| Bette Frick
The Text Doctor®
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| Free grammar training in 2011-2012 |
Watch this monthly newsletter for these future lessons:
- Two uses of apostrophes
- Punctuation placement
- Punctuation of vertical lists
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| Yes, I have my own editor | |
Special thanks to my faithful editor, Liz Willis, who improves my newsletter every month.
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| Special thanks to LisaMarie Dias | |
Like Liz Willis, LisaMarie Dias is a great help to me. Without her, I wouldn't have so many whimsical links this month. Thanks, LisaMarie, for "Too! Many! Exclamation! Points!" and "Alot is better than you at everything."
And she's not only funny, she's a dynamic designer of e-mails and social media campaigns.
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| The Text Doctor's Diagnosis
October 2011
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Greetings!
It's always gratifying to hear positive comments from readers. My thanks to Elizabeth Gold of ToThePoint Training and Development, who wrote:
"Your e-newsletter is the only one I actually read, by the way. It's because you write short articles and use listings (numbers, bullets, etc.) so I can go right to what I'm interested in!"
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
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The benefits of field-testing your documents
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I recently taught a class in writing procedures (numbered steps you follow to produce a specified outcome). To engage learners, I had them build a simple product using folding rulers I provided. Working in groups, they documented the process so others could follow it. After writing their procedures, each group "field-tested" the procedures on another group. In most cases when I teach this class, users are able to follow the procedures without a hitch. But occasionally, the writers forget to specify how to place the ruler correctly (with numbers facing up or down) or they leave out a step entirely. Such omissions occur because when we write, we often leave out things that are perfectly obvious to us. But when we actually see users engage with our documents, we realize we need to add, subtract, substitute, or reorder our text. Field-testing benefits everyone by: - Catching errors, omissions, or confusing text before publication.
- Allowing end users to contribute to and improve the document.
Field testing is not just for procedures. Recently, my home town newspaper reported on a local author, Nancy Mervar, who field-tested her first children's book, Nana's Silly Goats, on a third-grade class. "When I have kids do the editing and revisions with me, I can do the best job on the story," said Merver. "It's really coming from the kids rather than an adult's viewpoint of what the kids want to hear about." An added bonus is that the students learn more about the writing process, especially since Mervar shares her revisions with them. Of course, field-testing documents takes time, but so does ineffective, poorly written communication that confuses readers! Want your own folding ruler? Send me a story about your experience with field-testing your documents to improve them, and if I use it in a future column or blog, I'll send you a folding ruler; you can even pick your color (red, green, blue, purple, or orange)!
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| Your next grammar lesson: Hyphens | |
 Commas, semicolons, and colons function to separate linguistic elements (series, independent clauses, and phrases). By contrast, you may think of hyphens as "glue" that joins words together so that the reader will mentally join the words together as one linguistic element. Words that are correctly joined allow your reader to process your text quickly without rereading. You'll look smarter when you use hyphens correctly to connect words.
Use hyphens in two situations:
In permanent compounds
Permanent compounds have become established in our language over time and appear in reference and style books:
- Words you find in the dictionary: Mother-in-law, follow-up
- Numbers that are spelled out: Twenty-three bus routes
- Words beginning with self, all, ex: Self-service, All-American, ex-football player
In temporary compounds
You create temporary compounds "on the fly" to express a particular thought or describe something in detail:
- Month-end database
- Peak-hour volumes
- Moisture-laden subgrade soils
- 15-inch flat-screen monitor
A few notes to help you understand hyphenation better:
- You won't generally find temporary compounds in the dictionary. You have to think them through and hyphenate them on your own.
- Do not use a hyphen when one of the compound words consists of an adverb ending in "-ly": A clearly worded statement; a partially opened cover.
- Most prefixes are not hyphenated: nonessential, ultraconservative, subdivision. However, hyphenate words like re-enter (because "reenter" would really look odd).
- You can appear really smart if you use the high-tech suspending hyphen. In a phrase such as "left-turn and right-turn lanes," you can avoid repetition by writing "left- and right-turn lanes." The first hyphen is retained to show that the full phrase (left-turn) would be hyphenated.
- Don't put spaces around hyphens.
The Gregg Reference Manual has an excellent section (Section 8) that explains hyphens and shows many examples for reference.
Ready for your quiz?
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Here's how you did on the quiz on the six uses of the colon
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Respondents to the quiz on the six uses of the colon are so smart about punctuation! Of the 53 people who took the quiz in the last issue, 92.3% correctly placed the colon and capitalized the full sentence that followed:
Warning: If you do not place the nut on the tube now, you will not be able to put the nut on after you complete the flare.
Thanks for your responses. See the article above on using hyphens to form compound words, and and then test your knowledge with this month's quiz.
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My article on questions published by WritersUA site
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I am passionate about forming and asking good questions, as you know if you have taken my workshop "That's a Good Question!" I'm honored that Joe Welinske asked to publish my article on the WritersUA website. Thanks, Joe!
[See if you can find the typo that was entered in production for the website; it was not in the copy that I submitted. I'll send a small gift to the first three of you to catch that error!]
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A student in my punctuation course last week sent me a link to an exciting new punctuation mark: the SarcMark. Designed to be used as you would use an exclamation or question mark (at the end of a statement in English), the downloadable version is currently free. This new punctuation mark will allow you to make it clear that your statement in an e-mail or text message is ironic, communicating a more subtle message than smiley faces. Matthew Moore's blog post in The Telegraph explains more about the SarcMark: "The symbol--a dot inside a single spiral line--can be installed onto any PC running Windows 7, XP or Vista, as well as Macs and Blackberry mobile devices. It can then be used in Word documents, instant messenger conversations, Outlook email and other programmes, just by pressing Ctrl and the full stop button." |
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