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...
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...
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...
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...
Cripple, dumb, spaz, spastic, midget, crazy, invalid, handicapped, moron, idiot, retarded, deaf-mute, deaf and dumb, stupid, Mongol … these are only some hurtful terms that inconsiderate people use to refer to people...
Paula is the colleague we got to know in the August 2014 issue of PEGboard as a writer of fiction as well as an editor. She now lives in Portugal, is an ATE and specialises in engineering. What life changes have...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
After almost a year of freelance editing, I decided that I needed to professionalise my service offering to clients. I imagined an ideal client to be either an individual/student or a corporate client. I am full-time...
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...
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...
Following a meeting discussing search engine optimisation (SEO) and assisting the copy editor, a team member suggested a blog on how to write a blog. So, here it is, how to write a PEGblog while keeping in mind SEO....
What does peace have to do with editing or PEG? I’ve been a member of PEG for seven years and have always enjoyed learning about many things. Because I strive to live a peaceful life, I was instantly interested in a...
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...
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...
(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...
I have written this brief piece in response to an enquiry from a respected language practitioner colleague who was asking which of the meanings of ‘skryfwyse’ the English word ‘style’ best conveys, if any at all. My...
