FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

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• How Google's algorithm works
• How Twitter's algorithm works
• Why tweeting about content you hate makes it more visible on Twitter and on the web
• Why tweeting about content you hate means you're assisting the creator with marketing
• Using Twitter to elevate the content you love and the causes you care about

• Editor Website Essentials (multimedia course)
• Emotional Marketing that Gets Editors Work (multimedia course)
• Marketing Toolbox for Editors (multimedia course)
  
• Resource library for editors, proofreaders and writers
• Social Media for Business Growth (multimedia course)

​If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us.

'Vivacity’ by Kevin MacLeod

• Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4593-vivacity
• Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Find out why the concept of conscious language is foundational to professional fiction-editing practice.

• What is ‘conscious language’?
• ‘But I’m not part of the “woke” brigade’
• The foundations of editing
• Are you part of the professional editing brigade?
• Why conscious language is also about successful authoring
• Why conscious language is about consideration rather than prescription
• A case study
• Helping our clients
• Tools that help with conscious language

Karen Yin, founder of Conscious Style Guide, defines conscious language as ‘language rooted in critical thinking and compassion, used skilfully in a specific context'. Using conscious language involves, she says, asking ourselves the following:

• Who is my audience?
• What tone and level of formality do I want?
• What am I trying to achieve?
• How might history change the impact of my language choices regardless of my intentions?
• Who’s being excluded?

​Conversations about ‘conscious language’ are welcomed by many in the editing community. Now and then, however, these result in references being made to the ‘woke brigade’ from some quarters.
​
Oxford Dictonaries defines ‘woke’ as: 

Merriam-Webster suggests:

​Neither mention that the term is sometimes used as a slur against people who are judged to be overly politically correct, over-sensitive, overly concerned with not offending, overly prescriptive.
​
So must editors be ‘woke’?  How we answer that will depend on what we think editors are supposed to do.

Editing at its very foundations requires us to actively think about the words on the page and whether they’re doing what the author intends.

Since how we approach language will be influenced by the bubble of our own lived experience, editorial practice requires listening to others who offer alternative insights – ones we were perhaps previously unaware of – into the meaning of words and the consequences of their use.

It means allowing our prior assumptions to be challenged, to consider that what we thought we understood might need revising.

And it means opening our minds to the opportunities that are already alive in the English language – words that explain rather than exclude, and that are rich in both sense and sensibility.

If, like me, you’re not keen on the term ‘woke’ because its negative usage has become a distraction, try an alternative.

​My preference is ‘professional editor’.

Conscious language serves authors – the people who pay editors – and serves readers – the people who pay authors.

The professional editor who isn’t alert to wording that distracts from the message rather than amplifying that message isn’t doing the job that a professional editor is supposed to do: being paid to help the author prepare their book for readers. 

And so regardless of the editor’s personal opinion on this word or that word, regardless of whether the editor uses the term ‘woke’ to describe their mindset or to cast a slur, there’s a business case for conscious language.

The professional editor can’t sidestep that because it’s not about us, and it’s not our book. It’s about the author, and it’s their book.

Readers aren’t homogenous – they don’t all live in the same country, speak the same English, or spell with the same letters. They aren’t wrapped in the same skin, don’t share the same sexual orientation, practise the same faith, have identical anatomies or have one set of homogenous secondary sex characteristics.

Most authors want to sell as many books as they can. That means engaging as many readers as they can. Engaged readers focus their attention on story. Novels containing words and phrases that distract from story, rather amplifying it, don’t serve authors.
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Deliberately reviewing novels for words and phrases that might disengage a chunk of the potential readership is therefore nothing more than good commercial practice, and it’s the editor’s job to support the author who’s striving to create something that will give them a return on their investment.

When we ask our clients to consider the impact of a particular word, we’re not prescribing ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. We’re helping them make informed decisions predicated on an acknowledgement that not all words in the English language have a single, universally accepted meaning. 

The meaning we attach to some words might differ depending on, for example, where we live, how old we are, and how we’re racialised, sexualized and gendered by others. In other words, what I mean when I use a word might not be what you mean when you use that word.

Helping our clients
A conscious-language approach to editing therefore helps us to help our clients. We can share the knowledge we’ve acquired from our colleagues in the publishing community, knowledge that our authors might not be aware of. 
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And in doing so, they can publish a book that keeps its audience wanting to turn the pages rather than rip them out. ​

If you think conscious language is a load of old ‘woke’ codswallop, consider whether editing is the right job for you. Editors are required at the very core of their practice to consider the purpose and effectiveness of the words in front of them.
 
That doesn’t mean we have to know it all – we can’t, not least because the language landscape is always in flux. It does mean we have to be ready to listen, learn, and advise so that our clients can make informed – conscious – decisions.
​
And we don’t have to do it alone. There’s a large and diverse community of editors and writers who are with us on that journey, and tools to help us improve our practice.

Listen to podcast episodes and download a free booklet with links to useful resources created by people in the publishing community who are passionate about language and alert to its power. 

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, we discuss some of the things we’ve learned about examining the words we use and the way we behave in shared editorial spaces.

Listen to find out more about:

• Familiarising ourselves with the rules of that space
• Acknowledging that our political, professional and ideological positions are not going to be the same as everyone else’s 
• Recognizing the potential diversity of our editorial spaces
• Saying hello and introducing ourselves first
• Being prepared to be challenged
• Owning our words if we're challenged
• Acknowledging that intention not to hurt doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility for that hurt. 
• Being prepared to feel uncomfortable
• Accepting our privilege without getting our knickers in a knot!
• How it's for the white, cis, straight etc people to do the work

• Conscious language resources
• Why editors and proofreaders should be networking (The Editing Podcast)
• Understanding microaggressions in editing (The Editing Podcast)

​If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us.

'Vivacity’ by Kevin MacLeod

• Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4593-vivacity
• Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

We explore the term ‘OCD’ and why it has no place as a marker of attention to detail for the professional editor. Listen to find out more about:
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• The difference between character traits of orderliness and the lived experience of OCD
• What is OCD and how does it affect people?
• Why OCD is a noun and what that means for how we use the term
• How OCD might manifest
• How flippant and colloquial references to OCD diminish lived experience
• Intention versus perception of harm
• Editing text: querying rather than prescribing problems and solutions
• Does fiction offer more scope for use of harmful language?
• Alternative words and phrases
• Helping clients create engaging rather than distracting messages

If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us.

​‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Should editors be interrogating the language of illness? We chat with Louise Bolotin about challenging normative narratives around cancer and terminal illness. Listen to find out more about:

• Louise Bolotin's cancer diagnosis
• Why the language preferences of those with terminal illnesses aren't homogenous
• Terms in the language of illness that can hurt and harm
• Why editors have a duty to challenge normative narratives that sugarcoat dying and death
• How asking how a person wants to talk about terminal illness is better than assuming

If you want to see how our guest and edibuddy talks about her cancer diagnosis and the language that surrounds it, or follow her Last Hurrah, take a look at these announcements, threads and pics on social media.
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• Facebook: The Last Hurrah album
• Facebook: Statement about cancer diagnosis and language
• LinkedIn: Announcement about cancer diagnosis and language

If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us.

​‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Improve your understanding of microaggressions during the editing process and how to serve your author well regardless of your own identity and lived experience.

Crystal Shelley joins Louise and Denise to talk about how editors can improve their professional practice by being aware of microaggressions. Here's a summary of what we chat about:

• What microaggressions are
• Microaggressions in editing
• Why microaggressions occur during the editing process
• How microaggressions affect writers
• Why it's important for editors to know about microaggressions
• How editors can avoid doing this type of harm in their work
• How editors can learn about what they don’t know

If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us. There are two tiers to choose from: 

• EditPod Tea Pot: Buy us a cuppa and help keep the podcast ad-free and independent.
• EditPod Tea Party: All of the above plus you get exclusive access to quarterly live Q&As that help you keep your business on track.

• Conscious Style Guide
• Crystal Shelley, Rabbit with a Red Pen
• Fuhrmann, Henry, ‘Drop the hyphen in Asian American’, Conscious Style Guide, 2018
• King, Ruth, Mindful of Race: Understanding and Transforming Habits of Harm: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, Sounds True Inc, 2018

‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Words are the professional editor’s business, yet the ones we use in the course of discussing how we apply our craft are all too often prescriptive.
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This post looks at problematic language, the messages it might unintentionally convey, and how we can talk about the editorial conundrums we come across without judgement.

Most editors, however experienced, encounter conundrums in their work that lead to their seeking advice from colleagues. Too often, the language of prescription is used to frame questions:

• ‘What’s the correct way to punctuate this sentence?’
• ‘Is the grammar in this sentence right?’
• ‘What’s APA’s rule for hyphenating [...]?’

The problem with notions such as ‘right’, ‘correct’ and ‘rule’ is that they’re loaded. The implication is that there’s one way – a best way – to write and to edit.

In reality, there are multiple ways to punctuate a sentence, each of which could alter its flow and rhythm in nuanced ways.
​
There are multiple Englishes, too, each with grammatical and syntactical structures that vary from region to region within nations as well as from country to country.

And there are multiple style guides that express particular preferences.

All of which means there is no ‘correct’ way to punctuate a sentence, no ‘right’ grammar, and no ‘rule’ on hyphenation. What there are instead are conventions and choices that that can be implemented or ignored.

Instead, we could ask:
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• ‘How can I punctuate this sentence to convey urgency? The author’s used commas but I’m wondering if spaced en dashes would be effective.’
• ‘Is the grammar in this sentence distracting or is the sense clear? The narrator is from [...] but I’m not.’
• ‘What’s APA’s preference for hyphenating [...]?’

The artistry of editing lies in helping the client craft prose in which the meaning is clear and interpreted as intended by readers. Embedding that principle – rather than the language of rights and rules – ​in the way we talk about our work means we’re more likely to think descriptively rather than prescriptively.

There are myriad standards and conventions in language, ones that determine the following for example:

• How words are spelled in various Englishes 
• How dialogue is punctuated 
• Whether a term is hyphenated
• How apostrophes convey possession or omission 
• Whether to place full points after contracted forms 
• Whether the first paragraph in a section is indented or not
• The grammatical structure of a sentence
• How verbs are conjugated

When we come across writing that doesn’t conform to these standards and conventions, some of us choose to refer instead to ‘non-standard’ language and ‘breaking from convention’ so as to avoid the judgement embodied in terms such as ‘right’, ‘best’, ‘correct’ and ‘rule’. 

It’s been my preference because I felt it was more neutral and framed the issue around reader expectation rather than my own lived experience of language. 

And that’s something I’ve been thinking about.

Why? Because these terms, too, need to be used with caution. We need to be aware that while standards and conventions help readers make sense of the written and spoken word, they are created and enforced by those with advantage, those who have the power to deem them as standard and conventional in the first place, and to assert their primacy. 

That doesn’t make those standards and conventions better; it just means those who define them are in a position to do so. It also means that prose can be just as rich when those standards and conventions are ignored or flexed.

Individuals and organizations have preferences. For example, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), the University of Chicago Press and the American Psychological Association each have style guides that record their preferences for myriad stylistic decisions.
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Mindful editing means remembering that these preferences aren’t ‘right’ or ‘better’. They’re certainly not rules. Even Oxford’s New Hart’s Rules isn’t a rulebook! Rather, these are useful guides that help editors and authors bring clarity and consistency to writing.

However, editors – particularly those working on creative texts – need to be ready to bend when character and narrative voice would be damaged by prescriptive application of a style guide.

As for those of us working on texts that deal with identity and representation, we need to be ready to question the advice in a published style guide; it might be behind the curve.

If we use the language of ‘right/’wrong’, ‘correct’/’incorrect’ and even ‘standard’/’non-standard’ when we talk to other editors about our work, there’s a risk that this will leak into the way we convey solutions to our clients, even into the way we edit their work.

An author might not write in sentences that follow grammar, spelling and punctuation conventions, but that in no way means they’re a poor crafter of prose. Perhaps the way they lay down words is because they haven’t learned our conventions. Or perhaps they’ve actively chosen to ignore those conventions because that style of language doesn’t suit their character and narrative voices.
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The mindful editor needs to recognize and respect both scenarios. Understanding which one is in play is critical because it will determine whether and which amendments are suggested, and why.

Here’s an example that demonstrates how an author has chosen to craft a narrative that favours voice over ‘standard’ English now and then in order to reduce the distance between the narrator-protagonist and the reader.
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These excerpts are from the opening chapter of Imran Mahmood’s You Don’t Know Me (pp 4–5; Penguin, 2017).

Are the words I placed in bold ‘incorrect’ or ‘wrong’? That’s a judgemental approach that implies there’s a single perfect, right way to write and speak English. There isn’t.

Are the terms ‘non-standard’? To my ear, yes, some of them are, but that’s because I’m a 54-year-old middle-class white woman raised in Buckinghamshire, England, who was taught how to write and speak according to a standard dreamt up by … actually, I’m not sure who dreamt up the standard but it was probably someone who looked, spoke and was educated quite a lot like me and had the advantages I have.

Rather than thinking about these excerpts in terms of whether some of the words are non-standard or standard, instead we can evaluate them in terms of voice. Rich, evocative voice.

Our first-person narrator has been accused of murder and has elected to defend himself. As the blurb on the back cover says: ‘He now stands in the dock and wants to tell you the truth. He needs you to believe him. Will you?’

Actually, it’s his authentic voice that draws me – a 54-year-old middle-class white woman raised in Buckinghamshire, England – deep into his psyche so that I can see and hear him as if we are one. And that means I can root for him, invest in him, care about him, believe him.

Thinking about that narrative in terms of whether it’s ‘correct’ or ‘right’ would be butchery. To apply a digital red pen to it would be a crime.

And even those of us who might apply the term ‘non-standard’ to the emboldened words must acknowledge that such prescription is based purely on our own lived experience of English – how we write, how we speak, and what we were taught. That doesn’t make our way of speaking and writing better or worthier.

When story and characters drive language, readers will come along for the ride, regardless of their lived experience. When prescriptivism is behind the wheel, readers will disengage and find a different journey to take.

An error is a mistake. We all make them when we’re writing – because we don’t know what the conventions are, because we’re focusing on meaning rather than mechanics, or because our fingers are typing so fast.

Regardless, the focus here is on intention, and for that reason there are times when it’s appropriate for the editor to use the term ‘error’.

When editors are tasked with finding errors, they’re looking for what wasn’t intended in that particular project. Take a look at these four examples:

• “Are the autopsy results in yet?’ Milburn asked.
• Xe put xyr pen on the table and frowned. No way was he letting that one pass.
• She hears him clearly – banging on again about how their from out of town and don’t know their way around.
• ‘I wanted to call the police but Johnny ‘One Sock’ Swainston wasn’t having any of it.’

We can say without judgement that there are four ‘errors’ in the above examples because in each case the author likely made a mistake – they meant to use a consistent style of speech marks in the first example, meant the pronouns to be consistent in the second, meant to use ‘they’re' in the third, and meant to use an alternative style for the nested quotation marks in the fourth.

When we’re querying potential errors, however, we can still use the language of intention and reader expectation in our comments, thereby avoiding a more critical tone:
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• Did you mean to write […] here or is this a typo?
• How about [...] instead? This would be less likely to distract the reader, who might be more used to seeing [...] and therefore misinterpret what you've written.
• The grammar in this section doesn’t align with your usual narrative voice, and reads more like something Character Y would say. Is this intentional? If not, how about trying [...]?

As professional editors, we need to think about the language we use about language!
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• Saying something’s ‘right’ might imply that all alternatives are wrong when they aren’t.
• Defining something as a ‘rule’ might imply that breaking it is non-conformist, eccentric, non-compliant, even disobedient.
• Referring to something as ‘standard’ normalizes the preferences of those who have the power to make that decision in the first place.​

Instead, we can frame our discussions and queries around meaning, author intention and reader experience. That way, we’re putting the prose where it belongs – front and centre.

Find out what editorial style is, why it’s important, and how editors work to create, evaluate and enforce style.

• What is style?
• The differences between rules, preferences and conventions
• Flexibility in fiction and non-fiction
• What is a style guide?
• Why style guides aren't rule books
• When editors need to respect tone, register, voice and brand identity
• What is a style sheet?

​‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Your novel features characters from different countries. Should their dialogue, thoughts or narration be spelled differently just because their voices are regionally distinct and they come from different places? The answer’s no. Here’s why.

In this post, I explore the following:
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• How there are multiple Englishes with different spellings
• The difference between spelling style and voice
• A case study from the 007 files
• Overcoming ‘But it looks wrong’
• Adding regional flavour to voice
• 3 examples of when spelling inconsistency works
• A note on suffixes, dashes and quotation marks

​

There are multiple Englishes each with their own spelling conventions: British, Indian, Canadian, American and Australian are just five examples of English.

Most words are spelled the same regardless of which English is in play, though there are many that aren’t, for example ‘color’/’colour’, ‘judgment’/‘judgement’, ‘harmonize’/‘harmonise’, ‘behavior’/‘behaviour’, ‘gray’/‘grey’, 'liter'/'litre'.

None are right or wrong, better or worse, or correct or incorrect. Rather, the way each version of English is spelled is about convention and style.

This post uses examples of American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) style to explain how to approach spelling/voice conundrums in fiction.
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Strive for a mindset that separates style and character voice.

• How the words in a novel are spelled is for the most part a question of style.
• What a character says, thinks, feels, and the words used to report this on the page, is a question of voice. This is the case for dialogue and narrative.

Voice isn’t something that’s spelled. Rather, it’s something the reader experiences, ‘hears’ with their mind’s ear. It therefore follows the base spelling style, regardless of where the character comes from. With that in mind:

• If you’re writing fiction, decide on your spelling style and stick to it.
• If you’re editing for an author, identify the spelling style and aim for consistency.

​The easiest way to illustrate how spelling consistency works is with a case study. Let’s take a peek into the world of 007!
​

I’ve chosen Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche, a continuation novel featuring Ian’s Fleming’s British MI6 agent, James Bond.

The version from Hodder & Stoughton (part of Hachette UK), published in 2011, is styled as follows:

​Here’s are three snippets from Chapter 2.

The version from Pocket Star Books (a division of Simon and Schuster), published in 2012, is styled as follows:

Bond’s words haven’t changed. Bond’s nationality hasn’t changed. Bond’s job hasn’t changed. Bond’s narrative voice hasn’t changed. All that’s changed is the novel’s styling.

Later in the novel (Chapter 26), Felix Leiter, an American, joins Bond on his mission. Here’s how Leiter’s dialogue is rendered in the AmE version:

​And here it is in the BrE version. Leiter is still American and still has the same distinct voice, but now the spelling has changed (as has the punctuation; note the spaced en dash and single quotation marks). 

Our brains can mess with us when we associate a particular spelling style with a character’s place of birth or residence, particularly if their voice is regionally distinct.

For example, perhaps they use idiomatic phrases that wedge them firmly in a country, state/province/county or even town/city that we’re from.

The British editor working on a book set in Southern California and written by an American author who writes in AmE might well struggle when a viewpoint character from Norfolk (the UK one where I live) turns up in Santa Barbara and mutters the following on seeing a cluster of huge ladybirds:

“Look at the color o’ them bishy barnabees. And big as a thruppence too!”

The spelling of ‘color’ might jar because ‘thruppence’ is so clearly unAmerican, so very British, while ‘bishy barnabees’ is particular to Norfolk. And yet the spelling is (and should be) AmE if that’s how the novel’s been styled overall.

An editor colleague recently reported this kind of problem in a Facebook group discussion. The novel was set in AmE, but the British viewpoint character spoke, thought and talked to herself in a Yorkshire accent. The first-person narration style deepened the voice still further.

‘The character's voice is really strong,’ the editor said, ‘and the US spelling seems at odds.’

The editor slept on it and the next day announced a simple but clever solution that had enabled her to overcome her resistance.

‘I mentally changed the British voice to a South African one so that I'm not so conscious of spelling variations, et voilà! It's suddenly clear as day.’
​
It’s a neat trick, a way of breaking the false connection between spelling and voice. If you come up against a similar situation, try it!
​

If you’re still worried that a spelling choice looks odd, remember that voice lies not in how the text is spelled but in what the character is saying, the turns of phrase they use, and the emotions and motivations behind their action (whether that action comes through speech, thought, movement or narration).

It’s worth bearing in mind, too, that language is often borrowed to the extent that some words no longer feel like, say, Britishisms, Americanisms, Canadianisms or Indianisms when they roll out of our mouths, regardless of how we identify or where we live.

Would I, a Brit, ever use the terms ‘cell phone’ and ‘movie’ rather than ‘mobile’ and ‘film’? Yes, I would.

How about ‘elevator’ rather than ‘lift’, ‘sidewalk’ rather than ‘pavement’, ‘aluminum’ rather than ‘aluminium’? Would I refer to ‘my mom’ rather than ‘my mum?’ Not while roaming around Norwich, but on a visit to Chicago, possibly, if I wanted to ensure people understood me. And almost definitely if I'd made my home there for some time.

Perhaps, then, the trick is not to be too precious about it, either when we’re writing or editing. Instead, we can consider the character’s environment and the degree to which the ‘local’ language flavour is something they’re likely to have assimilated into their speech, thoughts and narratives.
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Those choices aside, the spelling style will be consistent. Unless …
​

There are instances where inconsistent styling will be called for. Here are 3.

The character is spelling a spelling
Imagine a Bond novel is styled in BrE. Bond and Leiter are speaking to each other on the phone and the line is terrible. Bond thinks Leiter has said ‘dissenter’. Leiter’s dialogue might go like this: ‘Not dissenter. The centre. C-E-N-T-E-R. Move to the centre.’

A proper noun is being referenced
Now imagine Bond’s telling Leiter that he’s received intelligence about a heist in the Rockefeller Center. Even if the novel’s styled in BrE, the AmE spelling of ‘Center’ should be retained because it’s referencing the name of a building.

Excerpts from written materials have been transcribed
Excerpts from diaries, newspaper cuttings, reports, letters, texts and so on can be rendered in the spelling style most likely used by whomever in the novel wrote them because they’re supposed to be authentic transcripts.
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Imagine that Bond’s reading a document written by an American CIA operative. Even if the novel is styled in BrE, the spelling in the report would be AmE, unless referencing a proper noun that required a BrE spelling.
​

Finally, a quick note on style and how writers and editors need to consider whether they're being overly prescriptive. I recommend thinking in terms of common conventions rather than rules.

Suffixes
In AmE, it’s standard to spell with -iz- suffixes.

In BrE, both -iz- and -is- are standard. Again, it’s a matter of style.

Thus, in the Night Action alert excerpt above, if Hodder had elected to use ‘authorized’ instead of ‘authorised’, this would not have been a slippage into American spelling but a style choice – an accepted BrE variant that’s been around since the sixteenth century.

Dashes
While most US publishers favour closed-up em dashes and most British publishers favour spaced en dashes when used parenthetically (see the Leiter snippet in the case study), it’s not wrong to used unspaced em dashes when writing in BrE style; it’s Oxford’s preference, for example.

Quotation marks
Again, while it’s more common to see single quotation marks in BrE styling and doubles in AmE, this isn’t an unbreakable rule. Indie authors can choose, for example, BrE spelling and double quotation marks if they wish.
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In all three cases, consistency is what counts.
​

Voice can be flavoured by what is said, thought and narrated, and it can show us aspects of a character’s personality, emotions, motivations and background – regardless of how the words that convey it are spelled.

Spelling is about style. The goal is consistency in the main, complemented by good-sense deviation when necessary.
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That’s how the mainstream publishing industry approaches it, and editors and writers will do well to follow their lead.
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• Author and editor resources library
• Blog post: How do I find spelling inconsistencies when proofreading and editing?
• Blog post: How to convey accents in fiction writing: Beyond phonetic spelling 
• Blog post: What's the difference between a rule and a preference? Advice for new writers
• Booklet: British English and US English in your fiction, and why you should be consistent
• Podcast: Think it’s American? Think again!
• Podcast: Linguist Rob Drummond on grammar pedantry, peevery and youth language

Visit the grammar and spelling page in my resource library to download a free booklet summarizing suffix variations in American and British English.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise discuss the grammar police, how to manage them, and why they're nothing to do with professional editing.

​Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 1

Listen to find out more about:

• Who are the grammar police?
• Social media and the grammar police
• Pedantry versus professional editing for style, preference and flow
• Writing style: Business, academia, web copy, creative non-fiction, fiction
• Conventions and standards versus rules and errors
• How and when to tell a writer about an error
• Dealing with the grammar police

Editing bites

• Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, by Jane Straus
• TextExpander

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.