The Expert Editor’s editorial blog covers writing, editing, language, and the human side of communication — the same subjects our editors work with every day. Every article is reviewed by the editors on our masthead before publication.
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Featured articles
How grammar and punctuation became subtle social signals
Send a text that ends with a period, and something shifts. It reads a little colder, a little more final, than the same sentence with no punctuation at…
100 editing and proofreading tips for writers
Editing and proofreading are vital for producing great writing. But where should you look? What should you change? As the most comprehensive proofreading list on the web, this…
9 books every writer should read at least once
Ask ten editors for the books that actually changed how they work and you will hear the same handful of titles over and over. Not because editors are…
The ultimate flowchart for finding your next book
Ah, summertime (in the northern hemisphere at least!). That blissfully balmy time of year where school's out, vacations are scheduled, and the beach beckons. Sunshine and family make…
George Orwell’s 6 rules for writing were too absolute. Here’s a more flexible version
George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, published in 1946, is a battle cry in the fight against bad English. In Orwell's eyes, written English has become…
16 easy ways to unleash your creativity (Infographic)
Only 25% of people believe they're living up to their creative potential. You may think there isn't a lot you can do about this. You're either born with…
Writing & Editing
How to write clearly and precisely: grammar, editing craft, proofreading, and thesis, essay, and academic writing guides.
The editing pass most writers skip
I ask writers to do one thing before they send me a manuscript they think is finished: read it aloud, start to finish, in…
En dash, em dash, hyphen: the three-dash problem in Australian style
Most of the manuscripts that cross my desk use one horizontal mark for three different jobs. A writer will hyphenate a compound, punctuate an…
Why writers can’t see their own typos (and editors can)
A writer reads a manuscript for the fourth time, satisfied it's clean, and sends it off. An editor opens it an hour later and…
The line-level habits editors watch for in publishable writing
Most writers who submit manuscripts for editing understand their argument. They know what they want to say. The chapters hold together, the reasoning is…
Language & Reading
Vocabulary, words, books, and reading culture: what we read and how language shapes the way we think.
Can an apology be too polished to feel sincere?
Here are two things that are both true, according to recent research. People who choose harder, more effortful words when they apologize are perceived…
Why “literally” can mean its own opposite now
Here is the contradiction sitting inside one of the most commonly used words in English. "Literally" exists to do one job: to tell a…
Why “per my last email” often feels like the most passive-aggressive sentence in the English language
Picture the message landing in your inbox. It opens with your name, maybe even a pleasant enough greeting, and then, three words in: "Per…
Why a text that ends with a period reads colder than one that doesn’t
Researchers at Binghamton University once handed a group of undergraduates a stack of short text-message exchanges and asked them to rate how sincere each…
The Writer’s Mind
The working experience of writing: perfectionism, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and creative blocks — and how writers work through them.
The habit that separates people who finish things from people who plan to
A plan sitting untouched in a notes app. A resolution that made it three weeks. A folder of half-started projects, each one still technically…
What actually happens in your head between “I should do this” and starting it
Somewhere between deciding you should do something and actually doing it, most people lose the thread. A 2016 review by psychologists Paschal Sheeran and…
The weakest deadline is usually the one you set for yourself
The common assumption is that a deadline is a deadline. Whether the date comes from a boss, a client, or your own calendar, the…
Why writers hoard research (and when to stop)
Every so often a manuscript arrives with a research folder attached that's several times the length of the piece itself: interviews transcribed in full,…