Mistake Monday

MISTAKE MONDAY for December 27: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Can’t find it? Try reading the item out loud. Please post your answer as a comment. I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

Use calendar invitations to keep your experts on schedule

Use calendar invitations to keep your experts on schedule

Do you ever struggle to get your authors and subject-matter experts to return their edits and comments on time? I’ve learned a new way to nudge them. This year a new person took over coordinating an editing project that I’d worked on before. I was surprised that the project ran more or less on schedule, […]

Can you use numerals at the start of a sentence

Can you use numerals at the start of a sentence?

One of the first writing rules I learned was that I can’t use numerals to start a sentence. But in recent years, my certainty about that rule has been shaken. Headlines can start with numerals First, I learned that it’s OK to start an article headline with a numeral, at least in Associated Press (AP) […]

Mistake Monday

MISTAKE MONDAY for November 29: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? This is an example from my blog. Yes, I make careless mistakes, too, including a mistake that I later fixed. As you see in this item, I initially spelled Emmy Favilla’s last name with one l instead of two. I post Mistake Monday items partly to […]

2021 reading suggestions

My 2021 reading with suggestions for you

This year I devoted much of my serious reading time to learning more about race through nonfiction and fiction. I also grappled with some issues of race on my blog in “How to edit articles about Black people” and “Working with a sensitivity reader.” Race—nonfiction Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji—I […]