Question One of our PEG members asked: Hi, everyone! I just want to ask if there are any English-Afrikaans (and vice-versa) resources anyone can point me to that I can use for translation purposes? Preferably free and online (free for obvious reasons, and online or at...
It’s easy, when you are copy-editing, to get lulled into a sense that the words you are reading are as they should be. But the good editor’s motto is to take nothing for granted. An article on the News24 website made my husband cross. The article, about a drowning in...
Editing is not just someone correcting mistakes in something you’ve written. It’s a dialogue in which the writer has a vital part to play … When I submit a quote for an editing job, it contains this sentence: ‘The fee includes one set of amendments based on client...
Question: When is it appropriate to drop the word 'that'? I am editing a book and the author dispenses with the use of the word 'that'. When is it appropriate to do so? I accessed the guide from Walden University but would appreciate your thoughts on this...
Question I’m desperate for advice on a 400+ PhD that is terribly unstable. The paragraph settings won’t work, table of contents won’t update, numbering system won’t stick – all sorts of trouble. Answer I've had similar problems, and can suggest a few things: Final...
Competence refers to a basic or minimal ability to do something. For example, in my performance contract, in addition to KPAs, ten competences are measured. This is a professional competence. Competency is the ability to understand problems and make decisions. This...
A future with machines Should we be concerned about a future alongside AI? Does the future hold productivity gains or mass employment? We are only just starting to see how this new technology will affect our particular line of work. As an academic editor, it is...
Question When there is a 'but' between two clauses, when do you need a comma and when not? Example (the context is narrative, not formal):  1. I walked down the same street, but this time I turned left. Here, the comma is needed because it is a coordinating...
In my previous blog post, I told you why and how I use Draft view for the documents I am not editing. In this blog I tell you how I set up my screen for the document I am editing. Hiding headers and footers I start by editing the document in Print Layout View because...
While I was doing my usual setup for editing, I wondered whether other people knew about the usefulness of Draft view for documents you are not editing. If you follow the instructions in this post, it displays in a monospaced font like the old typewriter fonts...
PEG’s website has a nifty visual and FAQs for clients, which explain the difference between a proofread and an edit. I realised recently that, as editors, we may need to check our understanding too. In this blog, I share with you my thoughts on the difference between...
A controversial concept I recently came across a social media post that unsettled me. The person who posted claimed that academic writers would benefit from training by popular fiction writers. The poster found the dense academic prose difficult to understand. This...
Did you know that odd-numbered pages should always be on the right in a printed book? Unfortunately, when Word shows two pages in Print Layout view, the odd-numbered pages are on the left and the even-numbered page is on the right, ie Word does not show the correct...
Shortly after I started editing seriously, I told a friend what I was doing and he asked, ‘Don’t you find it lonely?’ I was surprised by the question, because that hadn’t occurred to me, and he was surprised by my answer: ‘No.’ In this article, I share my personal...
I remember the first time I received cruel feedback from a client. I’d been freelancing for a few months. Although I could see the client was belittling me because they were confused by the tracked changes, their brutal words hit like a gut punch, leaving me unsure of...
At the last quarterly gathering of the PEG Gauteng group, the topic of discussion was ‘Conscious and inclusive language’. One member offered a novel solution to the problem of language that excludes – try to not be so sensitive. In response, I owned that I’m...
Question: I'm editing a document with many headings and sub-headings, only some of which have been taken up in the automatically created Table of Contents. How do I apply or remove the formatting that determines whether or not a heading is included in the automatic...
For around only SEK1 500 a year it is possible to subscribe to the artificial intelligence (AI) editing services that some reputable journal publishers offer nowadays. This seems like a brilliant way to save time and money on language editing services. But just how...
Reference list A reference list is a list of the books and other items referred to in a scholarly work, typically printed as an appendix. It can be in alphabetical or numerical order, and should give the author, title, date and source of the referenced items in enough...
Question Heléne van der Westhuizen asked: Are accurately, precisely and exactly interchangeable and are there context/nuance differences to be mindful of? Answers Oxford Dictionary Our Oxford dictionary defines the words by each other, which is not helpful in this...