One of the strange things about working as a freelance editor in the digital world is that you seldom (if ever) meet the authors you're working with. In fact, depending on where your jobs come from, you might never have any contact at all with the person on the other side of the manuscript. The latter version is how much of the past year of my freelancing has been: I've been working as a freelance editor and proofreader mostly for one particular company - they've been sending me the jobs, and I've been working on them and sending them back. Frequently, the only "contact" I've had with the authors is putting a note on the final edit saying "Here's what I've done/what you need to do." Part of
Just because something gets repeated over and over doesn't mean it's true. It also doesn't mean that it's good grammar/style/usage. Here are two (well, three, really) of my current least-favorite turns of phrase: "ISO of" - as in the social media posting "ISO of plumber recommendations." Don't get me wrong - I'm all for getting good plumber recommendations. I'm just not in favor of using "of" twice in that phrase. Because, you see, "ISO" is an abbreviation of "in search of," so "ISO of" in that phrase translates to: "In search of of." This is, obviously, closely related to the infamous "ATM machine," which, when broken out becomes "automated teller machine machine." I don't know about you, b
As we enter the month of Halloween, I'm sure you're already seeing all of the costumes available to help you change your persona for the holiday. In a way, a thesaurus is a costume for your writing. When you use a thesaurus, you're taking your usual words (your day-to-day persona) and turning them into something else. But - as with any costume - if you're not careful you can end up getting too much trick and not enough treat. To help explain, let's take a look at a basic sentence: The guard turned to open the door. It's straightforward, right? We probably all have the same basic image in our minds of someone in a uniform pivoting in some way to "un-close" a door of some kind. If we grab a th
