Editing rant

Hey everyone!  Happy almost Friday!  ;)

So far, I've edited two news articles for Sharpsburg Voice.  Transitions, punctuation, and the occasional mis-spelled or absent word aside, they were quite manageable and interesting posts.  Today (and yesterday for a few hours), though, I've been working on this other article...and, man, it's been a long time since I've seen writing this...rough.

I know I've posted about most of these writing issues before, but I'm going to reiterate again for the sake of ranting against these problems, which are really common and really obnoxious for editors to edit.  Please brace yourself for the fury of my capitalization screaming and TAKE NOTES SO YOU DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES GRRR.

STOP IT #1.) ENOUGH WITH "IT" AND "THERE".

In my last post about "it" and "there", I was discussing how "it" and "there" in the nominative case tend to automatically turn sentences passive.  While the passive voice is a pretty serious writing crime, I have come to learn of a new and more dreadful terror, which I am affectionately naming the "WHAT IS THIS WORD'S ANTECEDENT?".  When you jam a bunch of nouns into a sentence and then include multiple "it's" into the next sentence, no one is going to have a bloody idea of what "it" is referring to.

For example: "The cat, unlike the dog, was napping on the dried grass in the scorching sunlight.  It was important because it had been playing the day before as well."  In this case, the first "it" could refer to the detail of the cat's napping or the detail of the dog not napping.  The second "it" could also refer to either the dog or the cat, depending on what the author's intention is.

Now, I understand that this is an easy trap to fall into.  As an author, you tend to have everything figured out in your head, and so you write "it", knowing that "it" refers to the cat and not the dog.  But your readers don't.  Please please please read over your writing once or twice as if you were reading someone else's work (and not your own) to avoid this error.

STOP IT #2.) I GET WRITING TICKS TOO, BUT YOURS ARE MORE ANNOYING.

When I wrote my post about writing ticks, I sincerely thought that "suddenly" was the utter most aggravating word in the world.  I mean, let's not beat around the bush; writing ticks stink, guys.  Instead of using a new and interesting transition phrase every few sentences, you get stuck on one particular phrase or word that you put down repeatedly without realizing it.

In editing this article, though, I amend my anger for the phrase "in his case", which, when used three or four times in a three hundred and fifty word article, becomes probably the most twitch-worthy tick I will ever have seen in my seventeen years.  For the sake of the editors in the world, do our health and lifespans a favor and take the time to eliminate your writing ticks with new transition phrases.

STOP IT #3.) PRINT AND READ OUT-LOUD...I'M BEGGING YOU.

I am convinced - as in, I am choosing this hill to die upon - that any piece of writing that is printed and slowly read aloud will improve 90%.  Yes, I too make small and stupid mistakes on this site, but I'm really only writing here for fun, and the editing I do for my posts is minimal.  If you're turning in a school paper or, more importantly, publishing on an online news site, your work better be good.  Forgetting words and commas, mis-spelling words, boring sentence variation - these are simply unacceptable in a professional setting.

If you print out your writing to get an actual hard copy in your hands and then read your words aloud as you edit, your work will improve drastically.  Trust me on this one.

Okay.

I think that's all I want to rant about for now.

Depending on how many hours I spend on this article, I may come back with a part two, hehe.

Write on (AND FOLLOW MY TIPS OR I WILL SLAYYY YOUUU)!

Clove