One-line review

An indispensable book on editing for the layperson that applies to more than just business editing–the cover does not do the content justice.

What drew me to the book

Jim Taylor, the author of Quick Fixes for Business Writing, was giving a workshop on his eight step editing process through the Editors Association of Canada (EAC). I wasn’t inclined to go until other editors (some with 30 years of experience) raved about previous workshops by Jim Taylor. I reconsidered, but ultimately couldn’t make it but there was mention of a book based on the workshop so I tracked that down at my local library.

My thoughts on the book

I have a confession to make: You know the person who judges a book by its cover? I have to admit that’s me. The cover of Quick Fixes for Business Writing has a very low-budget feel to it that would have put me off without the background that pushed me to check out the book in the first place. It’s also double-spaced (which seems an odd choice to me) and has neither a table of contents nor an index. The content, however, is great. So great that I actually ordered my own copy from the publisher (they only sell direct) for my reference library (that would be the bookcase next to my desk).

So why did I like this book?

It helped me get a handle on one of the toughest problems of editing, which is fixing a piece of writing without imposing your own style and voice onto it. This book’s subtitle is An Eight-Step Editing Process to Find and Correct Common Readability Problems and that’s what makes it valuable: It gives you a system to assess a particular writer’s most pressing editing needs as well as a system for pinpointing what types of things need changing and why. The why is important because as an edit becomes more invasive it becomes more noticeable to the writer (and many writers will question why you are rearranging or changing their words).

This book is written for the layperson, in particular the business manager who has to edit reports or other documents written by subordinates and co-workers. The eight steps move from least invasive (changes least likely to be noticed by an author) to most invasive (rewriting sentences and rearranging paragraphs). It is written in a straightforward and conversational way that guides you through what to do, how to do it and why to do it.

Although the focus of the book is editing business writing, the principles and steps can be adapted to other types of writing. If I’m faced with editing my own writing, I now pull the book off the shelf and start going through the eight steps. Having the steps prevents that paralysis phase of not knowing where to begin–especially with a long piece of writing.

About the book author

Jim Taylor can be found online at his blog.

Find this book online

Quick Fixes for Business Writing: Productive Publications US | Canada

Surprisingly useful ideas, but the high list price of the book is a turn off.

What drew me to the book

Being somewhat bored with my book blog, I’ve been looking for ideas to revitalize Booklorn in this sparkly new year. I came across this book cruising the digital shelves of my public library and decided to see if it could get me out of my slump.

My thoughts on the book

When I first looked through this book (while eating New York Fries with mayonnaise in the food court, but I’ve been informed that none of you care), I was disappointed. The ideas seemed fairly obvious and geared toward the general personal blog. I finished the book in less than an hour.

Once I gave my brain time to digest the suggestions in the book, I was a little more positive. I started to see possible blog posts for niche blogs. I started being more creative and thinking outside of the box. I flipped to the back of the book to see if I might want a copy for my bookshelf: $25 CDN/$20 USD for 128 pages including index. I decided that I wasn’t quite as inspired as that.

This is a slim book, divided into five chapters based mostly on how much time you have to write your blog post:

1. Fifteen Minutes to Fame
2. Thirty Minutes Away from the TV
3. An Hour at the Screen
4. Take Your Time
5. Think Like a Writer

Each chapter has 20 ideas, with one idea per page. The main idea is the title of the page, which is accompanied by an explanatory paragraph that often includes an example of the idea in action from a real blog (but not the actual blog post). The ideas are varied enough that you are likely to pick up at least a few new ideas that you can rework for your blog no matter how narrow your topic.

If I could pick up a copy for $10, I would do it without hesitation. At $25 CDN ($20 USD), I’ll just take it out of the library the next time I need inspiration.

About the book author

Margaret Mason can be found online at her sites MightyGirl.com and MightyGoods.com, as well as at The Morning News.

Buy this book online (links go directly to book page)

US: Amazon

Canada: Amazon Canada

Europe: Amazon UK

Book details

Paperback: 128 pages (NOT 144 pages as you see mentioned elsewhere)
Publisher: Peachpit Press (2007)
ISBN-10: 032144972X
ISBN-13: 978-0321449726

Disclosure

I took this book out of my local public library. I get a few pennies if you buy through one of the links above based on my review.

The Book

Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us: A (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected by Jessica Page Morrell is exactly what the title claims it is. In a blunt, sometimes sarcastic, manner, developmental editor Morrell takes you through the various aspects of a manuscript. From beginner faux pas like extraneous adjectives and adverbs to more subtle elements like creating suspense and using sensory details, she points out what sorts of things will get your manuscript tossed into the circular file and provides direction on how to fix these issues.

The Review

I’ve read a previous book by Jessica Page Morrell that is heavily sticky-noted and reread at least once every year. What I liked about that book is that Morrell went beyond the beginner level of writing and got into the more subtle elements of what makes writing good. Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us covers both beginner level issues and more subtle issues that might be keeping your manuscript from being published.

The tone is occasionally snarky and it’s no secret. Even the cover design is a bit snarky, suggesting that manuscripts are used as coasters. Chapter one begins like this:

Dear Wanna Be a Published Writer:

This isn’t a book about false promises or cheery rah-rahs. This book never claims that anyone can write a best seller or become a billionaire just by typing away, or even that writing is the greatest joy because, after all, we cannot forget about dancing, chocolate, and sex. Rather, it’s written by a Demon of Harsh Reality and meant as a hefty dose of reality along with encouragement to keep trying, to keep learning. Because writing is a craft, and it can be learned.” –pg 9

For the most part, the tone is blunt but helpful so the occasional snark isn’t hard to take (I have been known to be somewhat snarky myself so this sort of thing doesn’t bother me in the least, particularly when the advice is clearly good). If you survived Miss Snark‘s blog you’ll find that Morrell is much gentler overall, but equally informative.

The chapters cover beginnings, plot, structure, mood, dialogue, characters, scenes, and emotions. There are also chapters on memoirs, doing a final edit, and not driving your editor insane. As well as an index, the back of the book has two glossaries: fiction lingo and publishing lingo (which is nice, because sometimes it feels like everyone else knows these terms even if you don’t).

Each chapter is divided into chunks with headings and subheadings, which makes the book easy to scan to find what you are looking for. There are recurring elements in each chapter, like a reading list of books focused on a particular topic. I found that I often have at least one of the books listed in the reading list and since I’m happy with the ones I have, I’m inclined to check out some of the others on the list when I have time.

A ‘Quick & Dirty Tips’ list that summarizes what you need to take away from the chapter and apply to your writing is included at the end of each chapter. Since I use most writing books as reference books, I find that list helpful in refreshing my memory (it also lessens the need for me to take my own notes, which I inevitably lose). There is also a short ‘Try This’ exercise in each chapter that helps you address a particular problem. It’s one thing to know that you have a certain problem and quite another to figure where to start to fix it so the ‘Try This’ sections are particularly helpful because they give a place to start–even if it’s just taking a highlighter to your manuscript to see how often you use modifiers or sensory details to convince you that you do indeed have a problem (or reassure you that you don’t).

The Verdict

This one is a keeper. Jessica Page Morrell, as a developmental editor, helps authors polish their manuscripts for a living and it shows. If you need to polish your manuscript, going through this book will help you find your manuscript’s weaknesses and figure out what to do about it (assuming, of course, that you can acknowledge that your manuscript has weaknesses–if you can’t, then no book will help you).

You can find Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us: A (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected at amazon (US, Canada, & UK), as well as at other online and retail booksellers.

The Book

Writing for the Web, 4th Edition by Crawford Killian touches on all aspects of writing web content including website structure/organization, word choice, style, and editing. Also addressed is the issue of writing for different audiences in sections on corporate websites, blogs, and marketing/advocacy writing.

The Review

Take a quick spin around the Internet and you’ll find a number of sites (including corporations) that need a lesson in writing online copy. If the job of writing web copy has fallen to you and you’re not quite sure how it should be different from printed copy or if you simply want to know how to write better for the online medium, then Writing for the Web, 4th Edition is a readable, useful book to have on hand.

An introduction to hypertext starts off the book. Using the history of the medium, Killian explains why online and offline are different and deserve different treatment. The author goes on to cover structuring a website, organizing a website, writing good content, editing webtext (print if off to read!), corporate webwriting, writing for blogs, advocacy and marketing on the web, and frequently asked questions.

Each chapter is subdivided with many lists, bullets, and examples that make it easy to understand and remember the points being made. It is nice to see references (usually online so the reader can access them) to back up the occasional statistic or other figure used to make a point. The occasional exercise is included so that you can practice the concepts discussed (sample answers for some exercises are even included in an appendix). Some chapters also include handy reference lists, like a list of frequently confused words (like ‘affect’ versus ‘effect’) and lists of common abbreviations.

Despite being suitable for use as a textbook (it has in fact been used for workshops and college courses), Writing for the Web, 4th Edition is an easy read. Written in a conversational tone that speaks directly to the reader using language that seventh graders’ can understand, Killian practices the concepts of reading level and writing tone that he teaches in the book. Too bad more textbook writers don’t do the same (I would have spent more time reading and less time sleeping while studying if that had been the case).

Like other Self-Counsel Press books, Writing for the Web, 4th Edition comes with digital content, but thankfully this book has its additional content online so it is accessible to both Mac and Windows users (or, for that matter, users of any other type of operating system). Killian’s blog devoted to web writing is actually quite useful and not your typical author “buy-my-book” blog.

At 150 pages, Writing for the Web, 4th Edition is short enough not to be intimidating but long enough to convey a lot of useful information and serve as a handy reference to keep on hand.

You can buy this and other Self-Counsel Press books from Self-Counsel Press (US & Canada) and Amazon (US, Canada & UK).

Do the Web Write: Writing for and Marketing Your Website by Dan Furman takes you through writing your business site. Although he does spend some time on structure and navigation, Furman focuses on content writing in this book by addressing the question: Just what the heck am I supposed to put on my website anyway?

Like his other book, Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business (which I reviewed), this book is written in a conversational tone that is easy to read.

The book covers which pages you should have on your site, what you should put on each of these pages, and how to write the content. There are also sections on SEO, text formatting, conversion rates, press releases and testing your website copy. For the most part the advice is useful and easy to implement (in fact, I think Furman addresses just about every pet peeve I have about small business websites included hopelessly outdated blogs or outdated What’s New sections–hint: don’t do that).

At one point Furman goes on at some length about not needing to know the rules of punctuation in order to write. His point is that writing the way you were taught to in grade school with full sentences and thesis statements at the beginning of paragraphs and the like is inappropriate for the web.

While I completely agree with that point (many of the “rules” you learn in school are actually not rules), I disagree that you don’t need to know proper punctuation. In order to break rules effectively, you first have to know them. I think Furman does a disservice to readers by suggesting otherwise. This is a relatively minor part of the book, but it’s the only advice that I just couldn’t get behind.

This book, like his other book, comes with a CD of forms and samples that are very useful but not printed in the book. The CD is not Mac compatible, which I mentioned in my last review, but the publisher says they are working on the issue (see comments on previous review) so I won’t go over it again.

The CD samples include a checklist for maintaining your website (like making sure all the links, forms, etc. work–obvious, but then why do so many sites fail at this?), several examples of press releases Furman has done for his own business, a press release template, and a questionnaire to help you get feedback on your site.

If you need to write content for your website, or you’re hiring someone to do it, then this is a handy reference that should help you write or at least recognize content that will work on your website. You can buy this and other Self-Counsel Press books from Self-Counsel Press (US and Canada) and Amazon (US, Canada, UK).

You can also win a copy of this book or another Self-Counsel book right here. As soon as I put up the contest post. Soon. Today, even–assuming my laptop doesn’t implode. I mean it this time. I think I promised to post the contest soon after the last Self-Counsel Press review, but life happened and it didn’t get done.

Ever wondered what private detectives do? Well I’m toying with the idea with having a main character of mine work as one, so I picked up a copy of Private Eyes: A Writer’s Guide to Private Investigating (Howdunit Series) by Hal Blythe, Charlie Sweet, and John Landreth to see what I could find out.

There are good things and bad about this book. The good thing is that it brings up a lot of issues that I had not considered so it got me thinking about aspects of a private investigator’s life that I would not have thought of on my own. The bad thing is that it doesn’t really address most of the issues in enough detail for the book to be more than a starting point.

One of the bad things is that this book is very, very outdated since it was written in the pre-Internet era. So any chapter dealing with technology or paperwork is more or less useless since surveillance technology has changed and much of the information private investigators would be asked to track down has moved online. It should go without saying that any references to what a P.I. makes are unreliable (which the book itself admits).

There is also little information about the laws governing private investigators in the United States. In part this is because the laws differ from state to state, but some kind of overview or comprehensive comparison would have been helpful.

I have to say that I was a bit taken aback by some of the cases related by the P.I. (John Landreth) in this trio of authors. He relates how he framed one guy by taking him over the border to Canada (for which, as a Canadian, I say thanks but no thanks for the “present” Landreth), drugging him, then firing a gun in the motel room and placing it in the guy’s hand before calling the RCMP so that the guy would be extradited back to the US (To be honest, I’ve forgotten the why of this ploy and have been furiously paging through the book to find it to no avail, but it is in there — the details I’ve related stuck with me because it struck me as a highly unethical ends-justify-the-means type of set up).

Landreth also describes manufacturing evidence in a divorce case by way of staging photographs. All the while, the book relates descriptions of the bad seeds in the industry of which Landreth is not supposed to be an example. Since I am not an expert in the area of investigations, I cannot comment on how much this book reflects the experience of the majority of P.I.s or what the legalities of his actions are. I did find it highly instructive to read the reviews on amazon by several private investigators who were so incensed by the activities related by Landreth that they felt compelled to comment.

The one fact related in the book that I am an expert on was false, which did not leave me with a good feeling since it calls into question the quality of fact checking that the book went through. The book claims that the character Remington Steele was named after a gun. As any fan of the show knows, that is 100% false. The character Remington Steele is named after a typewriter and a football team (this is stated in one of the early shows that I have on DVD).

On the whole, I found this book a useful starting point for my research but that is all it is — a starting point. If you can pick up a cheap used copy, it might be worth your while but I wouldn’t use it as my only reference. I’ll be reading and reviewing the rest of the books in the Howdunit series this summer (curiously enough, in 1998 there was another book released in this series on investigation: Just the Facts, Ma’Am: A Writer’s Guide to Investigators and Investigation Techniques (Howdunit) that I will review “soon”).

Private Eyes is available at online retailers like amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk as well as bricks and mortar stores.

Oh, and if you have some suggestions for similar books for writers, I’d love some leads.

I don’t usually find diet books of particular interest. After all, there are only so many different ways to say lose weight by burning more calories than you take in. The problem is convincing yourself to eat less and exercise more.

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size by Julia Cameron is a diet book that approaches emotional eating from the perspective of using writing to uncover subconscious motivations for what we do. If you can separate the ideas from the author’s negative attitude towards food, it may be what you need to get you thinking about weight loss in a different way.

The Writing Diet proposes a program that uses writing to uncover the reasons for overeating and/or underexercising. The book is separated into two parts. The first part proposes seven tools for weight loss, some mediated by writing and some not. The second section looks at various situations/issues that arise when trying to lose weight and addresses them specifically.

The thought of writing can be intimidating for some people. Fortunately, the writing proposed in this book doesn’t require a good command of grammar, spelling, or even proper sentence structure. The proposed writing habits are in the form of journalling and inksheds (a type of stream of consciousness writing). The goal is to use inksheds in the morning and journalling whenever you eat anything to raise your own consciousness about why you are overeating or underexercising. If that sounds like a lot of writing to do, it is; but if you can develop the habit it can lead to insights into your own behaviour.

I’ve done the equivalent of Morning Pages (stream-of-consciousness writing done upon waking) in writing workshops and I agree that they can have tremendous value in unearthing what is lurking in the subsconscious. The idea of writing every time I eat or any time I think of eating as proposed by Cameron is too onerous and time consuming for me to adopt on a regular basis. While some may find it useful, it feels like a time suck to me — the same reason I’ve never managed to keep track of calories for long (to be clear, Cameron doesn’t advocate calorie counting but I find it at the same level of time suck as writing every time I eat).

Cameron has some suggestions for sticking with weight loss that don’t involve writing directly. For example she recommends walking (starting with 5 minutes because who doesn’t have 5 minutes). Cameron also proposes planning a culinary date once a week to explore new cuisine or try a new restaurant. While the culinary date sounds interesting, I found some of her other suggestions less appealing.

Cameron borrows from 12-step programs by introducing the concept of a sponsor (called a Body Buddy) to help you stick to new eating habits (and show your food log to). In keeping with the 12-step ethos, Cameron suggests unhealthy eating is on par with alcoholism which explains why throughout the book unhealthy eating is treated as if it were a disease. It is unfortunate that the book is infused with a negativity towards food because it taints the many useful ideas presented for those struggling to lose weight.

In addition to discussing unhealthy eating as a disease, Cameron also talks about snack attacks, food being an enemy, fighting wars and battles with food, and eating legally. She talks about clean eating, downfalls when you don’t eat clean and other language that makes unhealthy eating sound not only like a disease but a sin. There is talk of spirituality, outside power, and religion at various points in the book as well which seems unnecessary and narrows the audience for the book. Long time readers of the blog will know that I do not like religion in my secular topics unless the book is clearly marked and marketed as such (which this book isn’t, although IF I had been aware of Julia Cameron’s other titles I might have expected the spirituality aspect of the book).

Though I found myself picking and choosing parts of the book to use, it has some interesting ideas in spite of the issues I’ve mentioned. If your view of food already coincides with Cameron’s then the negative language may not bother you. Likewise for the talk of spirituality and religion.

If you eat for emotional reasons and think you can develop a daily journalling habit (among other things), then this book might help you gain traction in developing a healthier lifestyle. For myself, I’ve never managed to keep a journal for longer than a week so I haven’t managed to apply this book for very long yet. If I ever do manage to get anywhere with this book, I’ll discuss it in my Read It, Live It, Blog It Reading Challenge posts.

You can find The Writing Diet and other Julia Cameron books at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.co.ukas well as other online and bricks and mortar booksellers.

Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis: The military origins of everyday words and phrases (General Military) delves into the stories behind words that made their way into English through the military. The book covers English from all over the world instead of a single country, which gives the book wider appeal (and also accounts for the occasional “Huh?” from the reader for expressions that are specific to a region). This is not a book of military jargon (or alphabet soup as we used to call when I was growing up on army bases); it is a book of everyday words and phrases used by English-speakers everywhere.

Unlike the last etymology book that I reviewed, Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis is consistent in content, formatting, and layout. Each word is accompanied by a paragraph of its history (or more, as the case may be) as to how the word came into the language. Even mayonnaise, which I dip my French fries into much to the horror of ketchup-loving friends, has its origin in the military (a victory dinner with very few ingredients resulted in the invention on mahonnaise in the Port of Mahon by a military chef).

Graeme Donald has taken great pains to research the word origins in his book and makes a point of not relying solely on English experts but also on military experts who sometimes have a different view on the origins of a word. For words with unresolved disagreements, Donald provides both (along with his e-mail if you want to weigh in on which version is right).

Overall, this is a compact and well-done book that can be read cover to cover or in random bits as the mood strikes you. If you like word origins and trivia, you can pick up a copy of Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis at amazon.com, amazon.ca, or amazon.co.uk.

Phraseology: Thousands of Bizarre Origins, Unexpected Connections, and Fascinating Facts About English’s Best Expressions by Barbara Ann Kipfer is a collection of information about English phrases where entries vary from explanations of idioms to usage notes to interesting trivia.

The entries cover the range from curious to common. I learned that “the medical term for an ice cream headache is spheno pulatine ganglio neuralgia.” I learned that in the expression raining cats and dogs, the “cats symbolize rain storms and dogs symbolize wind storms.” I learned the proper pronunciation of chaise longue is shayz-long (I speak French so I disagree, but the common chaise lounge is wrong too) and that cell phone, e-mail, and video game should be kept as separate words (does anyone write them as one … other than e-mail?). Oh, and a sparrow-fart is daybreak in case anyone is wondering.

I’m a language geek so I like this kind of thing. I have The Flip Dictionary by Barbara Ann Kipfer, which is a unique and handy reference for anyone who writes anything (I’ll review it some day), but Phraseology can’t decide what kind of book it is (which explains the subtitle). Usually reference books either stick to being a usage guide (like Garner’s, which I reviewed) or strictly idioms or strictly trivia. This one is all three, but not in a systematic fashion. One entry may be an explanation of an idiom, one entry may be a bit of trivia, and the next entry may be a usage note. That makes this an entertainment book, rather than a reference book because you never know what you’re going to get when you look up a term.

For an entertainment book there are a lot of mundane entries: per capita, corn dog, life sciences. Some entries are dictionary-like definitions rather than interesting factoids. There are quite a few entries that I assume are Americanisms (like sparrow-fart) that I’ve never heard of, which are interesting though I have no way of knowing how common these terms are. The choice of entries seems rather random as does the formatting. The word being defined or discussed is not always the first thing in the entry, sometimes it is half-way through (though it is always in bold).

I have to admit to being rather confused as to who the intended audience is for Phraseology. There’s an interesting tidbit or two for language lovers flipping through the book, but the occasional interesting fact is buried among a number of less interesting entries, and the inconsistency of the entries makes it a confusing book for general use.

You can find Barbara Ann Kipfer’s books at bookcloseouts.com, amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk.

I have been tempted, in the last few weeks, to send copies of Garner’s Modern American Usage to a number of television news anchors and reporters both here in Canada and in the US. I have taken to yelling at the television set (and yes, I know they can’t hear me) every time some reporter or talking head refers to Barack Obama’s win of the US election as “historical.” It’s historic, people. Historic. Not historical. They are not interchangeable adjectives. Historic means “famous or important in history.” Historical just means it happened in the past. All elections, once over, are historical but few are historic.

If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s my television, which I worked long and hard for and can’t afford to replace, the yelling would be followed by the throwing of a few usage guides and dictionaries (in my world they would zip right through the television screen and bonk said reporter or talking head square in the forehead). Alas, I haven’t quite broken with reality enough to think that my fantasy would actually come true.

Fox is a particular offender (don’t judge me, some of my favourite shows are on Fox and occasionally I forget to change the channel and end up listening to news that makes no sense at all until I realize I’m watching the nightly news for the wrong country — I went over a decade without cable so I’m still not used to having American channels). There are offenders at Canadian news anchor desks as well, so don’t think I’m just picking on Americans. Jon Stewart and Rick Mercer, both political satirists and authors, unsurprisingly get the word right.

So what good would a usage guide do? Well, if you’re unfamiliar with them (and many people are), usage guides are a little bit like dictionaries but instead of listing the definitions of words, they list the proper usage of words. A usage guide is the kind of reference book that you pick up when you want to remind yourself of the difference between effect and affect (which trips a lot of people up), the difference between historic and historical (*cough*), or the difference between continuous and continual. There are also entries on when to use which and when to use that.

These guides are also useful to distinguish usage that is wrong as opposed to usage that differs between American, Canadian, and British dialects (there are, of course, more English dialects than that but Garner’s covers these three for the most part). Knowing how usage varies between dialects as well as what is just plain wrong is very important for anyone editing and for anyone writing in this global world of ours.

There are many usage guides out there, but as an all-around general-use guide I find Garner’s most useful. No matter what I’m looking for, 99.9% of the time I find it in Garner’s. I asked a former board member of the Editor’s Association of Canada for a recommendation for a Canadian usage guide and she suggested the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage, but I rarely end up using it unless I am looking up something particularly Canadian (I don’t think it makes a difference, but my edition is the first edition rather than the second edition being sold now). Most of the more general usage problems I look up aren’t in the Oxford guide, but are invariably in Garner’s.

If you have a dictionary, you should probably have a usage guide as well, particularly if you write for work or for pleasure. No one may point out your usage mistakes to you, but people notice and it affects their opinion of you (I’m not saying it’s right; I’m just saying that it happens). Everyone is prone to usage mistakes and most of us aren’t aware of the ones we are making (otherwise we wouldn’t make them). You can’t rely on newspapers, magazines, or television to teach proper usage (in fact, Garner’s examples of faulty usage are all drawn from newspapers and magazines).  To get it right, you need a usage guide.

(There’s probably a usage error in this post somewhere … no one’s perfect).