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| | These are items I've seen frequently in editing other
people's writing, or on online discussion sites, along with a few I've learned
from editors of my own work.
| The possessive of "it" is "its."
Think of it like "his" or "hers," which also don't have
apostrophes. |
| Use "for example" rather than "as an
example" to introduce a normal example. Generally, "as an
example" should be followed by a word like "consider":
"As an example of fans influencing TV programmers,
consider Star Trek."
"Non-human characters in Star Trek often have
distinguishing physical characterics. For example, the Vulcans have pointed
ears."
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| Use "whether" rather than "if" to
indicate a two-pronged possibility:
"The checkbox determines whether the message is
sent."
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| Avoid the word "utilize." There's no
situation in which "utilize" is a better choice than
"use." |
| "Infer" and "imply" are not
synonyms. The speaker or writer implies; the listener or reader infers. |
| Don't make something conditional that isn't. People
often say something like "For those who don't know me, I'm John
Smith." Well, who he is for those who do know him?
This happens because people take a shortcut. What that
speaker was trying to say is "For those who don't know me, let me
introduce myself. I'm John Smith."
This comes up in writing, too, with phrasing like
"If you've never used the Class Browser, it's a powerful tool."
What, it's not a powerful tool if you have used it? This one can be fixed by
changing it to something like "If you've never used the Class Browser,
be aware that it's a powerful tool" or just "The Class Browser is
a powerful tool."
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| Don't precede commands with "a" or
"an." Either use "the" before it and "command"
(or "function" or "property" or whatever) afterwards, or
simply reference the command without an article. For example, use one of the following:
"You can use the TRIM() function to eliminate
blanks."
"You can use TRIM() to eliminate blanks."
But you shouldn't say:
"You can use a TRIM() to eliminate blanks."
Similarly, don't use "a" before
"true" and "false." |
| Don't follow "between" with "to";
use "between" with "and", or "from" with
"to." For example, this version is wrong:
"It takes between 5 to 8 days."
These versions are right:
"It takes between 5 and 8 days."
"It takes from 5 to 8 days."
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| Don't use "between" before a
pair of values separated by a hyphen. The hyphen stands for the word
"to."
Wrong: "It takes between 5-8 days."
Right: "It takes 5-8 days."
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| The verb form of "recursion" is
"recur." There is no English word "recurse." |
| "Loosing" and "loose" do not mean that you don't know
where something is. Those words are spelled "losing" and
"lose." With two o's, the verb means to set something free. |
| You don't "return data back to" something.
You simply "return data to" whatever. In general, you don't
"return back to" anything; you simply "return to" it. |
| "As of yet" is bad form. Use "as
yet" to indicate the current time. Use "as of < a particular
time >" for other times. For example:
"As yet, there's no solution."
"As of last Tuesday, he hadn't finished."
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| In general, "affect" is a verb and
"effect" is a noun (though each does have a specialized use as the
other part of speech). For example:
"This drug affects the entire central nervous
system."
"The effect of the drug is to suppress negative
thoughts."
As a noun, "affect" refers to feeling or
emotion. For example:
"The patient had a blank affect."
In addition, "affect" as a verb has the
emphasis on the second syllable, while "affect" as a noun
emphasizes the first syllable.
"Effect" as a verb is somewhat more common
than "affect" as a noun. It means "to cause," and most
often, precedes the word "change":
"His primary goal was to effect change in the
bureaucracy."
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Don't say "An example would be." Use "an
example is," instead. "Would be" implies that it's true only
under certain circumstances. |
| "Advance" and "advancement" are not synonyms.
"Advance" is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it means "the
act of moving forward." "Advancement" is only a noun and it
means "a forward step" or "an improvement."
Many people use "advancement" when "advance" is a
better choice. Here are examples of correct uses for each of them:
"The development of the steam engine was a tremendous advance in
transportation."
"Every piece of research contributes to the advancement of
knowledge."
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| Understand the distinction between number
and amount. "Number" refers to things that can be counted, like
"number of people." "Amount" is for things that can be
measured, but not counted, like "amount of sand." While
"more" applies to both number and amount, generally, it's better
to use "fewer" for number and "less" for amount. |
| Use "that" to introduce clauses that are
essential and "which" (preceded by a comma) to introduce clauses
that can be removed without losing the meaning of the sentence:
"ASORT() is a function that sorts
arrays."
"ASORT(), which was enhanced in VFP 7,
sorts arrays." |
| Don't define terms by saying "x is
where ..." or "x is when ...". Either use a direct
definition "x is the ..." or find another approach, like
"With x, ..." |
| Use two commas, or none at all, when inserting a clause
into a sentence. If the clause ends with a parenthesis, which is not
uncommon (this one does), the bracket should be followed by a comma. |
| Don't abuse the "self" words.
These words ("myself," "yourself," etc.) belong in a
sentence only if the corresponding pronoun has already appeared. For
example, this is correct:
"I'll take care of it myself."
But this is wrong:
"He had a meeting with John and
myself."
That should be:
"He had a meeting with John and me." |
| Use pronouns correctly. The most common mistake is to use
"I" when it should be "me," especially when combined
with another noun or pronoun. For example:
"He brought the book for you and I."
is wrong. It should be:
"He brought the book for you and me."
The general rule for determining whether to use "I" or
"me" in a combination is to consider which one is correct if you
remove the other person. You'd never say "He brought the book for
I." |
| The word "being" should be a
yellow flag. Most sentences that use "being" as the verb would
be better rewritten without it. Often, a sentence with "being"
is actually just a fragment. Here's an example:
"Frangos and truffles aren't the same
thing at all. The biggest difference being where can you can get
them."
This should be rewritten as:
"Frangos and truffles aren't the same
thing at all. The biggest difference is where you can get them."
or:
"The biggest difference between frangos
and truffles is where you can get them."
or, if you really insist, change the period to a comma:
"Frangos and truffles aren't the same
thing at all, the biggest difference being where you can get them."
But that last version doesn't read as well as the other correct
versions. |
| Make sure you leave something for comparisons to compare
to. Too often, people leave out the word "other" or
"else" and fail to indicate what they're comparing to:
Wrong: "No one sells cars for this
little."
Right: "No one else sells cars for this
little." |
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Write in the present tense. A sentence that says
"When you press the button, the form appears" is easier to read
than "When you press the button, the form will appear." The word
"will" should be a red flag; when you use it, think about
whether what you're writing really refers to an event in the future. |
| Short words: use them. |
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Choose either italics or bold (not both) as your way
of emphasizing, then use it uniformly. Don't use underlines at all-that's
the typewriter method of specifying italics. Even with a uniform way of
emphasizing, don't overdo it. Too much bold or too much italics makes a
document hard to read, and defeats their purpose. |
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When discussing software or other products with
multiple versions, be version-independent wherever possible. When version
is unimportant, don't mention it. When it does matter, use a phrase like
"introduced in Word 2000" rather than "new in Word
2000." The former will still make sense when the current version is
Word 2050, but the latter will be quickly outdated. |
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