview if you admit you're Lindsay Lohan.)

Isn’t that more work? Sure it is. But it’s worth it: tailoring your resume will exponentionally improve your chances of getting an interview.

How do you tailor your resume to a specific job? There are many ways, but they include:

Highlight the aspects of your experience that fit the job’s needs.

Omit (or at least, downplay) aspects of your experience that are irrelevant to the job or serve no useful purpose.

Relate your experience in the context of the posted job qualifications for that position. You want to show a high degree of similarity between who you are and who they’re looking to hire. Makes sense, right?

Employers don’t care what fast-food jobs you worked in high school or where you tended bar during college, unless there are skill sets specific to those positions that help qualify you for the position you want.

Even then, consider omitting them if you’ve had similar experience since then at a more professional level. Listing too much low-level work experience can actually work against you in a resume — a topic we’ll expand on in the future.

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Informal doesn’t always mean unprofessional

June 7, 2009 | Posted in: Competitive Writing, General Writing, Public Relations | Tags: Add new tag, copywriting, editing, editing tips, formal writing, ghost writing, ghostwriting, grammar, informal writing, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing tips |

…just as “formal” doesn’t always mean professional. Here’s what we mean:

Your job as a writer is to service the reader — whoever the particular reader is in that particular instance.

Nice shirt, nice tie, but decidedly unprofessional.

For some readers, your thoughts will be best expressed through very clinical, technical wording — very formal, if you will. Others might benefit more from a light, conversational tone — quite informal, if you will.

Just because your tone is informal doesn’t make it unprofessional. We could have written this post, for example, with no contractions — “Here is” and “does not,” for example.

While that’s more formal, it doesn’t make the post easier to read. Contractions are grammatically correct and do a fine job of lightening your writing’s tone.

An informal tone is not appropriate for all occasions, of course. And don’t use informality as an excuse to be unprofessional — but that’s a discussion for another day.

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The Best Writing Tip Ever Part II: The BWTE Strikes Back

May 28, 2009 | Posted in: Competitive Writing, General Writing, The Best Writing Tip Ever | Tags: Best Writing Tip Ever, business writing, editing, editing tips, grant writing, Grantwriting, marketing, resume, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing, writing tips |

If you're not separating the wheat from the chaff, you're obscuring your point -- and testing your reader's patience.

“Just give me the time; don’t tell me how they made the watch.”

Translation: Get to the point! And when you get to it, stay on it, don’t stray from it, and don’t camouflage it with a bunch of unessential information.

This relates to virtually every form of business communication, and yet the vast majority of writers consistently ignore it: leave all of the non-essential information, especially non-relevant background materials, out of your main piece.

If you have information that supplements your document well, but it drags down the readability because it’s too long or bulky, include it in an appendix. Or use footnotes. Or provide it separately.

Remember, today’s readers don’t want to waste a lot of time. They want to know what you’re getting at and how it relates to them. If you want to impress them with your bona fides, stick to those that are the only most important and relevant. No one cares if you have 10 years of field work in geology if you’re applying for a grant to open a day school.

If the background is not necessary to achieving your core purpose for writing the document, you should leave it out.

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