“Erin Wilcox is an intelligent and talented developmental editor. She identified the nuggets of gold buried in my novel’s first draft—key scenes that were the heart of the story—and gave me a focus for revision.”
The Particular: Editing Weblog
Word of the Day
Friday, March 26, 2010
Today’s word is:
integument
(n) something that covers or encloses; esp : an enveloping layer (as a skin, membrane, or cuticle) of an organism or one of its parts
Found in Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.), section 1.109.
“Hard covers are usually constructed of laminated cardboard over which is stretched an integument of cloth, treated paper, or vinyl or some other plastic.”
Passive Voice
Thursday, February 18, 2010
If you have ever taken a composition course, your instructors have probably admonished you not to use passive voice. But what exactly is passive voice, and why shouldn’t one use it?
I have noticed some confusion in the writing world between the idea of a passive construction (a more general concept) and the specific grammatical phenomenon called passive voice. »
Word of the Day
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
I’d like to start a new tradition in 2010 of keeping a log of interesting words I find throughout my travels. Definitions are from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate 11.
Today’s word: hecatomb
- an ancient Greek and Roman sacrifice of 100 oxen or cattle 2. the sacrifice or slaughter of many victims.
Found in Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, trans. Andrew Hurley, in “In Memoriam, J.F.K.”:
“In the mid-seventeenth century, vengeance had employed [this bullet] for the assassination of Sweden’s Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of the public hecatomb of a battle.”
Comma Between Adjectives? Part III: Approaching the Grey
Sunday, September 20, 2009
If you’ve read parts I and II of my Comma Between Adjectives? series, you already have a lot to think about when making your decision about comma usage: are the adjectives coordinate or cumulative? Are they in fact adjectives, or are they modifying nouns? This post will give you one more way to think about the problem. It will also show that, even armed with all the analytical tools from parts I through III, you may encounter cases that defy a tidy understanding. »
Uproar over Amazon Retracting Select Kindle Editions
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Uproar Over Amazon Retracting Select Kindle Editions : A storm is brewing in the Kindle Community forum about Amazon’s decision to remove e-book editions of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from customers’ devices.
The Particular: Editing Weblog
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7 weeks 4 days ago
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12 weeks 6 days ago
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - 9:46pm