Nothing happens until something moves (Albert Einstein) Work slumps happen. But sometimes they go on a little longer than we’d like. This happened to me recently and I had to make something move. Armed with determination and the need to survive, I embarked on an...
I think the difference between redundancy and tautology is the following: Redundancy is careless repetition, without any stylistic or rhetorical meaning, that can be seen as a thoughtless language error or stylistic fault. Think of the following: absolute necessity...
I am not a digital native, I am not even a digital immigrant – I am an undocumented digital foreigner. I get daily reminders of this whenever I go onto the internet. A modern CV Let me explain. A while ago, Alexis Grewan suggested we form a PEG group to assess one...
Have you ever wondered what impression you make on potential clients when they first see anything about you, the editor? First impressions In Gauteng, a few of us were keen to find out a little more about making a good impression. We joined forces to brave the...
I still remember the first time it happened. I was standing in the foyer of the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, waiting for my friends to join me. They were driving together and running late, but one was keeping me updated. Then came the WhatsApp message: ‘We just...
Use a Unicode fraction generator tool Mike Leisegang very kindly shared this discovery with the PEGforum group as follows. I was challenged this morning to insert fractions into a thesis I am editing. The line looked like this, which was rather ugly: …radial symmetry...
The correct usage is always: (this) kind of vehicle BUT (those) kinds of vehicles (this) type of plant BUT (those) types of plants (this) sort of question BUT (those) sorts of questions Although the mixture of singular and plural, as in: those sort of terms "is quite...
I’m sure we’ve all done the brainteaser where the word ‘the’ is repeated in print but when it is read out loud, invariably only one ‘the’ is read. Wordsmiths, however, being astute and wise to the ways of words, tend to notice it and triumphantly read ‘the’ twice. It...
An American Psychological Association blog has very useful advice about how to cite and keep records of ChatGPT advice. Posted Aug 11, 2024 at 00:10 23 words
Go to the Cloud-only page: https://intelligentediting.com/buy-now/?display=cloudonly Under the price shown, click ‘Add promo code or change currency’ In the box, type (or paste): PEG-Member (the code that appears automatically when one uses the link from the PEG...
After studying and teaching science for 30 years, I thought I knew everything about Système International (SI) units. Turns out I didn’t. Editing has introduced me to a whole new, unsuspected realm of SI idiosyncrasies and conventions. Some fundamentals I edit science...
When I read Annamarie Mostert’s blog, I was keen to understand more about the CCC model (correspondence, consistency, correctness) and how I could use it in my work as a copy editor. After reading more in one of my resources (listed below and in Annamarie’s blog), I...
'Femininity' relates to characteristics that are socially constructed, things people have decided about what it means to be feminine, such as meekness or the colour pink. 'Femaleness' is biological. Female refers to sex assigned at birth. In our work as editors,...
PNG is better for images like logos because you can have transparent areas on PNG images. They are also slightly better if you are going to compress an image for online use, as they hold their quality and sharpness better. JPGs are a better choice for photos and...
The following information originated in a PEGforum thread called Driven mad by Word, which started on Thursday 30 May 2024 at 10:51:09, more or less like this: Q: Hello PEG Word Wizards, I’m editing a book that needs to be in UK English but it keeps reverting to US...
Have you also had sleepless nights about sentences such as these? What do you think of his deciding to go? What do you think of him deciding to go? I always wonder if I know enough about gerunds and how to edit them correctly. The Oxford Dictionary defines a gerund as...
I signed up for a grammar course. I know my English isn’t perfect and I can edit fairly well, but I also know that if someone asked me to explain each and every edit, I wouldn’t be able to do that effectively. I cannot always label all the rules or reasons for my...
The tragic arc of author Terry Pratchett’s life is well known: a prolific and celebrated writer, he was diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s in 2007, at age 59. He carried on writing, with his final novel being published in 2015, the same year he died. What’s...
(The instructions are intended as guidelines and apply to Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2403 Build 16.0.17425.20124 64-bit) for Windows 11. Details may differ slightly for other versions.) In my first blog post, I shared my 14-step formatting...
When it comes to mechanical aspects of writing, few details seem to trip writers up as much as capitalization: when to use uppercase letters, and when to use lowercase letters. Specific job titles preceding a person’s name are capitalized, but descriptions are not....