Editing

Mar 23

Verb tenses in scientific writing: Which tense should you use?

By Cristina N. Academic papers, Editing, English writing skills

If you’re fluent in English, using tenses in scientific writing should come naturally to you. You shouldn’t need to flip through a grammar book, ask a freelance editor, or search online for “methods tense” or “literature review tense”.

But verb tenses may start to haunt you if you’re writing an article for a top peer-reviewed journal and you know you have to get every detail right. For example, you may wonder, What tense should be used in methodology sections? Should the introduction or literature review be written in the present tense or past tense?

In this post I’m going to answer these and other questions on verb tenses in scientific writing to make it easier for you to understand which tenses to use in a research paper.

Jan 30

Why your grammar checker can’t make documents perfect

By Cristina N. Editing, Grammar, Proofreading

No matter how much technology has advanced, English editing and proofreading can’t be left to computer programs. Grammar checkers—such as Microsoft Word’s built-in tool or Chrome extensions that check your grammar while you type—can spot many kinds of errors, but they ignore many others.

Grammar apps are good at finding many misspellings, repeated words, usage and punctuation errors, and other blatant mistakes. But there’s a long list of what these apps can’t do. That’s why they won’t replace professional English editors anytime soon.

Here are just 10 things an English grammar checker tool cannot detect: Read More

Nov 24

The dangling modifier: What it is and examples

By Cristina N. Editing, Grammar, Proofreading

Unraveling the intended meaning of a flawed sentence is hard detective work for a reader. A dangling modifier is one of those errors that leave you wondering what the writer meant to say.

Experienced writers and editors know that they shouldn’t waste the reader’s time. Once you understand how to correct a dangling modifier, you’ll make things easier for the reader while strengthening your own writing.

In this post I’ll first explain what a dangling modifier is and then give you examples of dangling modifiers and show you how to correct them. Read More

Jun 28

Why the generic “man” is a sexist language example

By Cristina N. Content writing, Editing, Vocabulary

A couple of days ago a manager shared on LinkedIn a photo of a team of smiling men and women celebrating some achievement. Her message read, “A big thanks to my 15-man team”.

The photo, showing diversity at work, is such a great choice for a social media post. But the accompanying text isn’t. Instead, it’s a sexist language example.

To help you avoid using biased language in your social media posts, in this blog I’ll explain why the generic “man” is sexist and list some of the alternatives. Read More

Oct 18

Editorial style guide for small businesses

By Cristina N. business writing, Editing, Proofreading

An editorial style guide answers questions such as these: Is it startup or start-up? Our business’s priority or our business’ priority? Three percent, 3 percent, or 3%? How about the comma before or in the previous sentence? Do we need to use the trademark (™) and copyright (©) symbols in business reports? And is it correct to start sentences with and? Do contractions (like haven’t instead of have not) make us sound informal?

These are the sorts of editorial style decisions you’ll need to make when creating reports, website content, and other forms of written business communications. Consulting a dictionary or reference book isn’t practical, because style questions don’t have just one right answer and you may waste a lot of time trying to decide what works for you. That’s why you need standards—an editorial style guide—and perhaps a freelance editor, too. Read More

May 17

It’s a maze: Punctuation with quotation marks

By Cristina N. Editing, Proofreading, Punctuation

A team member asked me: “When you use quotes, where does the period go: before or after the quotation marks? How about the other punctuation marks, do they go inside or outside quotes?”

The rules of punctuation with quotation marks depend on whether you follow the American or British convention. Here’s a more detailed explanation of these conventions, as well as examples of punctuation with quotation marks in a sentence. Read More