How many times do you run across phrases like this?

David just sent me a text from his cell phone.
I have to be there at 10 AM in the morning.
He was all alone by himself.
The rugged kayak lover grew up in a tiny little town.

Stop! There’s no need to repeat yourself. We know that a text message is not being sent from a toaster, and that 10 AM will always be morning. When you’re writing, it’s good to be creative and allow your juices to flow. Get everything down. But when you’re editing, streamline. Cut everything that’s unnecessary. It will make for a much cleaner sentence… And there is no need to add “please” to RSVP because SVP stands for s’il vous plaît, the French term for please.

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, an editor, and the author of three books, including the newly released Be Your Own Editor, available on Lulu or on Amazon in paperback, and on Kindle.

People often confuse then and than, although they mean completely different things. Then is most often used as an adverb, and it indicates something that takes place after an initial action, whereas than is a conjunction usually used to make comparisons. Here are some examples:

“I ordered Chinese food. Then I went looking for a great DVD.”
“I ordered Chinese food, which is much better than Thai in my opinion.”

The hazard of using “then” is that it’s easy to write a run-on sentence, because it often seems as though “then” is still part of your initial sentence, but it’s not. Example — “I got in the car, then turned on the radio.” That’s not officially correct. If you’re a stickler for grammar, you can rephrase it by saying, “I got in the car, and then turned on the radio.” Or make it into two sentences: “I got in the car. Then I turned on the radio.”

Hope everyone enjoyed their Chinese take-in, DVDs, and great music over the weekend.

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, a manuscript evaluator, and the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, now available on Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/2a3zx6t (Paperback) and http://tinyurl.com/2blyqng (Kindle).

Lately, I’ve been listening to a CD called “Warning” by Green Day. In fact, it’s been on instant replay in my car. I often sing along — only in private, mind you — and I always sing the wrong word on a certain line. I finally figured out why that is. It’s because the boys are mixing past and present tense, and I’m automatically filling in the correct grammatical version.

Here’s the line from “Macy’s Day Parade”: “When I was a kid, I thought I wanted all the things that I haven’t got.” Okay. What’s wrong with that sentence? The words “thought” and “wanted” are both in past tense, but the word “haven’t,” a contraction for “have not,” is in present tense. There are a couple of ways to fix this. First, we could say, “When I was a kid I thought, I wanted all the things that I had not (or hadn’t) got.” That keeps everything in past tense. Second, we could have someone from the present reflect back on the past, and rephrase the sentence like this: “When I was a kid, I thought, I want all the things that I haven’t got.” (Many people use italics for thoughts, instead of quotation marks.)

Who knew how educational Green Day could be?

Sigrid Macdonald, Author of Be Your Own Editor, now available on Amazon : http://beyourowneditor.com

Here’s a small sampling of the jobs available for editors this week. Got a hot tip? Drop us a comment and share the love!

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt seeks a K-12 editor for their Evanston, Illinois office. Note that this is an on-site position, not a telecommute.

The Motley Fool is searching for an editor with an obsessive streak to work in their Alexandria VA office. If you’re a grammar freak with no problems working with a Content Management System, give this one a try. Again, this is an onsite gig.

This NY Craigslist ad looks promising–the ad requests a content editor, which is a bit different than a typical editing gig as it requires specialized knowledge of content management systems and other specialized info. Got a knack for both copy editing AND gap analysis? This could be the gig for you.

The University of Maryland has a full-time editor gig open which includes work on web-based teaching materials. Chances are you’ll edit a combination of distance learning and traditional ed coursework.

Good luck!

Alright Versus Altogether
Sometimes, the words all right and altogether look as though they are related and that they should both be spelled the same way. But this is not the case. All right is always spelled as two words; the one word version is incorrect. Altogether, on the other hand, may be spelled as one word or two, depending on the meaning. Here are some examples:
1. “Altogether, Greg was satisfied with his thesis.” In this instance, altogether is an adverb meaning wholly, completely or entirely.
2. “We were all together for Thanksgiving.” In this sentence, the phrase means everybody or everyone.
How can we tell when to use what? If you can omit the word all, and just say together, it should be spelled as two words. If you can’t omit all, you probably need to use altogether.
Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, an editor, a writer for Freelance-Zone.com, and the author of three books, including Getting Hip, D’Amour Road, and Be Your Own Editor. Visit her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/.

Me, myself and I look like simple words that we use on a regular basis, but they’re easy to misuse. Here’s an example: “Matt and myself are going to the movies.” Writers may think they’re being more formal by talking that way, but it’s not proper usage. The correct way to phrase that sentence would be, “Matt and I are going to the movies.”

When do we use myself? When the word actually reflects back on us: “I feel the same way myself.” Use of this reflexive pronoun is becoming less popular, unless you want to emphasize a point. For example, “President Obama himself greeted us at the door.”

What about me and I? You can say, “Marianne and I are best friends; she tells me everything.” You don’t want to say, “Marianne and me are best friends; she tells I everything.” Most of the time you can figure that one out by reading it out loud.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, available at Lulu.com. Check her out at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/.