editing

You Can’t Split Infinitives

You Can’t Split Infinitives

Written by on May 2, 2020 in blog, ebooks, editing, grammar, writing with 2 Comments

Many people say your sentences shouldn’t contain a split infinitive. In my early years of school, teachers drummed this rule into students’ heads—usually right after ensuring they wouldn’t end sentences with prepositions. Let’s first look at the issue of spit infinitives, and then we’ll show why it isn’t an issue. I realize I said I […]

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Learn Grammar the Easy Way

Learn Grammar the Easy Way

Written by on November 30, 2019 in blog, editing, grammar, self-publishing with 0 Comments

Grammar Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult Grammar is difficult for a lot of people, but it doesn’t need to be. The biggest hurdle to learning grammar is the terminology. Most books, and most teachers, use grammatical terms when they’re not necessary. While researching my book, I ran across the following terms on more than a […]

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Latin Abbreviations and Latin Expressions

Latin Abbreviations and Latin Expressions

Written by on October 8, 2019 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

Eg/Ie/Ergo/Et Al/Etc. There are some people, especially those in the legal and insurance professions (as well as writers), who love to use Latin abbreviations or Latin expressions. There’s nothing wrong with that, but, far too often, I have seen them used improperly. The problem with using Latin expressions is if you’re going to use them—many […]

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Anyways Is Not a Word

Anyways Is Not a Word

Written by on September 24, 2019 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

That’s right; anyways is not a word. Despite what you may have heard on numerous TV shows (especially NYPD Blue), the correct pronunciation is anyway without an “s.” So you’d say: ✅ “I’m going to do it anyway.” Not … ❌ “I’m going to do it anyways. I was going to do this post a while ago, […]

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Capitalization Rules and How to Capitalize

Capitalization Rules and How to Capitalize

Written by on September 9, 2019 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

People who write for a living, such as writers and journalists, have usually had more than a few years of training by the time they become professionals. With that in mind, you’d think they would find it easy to determine whether a word should be capitalized or left lowercased. But capitalization rules don’t tell you […]

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Double Negatives and When to Use Them

Double Negatives and When to Use Them

Written by on August 26, 2019 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

DOUBLE NEGATIVES  Children learn this so-called double-negatives rule right after their “ABCs” or it seems that way. When I was a kid, if a teacher heard you say “I don’t got no . . .” or anything resembling that phrase, you were bent over the desk and rewarded with a beating (usually with a fiberglass yardstick). I realize teachers […]

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Hyphens and How to Use Them

Hyphens and How to Use Them

Written by on March 6, 2018 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

Hyphens and How to Use Them When it comes to hyphenation, prose often suffers from the Goldilocks effect: either too much or too little, but seldom just right. Here are some erroneously constructed elements along with repaired revisions that let them eat, sit, or sleep with contentment. With no more delay, we’ll start. If we […]

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When to Refer to Animals by Gender

When to Refer to Animals by Gender

Written by on February 20, 2018 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

When to Refer to Animals by Gender I’m writing this post in response to an email question I received regarding how to refer to animals when writing. Should I refer to the dog as it or he? They asked. The answer to when to refer to animals by gender is both simple and not so […]

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List of Compound Words

List of Compound Words

Written by on December 28, 2017 in blog, editing, grammar, writing with 0 Comments

Compound Word List Compound words stymie people all the time. And I don’t mean just regular people whose profession is not writing. I know of many writers who struggle with when to use one word and when to use two, or when to hyphenate. This list of compound words should help. This is not a […]

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Dialogue Tags and When to Use Them

Dialogue Tags and When to Use Them

Written by on December 18, 2017 in editing, grammar, self-publishing, writing with 1 Comment

Dialogue Tags What Are Dialogue Tags and When Is It Best to Use Them? People, meaning writers, seem to mess up dialogue tags a whole lot. In an attempt to sound “writerly” or make it appear as if they are experience authors, they use ridiculous dialogue tags when they shouldn’t. What do I mean? The […]

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