Karen Reddick, The Editor’s Blog

My editing colleague, Linda Lane of Pen & Sword Publishers, reminded me of a rule I had forgotten. I thought you might need a reminder too.
Quotation marks are omitted when they precede a drop cap at the beginning of an article, story, or chapter.
(Drop caps are a typographic decoration placed at the top of an [...]

Happy Thanksgiving!
Did you know the word thankful [adjective] is an expressions of thanks. Of being grateful.
In the mid-1960s, the word thankfully [adverb] came into use in the sense “thank goodness; I am (or we are) thankful that….” Although this use of thankfully is now fairly common, it doesn’t represent the best usage.
Here are some examples [...]

Let’s play a word choice game!
We all know how important choosing the correct word is when writing. See if you can choose the correct word for the following four sentences.
1. Ask a friend to [loan or lend] you . . .
This is common error. Loan is a noun, lend is a verb.
Correct: Ask a friend [...]

Jan Clark, a grammar tips reader from Colorado, wrote to me and asked me to revisit an earlier tip about the difference between insure, ensure, and assure.
Ensure and insure are words that sound the same but are spelled differently; and, assure sounds so similar to these two words, that many people [...]

“Good morning Karen,” or “Hi Diane.”
We see this type of greeting almost everyday in email messages. But did you know that such greetings are different from the traditional descriptive salutation of “Dear Mr. Smith,” and; therefore, need different punctuation?
Because “dear” is a descriptive adjective describing Mr. Smith.
On the other hand, “good [...]

During the writing of The Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition of Grammar Done Right!, I was asked to speak at the American Business Women’s Association on the topic of “Good Grammar = Good Business.” Great topic!
I was then forced to determine and make clear to my audience: Why is grammar so important to [...]

Want to save money this year when it comes time to hire an editor?
Keep in mind that editors often charge by the hour. So the better you can write, the less time your editor will spend going through your manuscript. here are a few quick tips to help you save money when working with an [...]