copyeditor.se

Your professional help to improve your written English

As your copyeditor, I can help you improve your English writing skills.


BELOW THIS TEXT YOU WILL FIND MY BLOG, THE LATEST POST FIRST. YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE FROM THE LIST ON THE RIGHT OR TYPE A WORD IN THE SEARCH BOX AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.

This website is meant to be a resource especially for non-native writers in English to help them improve their writing skills.

Your English may be good, but perhaps you have not asked yourself which English you use, you have never reflected on the difference between compare to and compare with or realised that you wrote amount where you should have written number.

Perhaps you are a doctoral student planning your thesis. Or you are a professor writing a book or a research paper for an international journal. Maybe you have written a manual and feel that the language is not exactly what you would like it to be. Or you just want to have your CV or a cover letter checked for errors.

What I can do for you

In this blog you will get useful tips on writing in English. Through my long experience as a copyeditor I have learnt the typical errors that writers make and what linguistic problems they often meet and I can help you improve your English writing skills.

I will also tell you about resources that will enhance your writing. Whether books, apps or websites, they will help you write much better.

So, if you want to read my blog, scroll down and you will see my blog entries starting with my latest text. You can also choose a topic from the list in the sidebar on the right or search for a specific word.

And when you feel that your text needs copyediting, send it to me

On my other pages here you can learn about how I work and read comments from some of my many satisfied clients. And if you decide to let me copyedit your text, you should read my advice for writers.

The CEO of a Swedish multinational firm was once asked what language the company used. The answer was, “Bad English”.

Most users of English are non-native speakers and, not surprisingly, the language used is often, as the Swedish manager put it, bad English.

What’s the problem?

Communicating in a second language often involves ambiguity and misunderstanding and can eventually lead to serious problems. An example can be found in the sentence you just read: The English word eventually means in the end, finally, sooner or later, while the Swedish word eventuellt means possibly, potentially.

Not connected…

Can you connect with your readers? Bad English may prevent you from being published. And if you manage to be published in spite of language deficiencies, your readers will doubt your professionality. Poor language will make them lose interest in what you are trying to say; they may even mistrust your message or simply not understand it. 

The difference between good and bad English is crucial. My role as copyeditor is to make sure that bad English is transformed into good English. I do so in close collaboration with you, the writer. Together we will make you a better English writer. We are on the same page!

You are welcome to visit this site again and again. Or, better still, why not sign up for my newsletter? Then you will know when there is something new to read on this page, something that will make you a better English writer.

My posts will, I hope, be your stepping stones to better writing.

The image shows stepping stones in a street in Pompeii, Italy to illustrate how to improve writing skills
Stepping stones in Pompeii, Italy

Note: When there is an asterisk (*) in front of a word or a phrase in my posts here, it means that the word or phrase is wrong or not accepted language. You can find examples here, here and here.

How to use brackets and parentheses

In a previous post we looked at brackets and parentheses.

Knowing when and how to use brackets and parentheses can be challenging. We will try and sort out the problem here.

Round brackets

Round brackets are used

  • to add extra information in text

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is considered one of the greatest artists ever.
Cary Grant (born as Archibald Leach) starred in over seventy films.

  • to add personal comment

Hum in Croatia is the smallest town in the world (and very beautifully situated on top of a hill).

  • to define an abbreviation or acronym

UNITAR (The United Nations Institute for Training and Research) has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

  • to refer to another part of the same text

Exports increased by 6 % (Table 3).
Production time can be reduced by using a new application (see Chapter 6). 

  • in referencing

Such methods are based on direct observation (Jones et al., 2012).

Square brackets

Square brackets are used

  • to show that text has been added to a quotation

Several new products were introduced [on the company’s website].

  • to show that part of a quotation has been omitted (by using an ellipsis)

Relatives, friends and neighbours as well as his landlord, his employer, his former professor […] had all come to congratulate him.

(The Chicago Manual of Style recommends using the three dots without brackets. The Modern Language Association, on the other hand, recommends brackets to distinguish this kind of ellipsis from an ellipsis in the original text.)

  • when you capitalize the first letter of a quotation that is not capitalized in the original (or use lowercase where the original is capitalized)

Original: 

The professor said, ”Perhaps the best example of Renaissance architecture is St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City”.

Paraphrased:

The professor told his students that ”[p]erhaps the best example of Renaissance architecture is St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City”.

  • around the Latin abbreviation sic (read more here).

To sum up:

Use parentheses to add information to something you have written.

Use brackets to change or add comments to somebody else’s words that you are quoting.

Braces (Curly brackets)

Curly brackets are mainly used in computer programming, mathematics, and science. They often identify the elements of a set.

Angle brackets (Chevrons)

Angle brackets are seldom used in English. They may indicate a website or something said in a foreign language.  In some languages, double angle brackets are used instead of quotation marks.

Brackets and parentheses

Brackets and parentheses are punctuation marks used to set apart a segment of text from the surrounding text. (By the way, parentheses is the plural form of parenthesis).

You are, of course, aware of the fact that British English and American English do not always agree. BE lift is elevator in AE;  a BE pavement is a sidewalk in AE. Holiday is vacation, handbag is purse, queue is line, tube is subway, etc.

When it comes to brackets and parentheses, the situation is just as confusing.

These marks

Brackets

are called brackets or round brackets in British English. In American English they are parentheses.

Brackets in American English are called square brackets in British English. They look like this:

Square brackets

Then we have these:

Braces

They are called braces in both British and American English, but in BE they are also called curly brackets.

Historically, the earliest form of brackets were angle brackets or chevrons. They look like this:

Angle brackets, chevrons

In a later post we take a look at how to use these brackets and parentheses.

[sic]—What’s that?

Sic comes from Latin and means so, thus, in this manner.

Sic erat scriptum means so written, thus it had been written.

When quoting something, writers may use sic to indicate that a word or phrase that looks wrong is indeed an exact reproduction of the original—the mistake appears in the source. Quotations should always be in their original form.

Sic is usually written in square brackets: [sic]. The word sic is often seen as a loanword that does not require italics, but in the United States, sic is usually italicized.

Sic can be used to mark an actual error or misprint or a conspicuous detail in the text, a word that seems odd or erroneous.

Since sic is used to draw the reader’s attention to a mistake by the writer, it often indicates disapproval and may signal superciliousness or be condescending. You should use caution when writing [sic] in order not to sound haughty or malicious.

There [sic] son had graduated from Cambridge.
The correct spelling is, of course, their.

She carries out research at the John [sic] Hopkins University.
This is a common error. The correct name is Johns Hopkins University, named after the entrepreneur and benefactor Johns Hopkins. His great-grandmother’s name was Margaret Johns; she married Gerard Hopkins and they named their son, the benefactor’s grandfather, Johns Hopkins. His grandson had the same name.

You can find a number of Latin abbreviations used in English here.

Email problems

I recently found out that the email system at my web host has failed. Emails and messages sent to copyeditor.se were supposed to be forwarded to another of my email accounts. This has worked well in the past, but for several months no forwarding has taken place. I was travelling abroad from June to the middle of September and was not aware of this problem until now.

With the help of my web host I have now been able to locate and read the missing emails and messages. I’m happy to see that so many are interested in my book and asked where they can get it. I have referred them to this page.

I apologize for not having replied to emails and messages.

Several cables sticking out from a wall, all with loose ends. The image is intended to illustrate email problems resulting in no contact.
No contact

I have also had problems with my newsletter campaign provider and have not been able to send any newsletters for quite some time. I have now changed to another platform and hope to send newsletters again soon.

Punctuation marks and quotations

In a previous blog post we looked att the use of the apostrophe as, among other things,  a quotation mark.

When it comes to punctuation marks, they are placed differently in quotations in US English and UK English.

In US English, commas and periods at the end of a quote are placed within the quotation marks:

”My boyfriend gave me this beautiful necklace,” Susan said.
The reporter described the situation as ”chaotic.”

In UK English, all punctuation marks are placed outside the quotation marks (except when they are part of the quotation):

‘My boyfriend gave me this beautiful necklace’, Susan said.
The reporter described the situation as ‘chaotic’.

In both UK and US English, a question mark or an exclamation mark is placed inside the quotation when it is part of the quotation:

Looking at her calendar, she asked, ”How soon can you have it ready?”

In the following example, the question mark is not part of the quotation but of the whole sentence, which is a question:

How many of the students thought the lecture was ”very interesting”?

A lecturer in front of a group of students. The image illustrates the use of punctuation marks in quotations.
How many of the students thought the lecture was “very interesting”?

A tricky mark—the apostrophe

The apostrophe is a punctuation mark in the Latin and some other alphabets. It is used to indicate quotations, to show that one or more letters are left out (contractions), to show the possessive form (genitive) of names and nouns, and to mark the plural of single letters.

QUOTATION

In UK English, single quotation marks are commonly used (even if the US English system is also accepted), while US English prefers double quotation marks.

UK English: ’Welcome to London’, he said.

US English: A man appeared in the doorway asking, ”Is there a restroom somewhere here?”

When a quote appears inside another quote, the opposite style of quotation marks is used:

UK English: The woman looked at the policeman and said, ’All I heard was ”I can’t find my keyes”’.

US English: The woman looked at the officer and said, ”All I heard was ’I can’t find my keyes.’”

Read about punctuation marks and quotations here.

CONTRACTION

In a contraction, an apostrophe represents one or more letters that have been omitted.

I’ve  I have
I’d  I had or I would
He’s  He is
They’re They are
She can’t She cannot
You mustn’t You must not
Singin’ in the rain Singing in the rain
O’Leary  [descendant] of Leary
Rock’n’roll  Rock and roll

An apostrophe can represent thousand:

15’ = 15 000

An apostrophe can replace the first two numbers in a year:

This was popular in the ’80s = in the 1980s

POSSESSIVE

An apostrophe is used with an s after names or nouns to show ownership or close connection.

This is the boy’s room
Let me introduce my wife’s best friend

In the plural, there is no s after the apostrophe:

This is the boys’ room

Especially in spoken language, the plural is expressed using of: This is the room of the boys.

A sign outside a bar with the word cocktail's. The use of an apostrophe is wrong.
Not quite right…

PLURAL OF LETTERS

An apostrophe is used to mark the plural of single letters:

It’s hard to distinguish between your g’s and q’s.

Mind your p’s and q’s (be careful about what you say or do).

 Don’t confuse an apostrophe with an accent! Read more here.

Comprise and consist

How to use comprise and consist is a problem to many writers.

COMPRISE

Comprise means to include, contain, constitute, make up.

Asian students comprise a fairly large part of the university’s student union.
It’s a small book, comprising just about 60 pages.
The management group comprises economists and lawyers.

Since comprised means composed of, comprised of, which many authors write, is not considered good language. It is better to write composed of.

The committee is composed of experts from several fields.

Composed can also refer to a sense of mind, calm, free from agitation.

He remained composed in spite of all the turmoil.

A thin book to illustrate the verb comprise. It's a small book, comprising about 60 pages.
A small book, comprising just about 60 pages

CONSIST

Consist means to be composed of.

A continental breakfast consists of fruit juice, toast, butter and jam, and coffee.
A molecule of water consists of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom.
The team consisted of seven players.

Unlike comprise, consist is usually followed by of, but the word can also mean to be consistent, and then it is used without of.

His evidence consisted with that of the police officer.

Isn’t a restroom a restroom?

When I worked at the university, one day a visiting professor came by my room and asked, ’Is there a restroom somewhere here?’ I knew there was a small room where staff could lie down if taken ill or just to relax, so I told him that there was a restroom at the end of the corridor.

I was surprised when he looked into my office after only a couple of minutes and said, ’Thank you!’ ’Didn’t you find the restroom?’, I asked. ’Oh, yes’, he said and disappeared.

’That was a short rest’, I reflected, and it wasn’t until later that I realised what a restroom is in American English.

There are many euphemisms for the word toilet in English, which I mention in my book It’s not the farts that kill–it’s the smell!, available at Amazon. Among them are bathroom, gents’, ladies’, washroom, lavatory, john, privy, powder room, etc.

A sign pointing towards a toilet. The image illustrates various euphemisms such as restroom, lavatory, bathroom, etc.
With many euphemisms

Phrases are also used as euphemisms for going to the toilet. A guest in a British home might be told, ’I’ll show you where you can wash your hands’ and may think that the host thinks that he is dirty.

A British friend of mine told me that she had said, ’I think I need to powder my nose’ when visiting a family in Sweden (another way of implying that you are heading for the smallest room in the house), and her hostess had taken a close look at her and then said, ’No, you don’t. It’s perfectly fine.’

To return to the restroom, there is a story about an American who was picking up his Swedish friend at an airport. When they got into the car, the American said, ’Perhaps you need to got to the restroom?’, and without hesitating, the Swede answered, ’No, I can do that in the car.’

Fill out or fill in?

Do you fill out a form or do you fill in a form?

These two phrasal verbs are interchangeable, but fill out seems to be more common in American English and fill in in British English.

If there is a difference, some speakers maintain that you fill out a form or document and fill in the blanks. In other words, when you complete a form, you fill it out, and when you add information to empty fields, you fill it in.

Fill in is also used to mean to give somebody missing information.
My boss filled me in about the latest development.

Fill out also refers to gaining weight.
You’ve filled out since we last met.

There, their and they’re

There, their and they’re are often confused.

THERE

There is an adverb. It refers to a special place and means in (or at or to) that place.

I have read a lot about Stockholm and I have always wanted to go there.
You can put you bag over there.
We go there every summer.

There is also used in a more abstract sense:

Hello there!
There you go (=Now it starts again).
There, there, it won’t hurt much longer now (said to comfort).

There can also be used as a formal subject, usually to say that something exists.

There is a nice pub just round the corner.
There is a new edition of her guidebook.
There seems to be a slight mistake here.

A poster for a restaurant with the word dessert spelled as desert. The image is intended to illustrate the sentence There seems to be a slight mistake here.
There seems to be a slight mistake here.

While there has many functions, their and they’re have only one meaning each.

THEIR

Their means belonging to them.

Have you seen their new house?
Their daughter is fifteen.

THEY’RE

They’re is a contracted form of they are.

They’re waiting for us at their hotel.

See also my post about it’s and its.

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