Write Better At Work

When to call the grammar police

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greengrocers_apostrophe_correctionA colleague was presenting a Jeopardy!-style game to our networking group. Her clever questions had us competing to show our knowledge of mortgage-related terms like ARM, PMI, and USDA.

Despite the dry subject, I was having fun—until a couple of unneeded apostrophes caught my eye. Suddenly I was noticing that almost every word ending in –s had an apostrophe. Some needed the punctuation to show ownership: Our bank’s policy is to require first-time home buyers to make a down payment of 3.5 percent. But most needed only –s or -es to  make them plural: Like most banks, we require a down payment.

The rule for forming plural nouns in English is simple: generally adding –s or -es is enough to show you need more than one. For some reason, many people think they need to complicate the rule by adding punctuation. Check out the produce aisle in your local grocery store. Odds are you’ll find Apple’s or Banana’s on sale. (That’s why the British call this particular error the grocer’s apostrophe.)

Did this mistake matter enough to tell my colleague about it? I didn’t want to embarrass her by calling in the grammar police for no reason. On the other hand, if she used the presentation again, she could find herself embarrassed for three reasons:

  1. Errors distort meaning. An apostrophe means one of two things: possession or a missing letter. My cat’s favorite toy means my one cat claims ownership of a plaything; my cats means I have more than one cat. It’s is a contracted form of It is; its is a pronoun like his or hers and needs no apostrophe.
  2. Noticeable errors are distracting. Once I noticed the apostrophe overkill, I was paying as much attention to the unneccessary apostrophes as I was to the content.
  3. Noticeable errors can make you look careless or stupid. Some errors matter more than others, as Maxine Hairston found.

My colleague was under the gun when she prepared her presentation, and she is generally neither careless nor stupid. I decided to email her a thank-you for her engaging presentation and mention that spell check had missed something. Fortunately she was grateful for the feedback.

If you’re now feeling insecure about apostrophes, Find and Replace can help you avoid overkill. First search for -‘s; then search again for -‘es. Each time you find an apostrophe, ask: Do I need this to show ownership or a missing letter? If the answer is no, delete the offending apostrophe and check the next one. If you’re not sure, use a good style guide to review the rules.

  • Mignon Fogarty’s explanations are quick and clear: See “9 Ways to Use an Apostrophe.“
  • Robin L. Simmons’ Grammar Bytes has an excellent summary of the rules for apostrophe usage plus some entertaining interactive exercises.

(Image by Sceptre)

Breaking the back of a project

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I conquered a project today. Finally. What started as a simple editing project turned into a major rewrite.

Instead of smoothing language, I found myself gutting whole sections and  researching and writing new material. The deadline hadn’t changed, but the scope of my task kept expanding and I found myself wondering if there was any hope of getting the piece into shape by the deadline.

Then it happened. I finished writing a section and, in an instant, the sense that the project was now under control snapped into place. Sure, there were still citations to format and table numbers to sequence. But the beast was tamed. The content that needed to be added would fit into the framework I’d created and the work remaining could be completed by the deadline. In the struggle to shape this piece into something solid and actionable for reader, I had won.

That got me thinking about how often the words we use to describe writing and editing are physical, tactile. Take the phrase “break the back,” for example. Although I couldn’t find a good explanation of its origin, it’s easy to observe: just watch a terrier subduing a toy.

A friend regularly scouts garage sales for cheap stuffed toys. She takes them home to her dog, Ruthie the Rat Terrier. Ruthie pounces on the toy, grabs it in her mouth and shakes it to break its neck, then methodically scrapes her paw down the stomach to disembowel it. The result: polyester stuffing strewn everywhere and a terrier with head and tail held high because she’s conquered yet another wretched rat.

How does writing or editing feel to you? Do you gently shape an emerging idea, strip a thought to its essentials, or hack away at verbose language?

This sentence needs an editor: Clive Cussler

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Trojan Odyssey coverCussler’s thrillers are one of my favorite reads when I’m overtired and my brain won’t shut down. High-stakes action keeps my neurons firing, exotic locations provide escape, and—best of all—no matter what crises his heroes face, it’s nothing I have to do anything about. Many of his characters have expertise in science or historical research, so my brain can feel that it’s stretching even as it relaxes into Cussler’s storytelling.

Cussler’s fast-paced plots and admirable, expert, quirky characters are absorbing. However, he’s not a literary stylist. Occasionally I’m jolted out of my happy suspension of disbelief by an awkward phrasing that makes me think, “This sentence needs an editor.”

As I know all too well from my own editing experience, editors are fallible. The editor of Trojan Odyssey (2003) might have gotten caught up in the story and missed some sentence-level issues. Perhaps the schedule forced the editor to rush or the budget wasn’t generous enough to cover careful line-editing.

Whatever the reason, Cussler’s books offer lots of opportunities for editors to correct or sharpen sentences.

Here’s one from Chapter 6 of Trojan Odyssey: “Six four-foot barracudas materialized out of the gloom, their lower jaws protruding beyond their noses and displaying rows of needle-sharp teeth. They ignored the divers and glided past without the slightest sign of interest.”

That last sentence is redundant. How about “Ignoring the divers, they glided by” or “They showed no sign of interest in the divers as they glided by.”

English teachers looking for examples of dangling modifiers will find plentiful examples in Cussler’s prose. In his retelling of The Odyssey at the beginning, Cussler describes how Odysseus and his men flee the monster Scylla: “Escaping out to sea, thunderbolts began shattering the sky.” But it’s not the thunderbolts that are escaping; it’s Odysseus and the remnants of his crew.

Are redundancies and dangling modifiers hurting Cussler’s sales? His numbers don’t appear to be suffering. However, smoothing the infelicities from his prose would make it easier to stay caught up in Cussler’s great escapes.

How to hire a freelance editor

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Authors who self-publish are often surprised to find that their biggest expense is for editorial services. Some decide, “Who kneads an editor when spell-check is free?” The answer: spell check doesn’t know the difference between kneads and needs.

A good editor will also notice that a character who had blue eyes on page 28 has brown eyes a few chapters later or that the pacing moves too quickly (or too slowly). Editors work on many levels. Some focus on organization and logic. Others fill in material that’s missing from a textbook. Copy editors polish language.

Names for these different types of editing vary. You can get an idea of the various editorial services available from the Bay Area Editors’ Forum “What Do Editors Do?”

While these definitions seem straightforward, they’re a bit slippery in practice. If you ask for a developmental edit, one editor might think you want a review of manuscript structure while another might identify places where more information is needed.

To get the results you want, tell the editor what you expect to get back. A fiction author might say, “I want to know if readers will be able to follow the flashbacks and understand why the characters act as they do.” A nonfiction author might say, “Please note anything you find confusing and correct any mistakes you find.”

Be prepared to negotiate with your editor. You may think your manuscript just needs a quick check of spelling and grammar. After reviewing a sample, the editor may agree. However, while working with the manuscript, the editor may find problems that need more than an quick fix. When the editor lets you know about the problems, you can either decide to pay extra for the additional work or redefine what the editor will do for what you agreed to pay.

How much does a good edit cost? That depends on many factors, including whether your manuscript is well written and how much experience your editor has. To get an idea of rates, you can read Dani Greer’s “What Does an Editor Cost?”   or visit the Editorial Freelancers Association rates page.

How can you find an editor? Ask for referrals. Join groups of authors or self-publishers, in your area or online. Consult directories, including those of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE).

You’ll find more detailed advice in India Drummond’s post on how she found a new editor. Chris Roerden explains “How to Take Advantage of an Editor” from an editor’s perspective.

Still not sure you need an editor? Read Linda Jay Gelden’s post on “6 Ways Copyeditors Make Your Book Better.”