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.