Capitalizing military titles.

I'm a big advocate of lifelong learning, and I love how even editing fiction books can teach me about topics outside my day-to-day scope of experiences. I've recently edited several books that either detail military ops or include the military in some way, and acknowledging my ignorance, I've had to do some research. Spending the time to research as an editor increased my respect for authors who have to do their own extensive research to make sure what they're writing is credible.

The rule I want to introduce involves when to capitalize ranks in the military. There are three instances when rank is used: to replace a name, article/adjective/pronoun+rank to replace a name, and as a title before someone's name. Examples:

To replace a name: Let's say Tom is a lieutenant. "Come here, Tom" would more likely be written as "Come here, Lieutenant." Similar to how Mother and Father are capitalized when they replace the parents' names, if the title is used in place of the soldier's name, it is capitalized. This happens most often in dialogue.

art/adj/pro+rank replace a name: Tom is still a lieutenant. If the text reads "Tom gathered firewood as commanded," it could also read, "The lieutenant gathered firewood as commanded." Because the article the is present, lieutenant is not capitalized. It would make no sense to read, "The Tom gathered firewood." The presence of an article, adjective, pronoun--anything that introduces a noun--means that the rank is not capitalized regardless of the situation: a captain, those sergeants, angry generals.

As a title: This is probably the most intuitive. Although there are exceptions, if a title precedes someone's name, it is capitalized: Lieutenant Tom, General Stonewall, Commander-in-Chief Obama.

These rules aren't that complicated, but because ranks aren't always either capitalized or not, it's easy to mix up when I'm in the middle of editing. I'm already looking out for punctuation and spelling and sentence flow; it's hard to add in how a rank is being used in order to determine if it needs to be capitalized. Often I'll be twenty pages (or more) into a book and I'll realize that the author is always capitalizing ranks, and I'll have to go back and change it. Often I'll ctrl+f each rank mentioned in the manuscript and just make sure I've capitalized them correctly according to context.

The following excerpt is pulled from a manuscript I edited about two brothers--twins--who are fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War. Sel is fighting for the North and he is just meeting his commanding officer. This was the passage when I realized I hadn't been paying attention to rank capitalization.

“Did they tell you anything about this assignment, Private Danner?” called the lieutenant over the clatter of hooves on cobblestones. There had been no snow in Baltimore as there had been in Frederick and Washington.

“No, sir,” replied Sel.

“Well, Private, you are qualified for this mission due to one important accomplishment.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“You were born in Frederick.”

“It’s good to know I’ve done something worthwhile,” said Sel. He could feel Lieutenant Dorsey watch him as they rode toward the outskirts of the city.

The rank capitalization rules I've outlined here apply in many capitalization instances. Think about it!

That vs which.

I had never even thought there was a difference between that and which until we were taught in one of my grammar classes in college. At first I couldn't understand when to use which. That with a restrictive clause and which with nonrestrictive? What did that even mean? Nonrestrictive which uses (what seems to me like) restrictive commas, but don't use commas with that. I couldn't get it straight in my head.

At some point it clicked, and now it's like second nature. Let's break it down. It will make more sense when we apply it to the examples, so try to get through the next paragraph.

That and which are both relative pronouns, meaning they are used to connect an additional thought or clause to the main thought. So they introduce a relative clause that relates to the main clause. They each have a specific function. That is used to add restrictive information to the main clause; it specifies or narrows the main clause with necessary information. Which is used to add nonrestrictive information to the main clause; instead of narrowing the main clause, it adds description to the main clause. This additional information is preceded by a comma.

Examples:

They would catch any Yankees that might try to pass through. 
Using that  in this sentence means that they are only going to catch the Yankees that try to pass through. They are not going to catch all Yankees, some of which might pass through. 

It stopped at his eyebrows, which protruded like thick, hairy awnings.
Perhaps the trickiest part with that and which is that they can be interchanged depending on what the author meant to say. Here, however, we have "eyebrows" as the item being described by the following relative clause. Because the relative clause is just additional description and could be deleted without removing the important part of the sentence, comma which would be the appropriate choice.


Clint sat on the ground, his back to a tree that seemed all trunk and no limbs. 
This one could probably be either that or which, although I like that more because I think the description of the tree adds a lot to the sentence and the scene of Clint resting against the tree. However, this could also be argued about the previous sentence. In each case, I left it how the author had written it, although I did add a comma to the previous sentence to make the which clause grammatically sound.

The trees moved with the wind, which now came from their backs.  
The author hadn't mentioned the wind before, so I felt that the additional information about it coming from their  backs was nonrestrictive; it was just extra information. Cue comma which.

The wrap-up: Use that to connect essential description to the main clause without a comma; use which with a comma to connect additional, nonessential information to the main clause. Think about what the sentence would meaning using both of them; if you're not sure what an author meant, query!
  

Invoice template.

Happy birthday a couple days ago to my husband of one year, four months, and four days. Brian was the one to really encourage me to get my freelance career off the ground; his support and love are invaluable to me.

In any case, we were too busy on Sunday for me to fit in a blog! Should've planned better. I recently sent off my first invoice for my first completed freelance project with Word Association. Email me if you'd like the template!

 

There are some contract employees at the office where I work my secretary day job. The first time I processed their invoices, I realized that I needed an invoice too for when I finished working on my first real freelance job! Having a professional invoice lends to your credibility as a responsible, legitimate freelancer.

I think it's very important to be professional as a freelance editor. This may seem obvious to some. It was surprising to see how casual my correspondence with the author and Tom was becoming as I became more comfortable with them. While it is important to maintain a positive, even friendly, relationship with those you work with and for, it is perhaps even more important to remember that you are being paid for your work and they are depending on you to do your best work. No matter how friendly and personable you are, at the end of the day it is your editing prowess that will encourage clients to return and refer your services to others.

Let me know if you'd like the template! Plenty more can be found online. Just make sure it's simple and effectively communicates all the costs for which you are charging. Happy Tuesday!

Comma and.

Quick one today, folks. 

My husband is getting a PhD in electrical engineering, so I don't feel too bad picking on him in a grammar post. He knows stochastic processes, I know how to use commas. Which one is more useful? Anyways, I was editing one of the papers he's preparing to submit to a journal, and I found one comma error that he missed again and again. Maybe he was never taught it, or maybe he was taught it before he started caring about school. Either way, he doesn't know it.

In distributed ECFP, the information gathering scheme is explicitly defined via a preassigned (but arbitrary) communication graph and convergence results are demonstrated when interagent communication is restricted to local neighborhoods conformant to the graph.

Needless to say, I don't edit his papers for content. But despite only knowing what a handful of those words mean, I do know that two complete sentences joined by and also need a comma: "...graph, and convergence..." The only time a comma isn't necessary is when the two independent clauses are short and balanced.

The cat meowed and the dog barked.

But for that long technical sentence, a comma significantly aids in breaking up the thought into two distinct, though related, thoughts and making the sentence as a whole more digestible for the reader. It's one small change that goes a long way.

Because, as, since.

Many of my editing classes were taught by professional editors, but they came from a variety of backgrounds. One was a freelancer who specialized in dissertations, another worked editing instruction manuals. After teaching the rules--as laid out by the Chicago Manual of Style--they still had their own preferences for certain sentence structures, diction, etc. They readily acknowledged that they were biased and warned against thinking that other ways were wrong.

Somewhere along the road of my editing instruction, I was under the impression that because indicated causality, since indicated x happened and y happened because of x, and as was a weak causal word or indicated simultaneous events. I edited accordingly. But lo and behold, in researching for this very blog post, I realized that this rule I was so strictly abiding by was not upheld by Chicago: 

since. This word may relate either to time {since last winter} or to causation {since I’m a golfer, I know what “double bogey” means}. Some writers erroneously believe that the word relates exclusively to time. But the causal since was a part of the English language before Chaucer wrote in the fourteenth century, and it is useful as a slightly milder way of expressing causation than because. But where there is any possibility of confusion with the temporal sense, use because. (5.220)

A little earlier, because, as, and since are all accepted as subordinating conjunctions that indicate causality or reason (5.201). So I stand corrected, although I certainly still have my preferences. Here are some sentences that came up recently that rubbed me the wrong way.

Margaret had been thrilled by these books since they all seemed so new compared to everything the library had.

This sentence initially prompted me to doubt the "rule" I thought I had learned. I still don't like since there.

He has forbidden me to go inside since Henry started working there.

Ambiguous. It could mean she was forbidden when he started working there or for the reason that he is is working there. If the latter, then only because is appropriate.

Soon there was no point in washing anymore as she’d just be rearranging the dirt.

All the noisy rancor suddenly died away as no one could see anything and no one wanted to move.

Both of the above could have because instead of as, and that's how I would prefer it, but to each his own. 

Over and out.

Commas and dialogue.

I was reading a particular manuscript a couple of months ago, and I realized I kept changing commas to periods in dialogue. Again and again and again. No, this character can't say this in the tone of stomping away; he says it while stomping away, or he stomps away after he says it. I found the error of putting a comma after all dialogue, no matter what came after, to be far more prevalent than I thought, and I worry that I was missing this error in earlier manuscripts. To partially right my wrong, I'm sharing what I've learned, hopefully benefiting authors as much as editors.

As an author, it's a struggle to find good verbs to describe precisely how a character is saying something (although there is the argument that "said" is the only dialogue verb ever needed--I'll get into appropriate dialogue verbs another time). However, it is important that the verb can actually be applied to how someone speaks. Below are a couple examples that just don't quite work.

“No servant ever goes outside the palace,” Beatrice sniffed.
Try talking and sniffing. I end up breathing out of my nose a lot. The author is implying the character's haughty attitude. This is conveyed perfectly if the comma is replaced by a period. Beatrice talks, then sniffs, letting the reader know she's being condescending.

“It is true,” Haargen nodded. “We are just travelers seeking food and rest.”
Same story here, except it's physically impossible to nod a sentence. You nod as a gesture in addition to relaying any information more than a simple "yes." A period in place of the comma fixes it again.

So those two examples sentences were understandable. The general rule is dialogue, comma, character who is speaking, and a verb to indicate the tone of what is being said. The example verbs did provide information about tone, but they don't describe how something was said. They were body language cues written out. Below, however, are some more offensive examples.

“Then come closer, man, so that I might greet you better,” the old man waved for them to come closer.
The period here is obvious. These are two sequential thoughts that simply cannot be combined with a comma. And the old man waving doesn't tell the reader anything more about how the old man spoke. Dialogue can be followed by a period, even if the character speaking is mentioned in the next sentence. 

“That’s better,” a goofy smile on his goofy face.
This is actually missing a "he said" in there. A period won't fix it because the second half isn't a complete sentence; there's no subject. Fragments are okay at times, but here it sounds awkward, and again, a character can't goofily smile "that's better." A character can say "that's better" and then goofily smile. I changed this one to read "That's better," he said, a goofy smile on his goofy face.

The take-away: think about what follows dialogue. If the verb doesn't describe the tone of voice, then use a period. 

Finding freelance work.

My husband's cousin, who also graduated with an editing minor, recently contacted me to ask how I found work as a freelance editor. Finding work is naturally one of the more stressful parts of the job; without something to edit, you can't get paid. And even if you find a project, once the project is over you may need to start the search all over again. Here are some ideas:

Self-Publishing Presses. When I moved to Pittsburgh, I didn't have a job and I wanted to edit. So I Googled "publishing press in Pittsburgh." The library chain for Pittsburgh (Carnegie Libraries) had a website that listed some publishing houses in the area. The list included university presses, self-publishing presses, school material publishers, and more. First looking at the list a year ago, I was disappointed that I couldn't find any blatant job postings; I felt that I would be seen as desperate if I emailed a press asking for a job. A year later, I realized that's the only way to go. I picked a couple presses off the list (based on my interest and experience) and emailed their managing editor, describing my experience and attaching my resume. One press said, "sorry, don't need you," and the other asked, "how much do you charge?" And now I freelance for the latter. 

University Presses. While this route didn't work for me, if you live in a city with universities, they are bound to publish anthologies and journals on a variety of topics. Try contacting someone at the press to see if they need an editor. 

ESL Editor. Carnegie Mellon University, where Brian goes to school, has a large foreign student population. Most universities will have a percentage of students who speak English as their second language, and as such, usually need some grammar help when writing college-level papers. This extends even to graduate students writing dissertations and theses. Even people who speak English as their first language need their dissertations edited. So advertise on campus! Make a nice flyer with your rates, contact info, and maybe something to establish your credibility, and hang them up around the university, focusing on communal bulletin boards. If you have a certain subject you'd rather edit, figure out which building houses those kinds of classes and advertise there. You may need to ask permission. 

Local Writing Groups. I ran into a neighbor who has a writing group of about ten people meet at his house every week. Many of them are interested in self-publishing and really need an editor. When he realized I had experience editing, he said he would spread the word and see if anybody wanted to work with me. Try searching online for these kinds of groups; if you get a job with one member of the group, you could likely get a job with another member. 

Online editing. There are several websites where you can advertise or find editing jobs (thumbtack.com, craigslist.com, odesk.com, freelance.com, etc.). These are a last resort for me because I feel like I don't always look as appealing on a website, and you typically have to start out with really low rates until you get good reviews from people. This site has some more detailed ideas about online freelance jobs. 

That's all I got, folks. Feel free to share your own ideas or ask questions! Happy Sunday!

Call me a freelancer.

I have officially started my paid freelance career as an editor.

You may rightly ask what I have been doing with my sweet time since graduating with my editing minor over a year ago. Well let me tell you: editing for cheap. Very cheap. But recently I started freelancing for Word Association Publishers, and I feel like a valued and useful member of a publishing press for the first time. So I decided it was time to start an editing blog as a way to chronicle my journey as a freelancer as well as discuss topics that catch my attention as I edit.

Thank you to Tom, who is giving me a chance to become the editor I always wanted to be.