Erin Brenner's Blog, page 6

“The Conscious Style Guide”: Transforming Language to Foster Equity and Understanding

Karen Yin’s The Conscious Style Guide has long been hoped for by writers and editors interested in intentional, compassionate language, myself included.

Yin coined the term conscious language in the early 2010s to describe a practice of being “more aware, mindful, and intentional about how we treat ourselves and others through language” (xv). She explored her ideas in, among other places, the Copyediting newsletter when I was editor-in-chief, and launched a resource site, ConsciousStyleGuide....

When to Use a Comma Before “But”

Across stylebooks, rules about the comma are some of the most frequent causes of debate. Once, I received an interesting question about using a comma before the word but. Here’s what the reader asked: 

Is there a rule that a comma may only be used before but if what follows is a complete thought, such as an independent clause?

Let’s dive in. 

But is a member of several parts of speech, or word classes. It can be a conjunction, preposition, adverb, or noun. Commas have many uses; Amy Ein...

Should You Leave Freelance Editing for an Employee Position?

Last week, I shared a list of things you should think about when considering a new editing job or client. But what about when a freelancer is offered an employee position? What should you think about? And what should you not think about?

What to Consider

Changing from freelancing to employment is a huge shift. You’re no longer in charge of your own schedule, but you also no longer have to find your own work. Before you make the leap, try to see the big picture. What would it take for you t...

Celebrate the Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors and Win Prizes

How do you celebrate the launch of a book about creating an editing business?

If you’re me, you celebrate by offering editors further help in their editing businesses.

My book, The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability, is out today. I can’t thank you all enough for your support and for purchasing the book. Your enthusiasm means the world to me.

To celebrate this milestone and spread the word to...

Can You Afford To Take That Editing Job?

Whether you’re considering a new editing job or just a new client project, pay rate is probably one of the first things you look at.

You also likely consider what the work entails, what the company or client is like, and how well you get along with the people you’d be working with.

But what about the less-obvious aspects of a new job or client? What other details should you consider before making a commitment?

Let’s look at a few.

For Employees

An employee position is a big commit...

The Freelancer’s Strategy for a Personal Crisis

In late 2017, my father fell ill suddenly and died a week later. To say we were shocked is an understatement. A few weeks earlier, he had been camping with family and friends. He rode his bike daily when he snowbirded in Florida. He regularly did yard work when he was home in the Northeast. He was apparently healthy and able-bodied and he was alive.

I’m sharing this with you so you understand why for the two months that followed my father’s death I could barely keep my businesses running. All...

AP Stylebook Partners with Merriam-Webster

Last week, I attended one of my favorite sessions of the conference year: the annual announcement of updates to the AP Stylebook. It’s held during the in-person conference of ACES: The Society for Editing, and it’s always full of changes, big and small. 

This year, the changes continued the trend of more precise, respectful language, giving a voice to the people being written about. There were also changes related to X/Twitter (yes, we’re going to have to accept that new name ), bullet lists,...

The Chicago Manual of Style: 18th Edition Updates

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS), one of the most-used style guides in publishing, is headed for an update to its 18th edition later this year and editors are eager to know what changes it will contain. Russell Harper, editor of CMoS, chatted with Mark Allen on That Word Chat, live at the ACES 2024 conference, giving us a glimpse at the changes coming.

Changes AnnouncedLocation will no longer be required in citations and bibliography entries.“Headline Style” will now be called “Tit...

Dealing With Formal and Descriptive Titles

Last week, I outlined some of the different rules for capping a composition title.

I noted that one wrinkle in applying sentence-style capitalization to the title of a book, poem, song, or other work of art was determining whether a person’s title was formal or descriptive. Formal titles are, in essence, proper nouns and are capped, both in the main text and in headlines and titles. Descriptive titles are common nouns and are lowercased.

So how do you distinguish a formal title from a desc...

Making Sense of Title Style Rules

One copyediting task that should be easy but can be a nightmare is how to capitalize the titles of works, such as books, magazines, articles, and songs—what The AP Stylebook refers to as “compositions.”

The task should be as simple as following a manuscript’s style guide, applying either sentence capitalization or headline capitalization.

But the task is not as simple as it seems, particularly for copyeditors who frequently work in more than one style.

Sentence Capitalization

Sentenc...