editing made easy

Bruce Kaplan, “editing made easy: simple rules for effective writing” Upper Access Inc. 2012, 109 pps  

Kaplan’s latest edition of this book has been thoroughly revised, and Americanized (he is Australian).  It's a quick read and non-technical.  It doesn't cover grammatical terms such as present perfect progressive or correlative conjunctions. It boils grammar and style into a few simple rules. I have been reading a few books of this genre lately as I always was impressed with Strunk and White’s approach to grammar as well as those following those footsteps, such as this book.

My Notes:

Pg. 18:  Watch out when using the word “by”; it puts you in the less effective passive voice.  Consider: Three people were chased in a city park by a man with a stick.  Now consider: A man with a stick chased three people in a city park.

Pg. 22: Splitting infinitives.  We split the infinitive when we put an adverb (a word that tells us how the action was done) after the to and before the verb.  Adverbs almost always end in ly—swiftly, bravely, peacefully, rudely.  Examples of split infinitives: to quickly eat, to slowly turn, to quietly speak, to loudly argue, to restlessly sleep.  If we follow the strict grammatical rules to not split infinitives these should read: to eat quickly, to turn slowly, to speak quietly, to argue loudly, to sleep restlessly.

However, sometimes, depending on the sentence, the adverb sounds better before the to, or even at the beginning or end of the sentence.  For example: The teacher failed to properly explain the theory.  The split infinitive is to properly explain.

Pg. 29:  With few exceptions, the words of the are not needed.  For example: the manager of the bank, or, the bank manager.

Pg. 32:  Three more words to watch out for are others, both and new.  Others not needed: A three-car crash killed two people and seriously injured four others in Indianapolis yesterday.  Both and new are similarly used when not needed.  Another such word is that.

Pg. 37:  Misuse of which when we mean that is often a problem.  Which introduces a non-defining clause.  A non-defining clause contains additional information that you could omit from the sentence.  A comma must be placed before the word which and a comma or period at the end of the clause: The car, which a teenager was driving, crashed into a post.  That, on the other hand introduces a defining clause: The car that the teenager was driving crashed into a post.

Pg. 57:  Because collective nouns are singular, they take a singular verb: the audience is, the class is, the club is.

Pg. 63:  The tautology trap.  The future that is to come is a tautology, that is, it says the same thing twice.  We know the future is to come—that is what the future means.  There is no need to say it is to come.  10 a.m. in the morning is another.  Others: final outcome, invited guest, past history, added bonus.

Pg. 86:  effect: noun, or rarely a verb meaning to create.  Affect: verb, or rarely a noun meaning an emotional state; insure: to arrange for compensation for possible loss or damage; ensure: to make certain or safe.