When Joanie of Eagle Eye Editing asked me about the editing classes I was taking, she was curious (or perhaps skeptical) about the value of formal training. After all, Joanie didn’t have any formal credentials when she started out, but…

My friend was telling me about his first conversation with his dissertation supervisor about his writing. “I like to write this way,” my friend said, “because I think it’s more clear.” His supervisor looked at him and said, “That would…

I just finished reading Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. What a good read! The content is fascinating, and Berg is a fine writer. He does a thorough job of describing Perkins, the editor of Ernest Hemingway,…

There seems to be some confusion about the use of “may” and “might.” Increasingly, we see the former supplanting the latter. Yet the latter is the better choice when talking about a situation that exists only in the imagination or…

Who are these people? What is their role in a sentence? We'll talk in a another post about when to use “I” and “me”—“I is you as the subject, and “me” is you as the object. But where does “myself”…

The phrase “begging the question” is used with great frequency of late. The unfortunate thing is that, for the most part, it’s being used incorrectly. Most of the time when we see “This begs the question,” what the author really…

One was the lead singer of the Doors, one is a revered hymn, and one is a hard rock band. What do these three musical entities have in common? Grammar errors. We understand that “Touch Me” was one of the…

You won’t stand for it? Then what will you do? We’ll lie for it. You mean you’ll tell a falsehood? No, we’ll lie down. Do you mean you’ll lay down? No—not unless we have some goose down to get out…

As George Bernard Shaw once noted wryly, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” Some of the primary differences between the languages of the two lands that an editor and a writer will notice have to…

Many people think of editors as very persnickety types who take great pleasure in making others feel like fools. Well, we can’t deny the persnickety part. But we actually want you to feel good, about yourself and about your writing.…

We are increasingly seeing academic papers that have plagiarized sections. We usually recognize them because of our many years of experience with editing papers. A little “ping” goes off in our brains and then we google a sentence from the…

As we’ve mentioned before, language changes over time. In the 21st century, the millennials are taking their turn at making those changes. Now, we’re not going to jump on the millennial-bashing wagon; some of our best friends are millennials. We…

It’s funny watching the patterns that emerge in language. One we’ve seen a lot of lately is the overuse of the phrase “in order.” “She walked out the door in order to go to the mailbox.” We might just as…

We’d wager that most people are familiar with the phrases “dangling modifier” and “dangling participle.” We’d also wager that there are a lot of people who don’t know what they mean. Here’s an example of a dangling modifier. “Stumbling past…

Increasingly in our editing, we’re noticing a reluctance on the part of our clients to use the word “that.” Now, we understand that there are times when the word can reasonably be omitted. Yes, we understand there are times when…

Every day I see this error. It has become an everyday thing. See the distinction there? It’s two words when you’re talking about when. It’s one word when it’s descriptive. That is all.

... because it's usually better to put the adverb at the end, right?   What is the process for having something edited? Generally, you send us a Word document (although we also edit things in other formats, such as PowerPoint…

To bring in the New Year, here is an interview with our Executive Editor, Joanie Eppinga, about her life and career. You have been editing professionally for 17 years. Was there an “aha” moment when you knew you wanted to…

As many of us know, Miss Manners always refers to herself as “we.” We at Eagle Eye do the same thing. This is known as the “editorial we” or, when used by kings or queens, the “royal we.” The technical…

Who needs an editor? Everybody. We have an editor friend who once edited a book for someone who is very famous. He didn’t want her to make any changes. “He seems to believe deathless prose drips from his pen,” she…

Editing documents in Word has become routine for most of us. But what about editing in more presentation-based formats like PowerPoint? As of yet, PowerPoint has no “Track Changes” function. However, there are a few tools that can make life…

Back before so many of our great clients were sending other wonderful clients our way, we were feeling around to see just what sort of editing and writing we wanted to do. You may have seen advertisements on the Web…

In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789 Ben Franklin wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We’ve all heard the quote. But I want to add a third certainty: typos. We…

Top 7 Errors Seen in Recent Years 1. Past and Present of the Verb “To Lead” This is the most surprising error we’ve seen lately. The present tense is “lead” and the past tense is “led”; but for some reason,…

When you submit a piece of writing to an editor, do you ever feel nervous or self-conscious about your spelling? Are you a non-English speaker struggling with complex academic language? Or were you just never good at spelling? Either way,…

  As George Bernard Shaw once noted wryly, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” Some of the primary differences between the languages of the two lands that an editor and a writer will notice have…

When we were kids, carnivals and fairs sometimes had a booth where, for a fee, someone guessed your age. We don’t charge a fee for our guess, but sometimes we play that game now. Language evolves, but people tend to…

We adore correct grammar. At the same time, we know that language is alive and that the rules for its proper use come and go. Language changes—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. For example, let’s look at the word “baseball.” It seems…