It’s the bravery – the courageous stepping into the unknown – that now delights me. There was a time when pedantry could have been my middle name. When misplaced apostrophes, caps strewn among non-proper-noun words with abandon, misspelling, and incorrect use of words...
In part 1 and part 2 of this post, I discussed some of the problems of lack of clarity and of verbosity that are common in academic writing and gave two examples of how typical constructions can be greatly improved in clarity and simplicity by applying Plain Language...
In part 1 of this post, I discussed some of the problems of the lack of clarity and of verbosity that are common in academic writing. What follows are some examples of typical constructions that can be greatly improved in clarity and simplified by applying Plain...
(Note: The first part of this article introduced helpful resources for various dictionaries and general copy-editing.) A book can contain many elements besides solid blocks of type. ... It is the editor's job to make all these elements work together to present the...
No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft. HG Wells A passion it may well be, but altering ‘someone else’s draft’ also requires more than a mote of know-how. Now, that know-how does not necessarily all have to be crammed inside our...
This article appeared in De Morgen newspaper on Saturday, 10 August 2019. Translated from the Dutch by John Linnegar for the May 2020 issue of PEGboard. Gender-neutral language makes people think differently about the sexes, it would appear from scientific...
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson Mandela Happy International Mother Language Day! We use language every day to communicate with each other, but our mother...