Editing Resources – Recommended Reading

 

Editing

Edit Yourself
by Bruce Ross-Larson

Save yourself the effort of having to send your work off to an editor to tear up and return with blood red marks all over the pageÖdo it yourself! This manual is designed to help you see what it is that editors see when they pour themselves over our work and shred it. Enhance your written work, learn the most common cuts that editors make, write clearer sentences and generally improve your writing. Train yourself to spot errors on a written page without even reading the page. Learn to write for a specific audience or for the general public. All of these tips and information are provided in the first half of the book. The second half of this manual provides 1,500 alphabetized recommendations for improving your writing. Access the information you need quickly and easily.

Line by Line : How to Edit Your Own Writing
by Claire Kehrwald Cook

This manual on how to edit your own writings provides you with more than just the rules and regulations of editing, it gives you well over 700 examples of sentences before and after they are edited. This guide will show you exactly how you can improve your writing-not just correct the mistakes. One problem many writers experience is that they assume if the sentence or wording is grammatically correct, that it is the best it can be. This assumption has caused many an embarrassing work to be produced by many new or inexperienced writers. This book will teach you how to avoid looking like an inexperienced writer with sentences that are not only grammatically correct but also flow well, read well and sound professional. In addition, you will learn grammar techniques and usage, editing
techniques and how to stay well organized with your flow and thoughts while writing. This is a must have book for new writers, those who write infrequently as well as experienced writers wishing to improve the flow of their work.

Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing
by Patricia T. O’Conner

Whether a fan of her previous work, Woe Is I, or a new comer to the world of Patricia O’Conner, you are sure to enjoy the humor and linguistic delight found in her newest manual, Words Fail Me. After spending years as an editor at the New Your Times Book Review, she has a unique spin on what is clear-cut, correct and acceptable. Drawing on the pretense that communication is a two part deal, what is intended and what is received, she explores the concepts of writing and editing and the rules surrounding the two. Don’t let your modem smoke from being flamed in an Internet newsgroup by making simple, easily corrected grammar mistakes such as lie and lay or who and whom. Get this book, learn the differences and laugh a bit in the process.

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