Traci M. Sanders's Blog, page 16

Tip #320: Authors and editors – trusting your gut

Today’s tip is not technical or centered on grammatical issues. Rather, it’s shaped by a piece of advice I recently received from someone in this business who I greatly admire. I felt it worthy, and [...]

Tip 319: Moot Vs. Mute

Have you ever heard someone say something like: “The fact that you forgot to do your homework last night is a mute point. You still have to go to school today”? What this person really [...]

Tip #318: Are you a writer or an author?

Although most dictionaries do not distinguish between the terms writer and author, people who have been through the pains of publishing a book and releasing it into the wild, clearly know the difference, as we [...]

Tip #317: 360-degree change Vs. 180-degree change

Have you ever heard someone say something like, “Everyone at the office is shocked by his recent performance. He seems to have made a 360-degree change.”? The intention of a sentence like this is to [...]

Tip #316: Companies – It Vs. They (and other pronouns)

Today’s post is somewhat of an extension of the subject-verb agreement topics that were discussed in several tips within this segment thus far. This particular post involves references to entities as pronouns. Have you ever [...]

Tip #315: Flesh out Vs. Flush out

Today’s tip is focused on two terms that many people confuse, since they do sound quite similar. One is a popular term in writing and the other is somewhat of an idiom that pertains to [...]

Tip #314: Hone Vs. Home

One might be surprised how many times, as a reader and editor, I’ve seen the words hone and home confused. The most common example was in a sentence that included a reference to “homing one’s [...]

Tip #313: Weak introductions…

Today’s tip will focus on introductory clauses. Sometimes these are necessary but, more often than not, the sentence can be reworded to tighten the writing. I view introductory clauses similar to setting the tone and [...]

Tip #312: Continuously Vs. Continually

I can’t really say today’s post is about a grammar issue that I see continuously, because that would be incorrect. I’ll explain why in a moment. There is a difference between continuously and continually. Here [...]

Tip #311: Don’t be one of “those” authors…

I’ve published seven books over the past four years, and I have seen some shocking things happen in this industry. To name a few: companies or individuals obtaining pirated copies of authors’ works and selling [...]