All about commas

Ambiguity

Be specific! Use less -ly adverbs and "like" descriptors, and write strong, sure words.

What’s Up With That: Why It’s So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos

Republished from http://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-typos/

By Nick Stockton 

Article edited in MS Word, tracking changes

 You have finally finished writing your article. You’ve sweat over your choice of words and agonized about the best way to arrange them to effectively get your point across. You comb for errors, and by the time you publish you are absolutely certain that not a single typo survived. But, the first thing your readers notice isn’t your carefully crafted message, it’s the misspelled word in the fourth sentence.

Typos suck. They are saboteurs, undermining your intent, causing your resume to land in the “pass” pile, or providing sustenance for an army of pedantic critics. Frustratingly, they are usually words you know how to spell, but somehow skimmed over in your rounds of editing. If we are our own harshest critics, why do we miss those annoying little details? 


The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart, explains psychologist Tom Stafford, who studies typos of the University of Sheffield in the UK. “When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task,” he said.

As with all high level tasks, your brain generalizes simple, component parts (like turning letters into words and words into sentences) so it can focus on more complex tasks (like combining sentences into complex ideas). “We don’t catch every detail, we’re not like computers or NSA databases,” said Stafford. “Rather, we take in sensory information and combine it with what we expect, and we extract meaning.” When we’re reading other peoples’ work, this helps us arrive at meaning faster by using less brain power. When we’re proof reading our own work, we know the meaning we want to convey. Because we expect that meaning to be there, it’s easier for us to miss when parts (or all) of it are absent. The reason we don’t see our own typos is because what we see on the screen is competing with the version that exists in our heads.

This can be something as trivial as transposing the letters in “the” to “hte,” or something as significant as omitting the core explanation of your article. In fact, I made both of these mistakes when I wrote this story. The first was a misspelling in a sentence that my editor had to read aloud for me before I saw it for myself. The second mistake was leaving out the entire preceding paragraph that explains why we miss our own typos.

Generalization is the hallmark of all higher-level brain functions. It’s similar to how our brains build maps of familiar places, compiling the sights, smells, and feel of a route. That mental map frees your brain up to think about other things. Sometimes this works against you, like when you accidentally drive to work on your way to a barbecue, because the route to your friend’s house includes a section of your daily commute. We can become blind to details because our brain is operating on instinct. By the time you proof read your own work, your brain already knows the destination.

This explains why your readers are more likely to pick up on your errors. Even if you are using words and concepts that they are also familiar with, their brains are on this journey for the first time, so they are paying more attention to the details along the way and not anticipating the final destination.

But even if familiarization handicaps your ability to pick out mistakes in the long run, we’re actually pretty awesome at catching ourselves in the act. (According to Microsoft, backspace is the third-most used button on the keyboard.) In fact, touch typists—people who can type without looking at their fingers—know they’ve made a mistake even before it shows up on the screen. Their brain is so used to turning thoughts into letters that it alerts them when they make even minor mistakes, like hitting the wrong key or transposing two characters. In a study published earlier this year, Stafford and a colleague covered both the screen and keyboard of typists and monitored their word rate. These “blind” typists slowed down their word rate just before they made a mistake.

Touch typists are working off a subconscious map of the keyboard. As they type, their brains are instinctually preparing for their next move. “But, there’s a lag between the signal to hit the key and the actual hitting of the key,” Stafford said. In that split second, your brain has time to run the signal it sent your finger through a simulation telling it what the correct response will feel like. When it senses an error, it sends a signal to the fingers, slowing them down so they have more time to adjust.

As any typist knows, hitting keys happens too fast to divert a finger when it’s in the process of making a mistake. But, Stafford says this evolved from the same mental mechanism that helped our ancestors’ brains make micro adjustments when they were throwing spears.

Unfortunately, that kind of instinctual feedback doesn’t exist in the editing process. When you’re proof reading, you are trying to trick your brain into pretending that it’s reading the thing for the first time. Stafford suggests that if you want to catch your own errors, you should try to make your work as unfamiliar as possible. Change the font or background color, or print it out and edit by hand.

“Once you’ve learned something in a particular way, it’s hard to see the details without changing the visual form,” he said.

Why you need an editor, even if you're in a hurry or broke

© 2013 Christy K Robinson

I get it.

• You’ve been a writer since you were able to read, and you have a good command of English.
• Your writing application has spell-check, and even gives a wavy green underline for questionable prose.
• Your mother is a better speller than you are, and she read it through for free.
• There’s only a short window of time to get your self-pub on the market before you’re broke, the topic loses momentum, or the gifting season ends.
• The story is “the thing,” and spelling, rhetoric, punctuation, characterization, and story arc can take a back seat to driving the high-performance story.

Right?

Yeah, not so much.

Some readers believe that a book or publication with more than one error is a mark of the author’s disrespect for readers. Others say that if an author can’t present the information or story in a standardized form, they can't be trusted to have their facts or history well-researched. 

Remember the carpenter's old saw: "Measure twice. Cut once." If you're in such a rush to get your golden prose onto the market that you can't wait a few weeks or a month to go through an edit and revisions, then you can't wait to have your mistakes (grand and memorable blunders or simple typos) entwined with your byline, preserved for all time in e-readers or bookshelves.

Don't think that your mistakes won't affect your sales. Dissatisfied readers will not sully their names and reputations by recommending your book! The following are comments I've cherry-picked from Amazon and Goodreads reviewers who don’t claim to be editors:

• “Far too many grammatical & spelling mistakes on every page.”
• “I found it difficult to read, because of the poor grammar and some spellings. Want some examples? There, instead of their, and the dreaded grocer's apostrophe. Perhaps the last one should be grocers' apostrophe, as they all seem to use it. Overall, a good tale, very topical, but could perhaps have been cut down by around 100 pages.”
  
• “Appalling punctuation and grammar, which made it virtually impossible to read. It's one of the few books I haven't been able to finish. Very disappointing.”
• “What an awkward book. I kept wanting to add all the missing words and reverse the order of many that were there so that sentences made sense. I love books that draw you in, flow along with the story timeline, and allow you to get lost in the lives of the characters. This story does none of those things.”
• “I find the story interesting, the characters well-drawn, the pacing good, and the scenes vivid. But the many grammatical errors and formatting are terribly distracting! There are pages missing from Chapter 18. Words that the author wishes to emphasize are written in all-caps. The point of view changes abruptly between characters, and often I'm not sure who is emoting or speaking. "They're and there" and "your and you're" will certainly pass a Microsoft Word spell check, but glare up off the pages. The differences between British and American spellings or expressions are not an issue for me. Spelling, though, cannot be an excuse for the other problems with this manuscript.”

Don't let a spell-checker stand in for an editor! As a reader, I can't finish an article or book that contains more than one or two misspellings, lacks proper punctuation, or uses the wrong homonym (bait/bate, pore/pour). Just a moment ago, I saw a headline for an information blog that advertised: "Cabbage leaf will relive migraine headache." If the author can't tell the difference between "relive" and "relieve," I don't need to waste my time reading the article. No need to relive misery. Do you see what happened there (besides the fact that I'm picky)? The blog author lost the opportunity to draw me in. I didn't visit, and he/she lost respect as well as possible advertising revenue. 

I've been a professional editor and proofreader for many years, but when I published my first novel (second book), I put it out to professional colleagues to catch the things I'd become blind to over the two years of writing. I took their edits and was grateful for them. This is my reputation on the line, as well as anticipated sales of the book.

Notice that the popular authors (Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, William Butler Yeats) listed on Mental Floss had editors to save their butts everlasting reputations. Eleven Historical Figures Who Were Really Bad at Spelling  

So call me! I'll edit your book, article, website, syllabus, dissertation or thesis for very reasonable rates. My contact info is on my website, http://ChristyKRobinson.com.

A haiku for the morning

Japanese haiku is a poem of three lines with seventeen syllables, which are separated into five-, seven-, and five-syllable lines. Haiku often focus on nature, peace, and emotion. 

REVIEW and excerpt of Ann Swinfen's FLOOD

Review  © by Christy K Robinson

I read portions of hundreds of books every year, as part of the research for my own historical novels. I rarely review books because it wouldn’t be fair to the authors to rate or recommend their work after reading a few chapters or gleaning the info I needed. Flood, by Ann Swinfen, beat the odds because it was both great background information on culture and environment of the 17^th century (my field of study), but it was beautifully constructed and a story well told. I read the entire book in only a few sittings.

Flood is a fictional story set in real events of the mid-1640s, the hostile takeover and destruction of centuries-old family farms and businesses located in England’s East Anglian fens, which are seasonal wetlands, rivers, canals, and saltwater/freshwater marshes. The rich and powerful believe themselves entitled to take livelihoods and lives in their pursuit of profit. And the people they come against will not be victims.

When Swinfen describes village customs or the extended-family relationships in a small village, she uses imagery that stimulates the senses: the stink of skinned eels, the unexpected delicacy of a wildflower, the trusting nuzzle of a dairy cow, the sharp dig and long-term cramps of torture restraints. 

The author used the events surrounding the real Witchfinder General, who tortured and killed hundreds of innocent men and women in the 1640s. The protagonist and her friend were accused of witchcraft and Swinfen describes the experience of one who survived the testing and trials.

************

Read an article about the Fenland Riots, by Ann Swinfen, 

at http://marybarrettdyer.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-english-fens-in-william-dyers-blood.html

************

The book’s action and romance began early, but they were both carefully paced. The conflict and drama steadily simmered to a boiling point—ironically, in freezing flood waters. The characters weren’t too holy or too evil, and weren’t predictable. I would have liked an unambiguous resolution or epilogue at the end of the book, but since real life is usually unresolved, I can draw my own conclusions, or research the end of the scheme for myself. (And I did.) 

The genius of Swinfen’s 17^th-century Flood story is that it so closely parallels the politics and economy of the 21^st century. (I don’t think she intended that—the book is not a political thriller.) I compared yeoman farmers and small business owners, the “Adventurers” and the One Percent vulture capitalists, the rape of the environment (fens then and mineral or fuel mining now), the economically depressed villagers and the long-term unemployed, the soldiers who joined the military for one reason and were virtually enslaved for another reason, the corrupt courts, the politicians bought off by corporations and plutocrats, the marriage of religion and government causing oppression, protesters trying to take back a lifestyle and heritage stolen from them—why does this sound so familiar? But Swinfen’s fictional story in real events rings true four centuries later because although cultures change, people do not.

I bought the Kindle edition. But I wish I’d bought the book, which is more substantial in my opinion. Flood is a keeper. Highly recommended! (5/5 stars) Flood is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The author has given me permission to share an excerpt from the first chapter. I chose this section for its descriptive prose. There are many other excellent scenes. 

Flood, by Ann Swinfen

© 2014 Ann Swinfen, all rights reserved.

Excerpt by permission of author.

Barley was sown for beer and beans and peas for the pot. The medlands were filled with the carefree scamperings of the new lambs, while the young calves, one moment quietly following their mothers, would suddenly flick their tails in the air and gallop across the grass in joyous freedom of their youth, innocent of the heavy bodies and lumbering gait that would burden their mature years.

‘It will be the first of May next week, and soon after that Rogationtide,’ Gideon Clarke reminded my father, as they sat on a bench, leaning against the warm southern wall of our house and smoking their long pipes while I cleared weeds from my rows of onions and carrots.

‘And have the Puritans banned that too?’ Father asked.

‘No doubt. I have not heard. In any case, I mean to beat the bounds with all who will accompany me.’

‘We will come. The whole village.’ My father had no need to ask the rest of us. We had not missed the beating of the bounds even during the War.

I stood up, easing my back and dusting the soil from my hands.

‘And shall we have a Maying?’ I asked.

‘Fetching in the May, and a maypole, and a summer queen? Every bit. Would you be our queen, Mercy?’ Gideon was laughing and I blushed, with his eyes on me. For the last few years Alice had been the queen, but she was a married woman now.

‘That would be for the village to choose,’ I said with a fine show of modesty. ‘But I do think we should have a Maying. Beat the parish bounds to show that we are not afraid of these men who would steal our land. And hold a Maying to show we are not afraid of the godly Genevans who would put an end to all joy.’

‘The surveyors have been gone these three days.’ Tom had come out of the barn and joined us.

‘’Tis to be regretted. I would have liked to lift two fingers to them as we beat the bounds, but – surveyors or not – I agree that we should have both the Maying and the beating of the bounds. Let them think what they will.’ He did not say who he meant by ‘they’, but we understood him well enough.

Preparations went ahead swiftly. Before dawn on May Day, all the young people of the village went out to fetch in May blossom from the hedgerows, to deck our houses and the church. It was the first time in my whole life that I went without Alice, but I took our little Kitty with me. She was one of the village paupers, a church-door foundling, though it was whispered she belonged to Joseph Waters’s daughter, who had gone off, soon afterwards, with a travelling pedlar. Kitty had scrambled up, hand-to-mouth on parish charity, and had come to us, at eight years old, as general servant. She was eleven now. Not a stupid child, and willing. She had never been a-Maying before and skipped along at my side, her eyes bright with the excitement of a few hours away from washing greasy pots and muddy flagstones.

‘Is this what we want, mistress?’ She broke a cluster of whitethorn blossom from the branch and held it out to me.

‘Aye, but not like that. We need long stems so we can weave them round the pillars and altar rails in the church. But take care! The thorns are sharp.’

‘I remember last May.’ Her face glowed. ‘And we will have some for the master’s house too?’

I laughed. Kitty was in awe of Father. In her eyes our house belonged solely to him. The rest of the family counted for little.

‘We’ll gather plenty, then we can pin it up round the doors, and along the mantel.’

‘Can we put some over the barn door too? I know the beasts will love to celebrate May Day. Especially Blackthorn and Blaze.’

I smiled at the thought of the staid cow and our quiet gelding rejoicing in the Maying. ‘Aye, if we gather enough. We need sweet eglantine as well. There’s a hedge of it further along. And sops-in-wine.’

‘Is that a flower?’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know it.’

‘It grows in low clumps. A deep red flower with white patches. So it looks like red wine with sops floating in it, such as rich invalids are given.’

‘Like the bread sops we put in pottage?’

‘Aye, like that.’

The heady scents of spring followed us along the lane. The young people of the village, all those unmarried, had turned out every one. Parliament might try to ban our merry-making, but for this last year at least we would have our Maying. There must have been twenty of us, all who had grown up together within the boundaries of this parish, and later in the month we would follow Gideon with his cross and prayerbook, and beat the young children at the parish bounds, that they would know their land and their rights and never forget them.

From time to time some of our companions would pair off and slip away behind a hedge, for May is the time for courting. And if we heard squeals and laughter, we smiled and passed on along the lane. There would be new babes in the village, come the turn of the year, and perhaps a few hasty weddings beforehand. Though I was fond enough of the village boys I had known all my life, none could tempt me away to tumble in the young grass, despite hints and a few stolen kisses.

The lads were collecting supple young birch branches, just coming into leaf, which would provide a strong framework for our garlands and wreathes. Tom, with his friends Toby Ashford and Jack Sawyer, cut down a straight young beech to make our maypole, and carried it back between them to set up on the green, accompanied by the blowing of horns and beating of drums. While they dug a hole and set the maypole, firming it in with the edge of their boots, the rest of us decorated the church, winding the branches through the carved openings of the ancient altar rail, garlanding the font and pillars, and draping swags of blossom across the altar.  By now the sun was fully up and we went home to decorate our doorways and eat our breakfasts. I gave Kitty the rest of the branches and flowers to swag the animals’ quarters, while I joined Tom in the kitchen for a hasty meal of porridge and ale. As we were eating, Gideon came in, his eyes lit with laughter.

‘So, it is to be your turn this year, Mercy. The village has chosen you our summer queen.’

He took my hand and kissed it, dropping on one knee. ‘Your humble servant, Your Majesty!’

I looked down at his thick curls and felt my breath catch in my throat. I feared he was merely humouring me, as he used to do when I did well in my lessons, but he held my hand tightly, and his lips lingered on my skin. Then he turned my hand over and kissed the palm, so that a shudder ran through me.

‘So many years in Alice’s shadow,’ I said, as lightly as I could. ‘At last I will lead the revels! I hope I will not disgrace the village.’

Gideon stood up, and released my hand slowly.

‘You will wear your crown with beauty and dignity,’ he said, looking at me intently.

I could not hold his gaze, but dropped my eyes and felt the heat of my skin burn from my neck to my hair.

__________________

 Dr. Ann Swinfen (http://www.annswinfen.com) published three novels with Random House, but her three latest – The Testament of Mariam, Flood, and The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez – she has published herself under the imprint Shakenoak Press. Loving the whole independent publishing process, and the control it offers to authors, she thinks it unlikely she would ever return to conventional publishing. Some of her short stories which previously appeared in magazines and on BBC radio are now published on Kindle. She has also reissued her backlist titles as paperbacks and Kindles.

Ode to a Publisher-Editor

"An honest Stationer (or Publisher) is he, that exercizeth his Mystery (whether it be in printing, bynding or selling of Bookes) with more respect to the glory of God & the publike advantage than to his owne Commodity & is both an ornament & a profitable member in a civill Commonwealth.... 
If he be a Printer he makes conscience to exemplefy his Coppy fayrely & truly. 

"If he be a Booke-bynder, he is no meere Bookeseller (that is) one who selleth meerely ynck & paper bundled up together for his owne advantage only: but he is a Chapman of Arts, of wisdome, & of much experience for a little money.... 

"The reputation of Schollers is as deare unto him as his owne: For, he acknowledgeth that from them his Mystery had both begining and means of continuance. He heartely loves & seekes the Prosperity of his owne Corporation: Yet he would not injure the Universityes to advantage it. 

"In a word, he is such a man that the State ought to cherish him; Schollers to love him; good Customers to frequent his shopp; and the whole Company of Stationers to pray for him."

--GEORGE WITHER (1588-1667), poet, author

One can only hope Wither wasn't writing satire!