January/February 2005 | Home

Ask Elaine: New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

by Elaine Parrish
DMV Copyeditor/EBSTC Senior Member

If you have an editing question you’d like to see addressed in a future column, please submit it to Ask Elaine.

A new year is upon us. Where did the time go? Here we are nearly halfway through the first decade of the new millennium, and I’m still not even sure what we’re calling it. Although the Oxford Dictionary officially terms it the noughties, I don’t think the rest of us have yet decided. The zeros? The twenty-ohs? The double-ohs? D1-2K?

A Fresh Start in 2005

Well, whatever we decide to call this decade, there’s nothing like a brand-new year to inspire me to make a fresh start and vow to make this my best year ever. I love my writer clients, and in 2005 I’m determined to do the best job I can to help them produce writing projects with the highest possible quality.

No doubt you, as a writer, would like to help your copyeditor achieve the same goal. To assist you, I’ve prepared a list of ten New Year’s resolutions that writers may want to consider before turning a project in to be copyedited. Of course, this list reflects my own personal preferences. Every copyeditor has his or her own wish list for writers—ask your copyeditor to tailor one just for you!

On behalf of all copyeditors, here’s to a great partnership with you, our valued writer clients, in 2005!

Ten New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

To make my copyeditor happy, I resolve that I will:

Never use i.e. (id est, “that is”) when I mean e.g. (exempli gratia, “for example”).
Nine times out of ten, a writer who uses i.e. really means e.g. It’s almost always better to spell out the words than to use these little Latin shortcuts anyway, but if you must use one of them, make sure it’s the one you want.
Never put an apostrophe in its unless I mean “it is.”
The possessive its doesn’t take an apostrophe any more than the possessives my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, their, or theirs do.
Never put an apostrophe in a simple plural.
Despite the signs you may see in the produce section, more than one apple is apples, not apple’s.
Always consider pronunciation when deciding how to punctuate possessives of nouns ending in the letter s.
A project done by two students is the students’ (not the students’s) project (because the possessive is pronounced stu-dents, not stu-dent-sez.) However, a project done by Mrs. Jones is Mrs. Jones’s project (because the possessive is pronounced Jone-zez).
Never, ever trust my software’s grammar check feature.
Machines are all about numbers, but their intelligence regarding the intricacies of human language is sadly lacking. (Case in point: In the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of this article, my word processing program wanted me to write “…the rest of we…”)
Never use “comprised of.”
Remember, the whole comprises the parts. So Disneyland comprises (not is comprised of) four kingdoms. When you’re tempted to write “comprised of,” try “composed of” instead.
Never initial cap any old noun just because it seems important.
Although You may think this Software is the greatest Thing ever made, It doesn’t need to be spelled with initial Caps unless It is a true proper Noun.
Never make just “a few little changes” in copy that’s already been copyedited, without running the changes through the copyediting process again.
It’s astounding how quickly typos and other errors or inconsistencies can pop up when you add or change even a small amount of text.
Always give my copyeditor sufficient time to do a thorough copyediting job.
Your copyeditor, no matter how fast or how good, can’t give your writing the attention it deserves if he or she is pushed to meet an impossible deadline.
Always keep the lines of communication open between us.
You and your copyeditor are not opponents. You’re both on the same team and have the same ultimate goal: to make sure your writing is the best it can be.

Now It’s Your Turn

Writers: Here’s your chance to turn the tables on those of us who edit your copy by pointing out things that we should undertake as our New Year’s resolutions! What suggestions/criticisms/pet peeves would you like your copyeditor to know about? (If your copyeditor has done a fantastic job of polishing your prose, I’d like to hear about that too.) Send your ideas to me at textcetera@prodigy.net and I’ll print them in a future column.

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