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23.01.2022 Clarity tip #1: position parts of a sentence related in meaning close together so that no unintended confusion results. For example, in The Australian newspaper (online) on 2nd Sep: 'The alleged driver of the car pinned an 18-year-old to another vehicle, who sustained serious leg injuries'.

21.01.2022 Clarity tip #2: watch the position of possessive apostrophes. A recent headline in the SMH ran 'Could Frydenberg be the Liberal's next prime minister?' (News Review, Sep 15-16) Well, while we know that the parliamentary Libs are losing women by the minute, there is still more than one parliamentary Liberal member left. So, since the word 'Liberals' is a plural countable noun, the apostrophe should have been after the s to show that the next Liberal prime minister will have more than one colleague. (We think so, anyway.)

17.01.2022 https://quillette.com/2018//14/stupid-is-as-stupid-writes/ This is a very useful article for any writer but especially so for any postgraduate students who cling to the idea that academic writing must be elaborate and consist of tortuous multi-clause sentences with heaps of polysyllabic words. As many a writing guru has said, your content is complex enough so let it shine by keeping your style crisp and concise. (Thanks to Charlotte Cottier for passing this on.)

17.01.2022 Currently, I'm editing more academic journal articles and other short documents than PhD theses. My clients come from various universities, not only the nearby regional one. I enjoy this kind of work and it fits well with the rest of my life.

16.01.2022 https://blog.reedsy.com/point-of-view/ Although I'm usually an academic editor, I've just been reading a short fiction manuscript in which the author tends to confuse third-person limited POV with third-person omniscient POV. (In other words, the reported impressions of the character show awareness of things beyond her experience and knowledge.) This link is helpful on the difference. (Many thanks to AJ Collins for this link.)

16.01.2022 If you're contemplating finding someone to edit your research thesis, it's a good idea - while you're making use of the website of IPEd, the national editing body, for consultation of its directory of editors - to have a look at its guidelines for postgrad students, supervisors and academic editors: http://iped-editors.org/About_editing/Editing_theses.aspx. Then you'll be prepared for the questions any editor you approach may wish to ask you about your disciplinary field, your referencing system, the kind of services you require, the stage of readiness of your document, your supervisors' names and details, your editing deadline and so on.

15.01.2022 I've only just found out that my business email address ([email protected]) seems to have been disconnected. Therefore, if you'd like me to edit an academic journal paper manuscript for you, it would be advisable until further notice to use [email protected]. In the meantime, merry christmas to all!

13.01.2022 Clarity tip #4: Watch out for spellcheck interventions and check your text with an eagle eye before it goes public.(See the interesting new collective noun in this example from the Newcastle Herald.)

13.01.2022 A characteristically witty effort on grammar changes wrought by technology from Clive James' Collected Poems 1958-2015, Picador, 2015 p. 207 (some may wish to turn down their editor's eye - it's a sic-fest): Windows is Shutting Down Windows is shutting down, and grammar are... On their last leg. So what am we to do? A letter of complaint go just so far. Proving the only one in step are you. Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes. A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad Before they gets to where you doesnt knows The meaning what it must of meant to had The meteor have hit. Extinction spread. But evolution do not stop for that. A mutant languages rises from the dead And all them rules is suddenly old hat. Too bad for we, us what has had so long The best seat from the only game in town. But there it am, and whom can say its wrong? Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

11.01.2022 I've discovered a new kind of academic client, the sort who just wants to have parts of a PhD thesis edited - perhaps because some chapters have been published as journal papers and so have been polished already. This sort of client is very welcome to me now, because shorter jobs fit well with my own studies.

09.01.2022 This article is no Luddite speel; it draws our attention to both losses and gains in the effects on us of use of the digital medium. Basically, because the neural circuits devoted to reading adapt to whatever our dominant medium of information is, we need to keep reading via both screen and print to maintain our ability not just to process information fast but to process in depth and think critically - especially in the current environment of demagoguery, one in which it's vital that people don't merely retreat to long-held prejudices. https://www.theguardian.com//skim-reading-new-normal-marya

08.01.2022 To make some progress with my own PhD candidature, I've been steering Manifesto Editing toward work involving shorter documents such as academic journal articles, non-fiction book chapters, grant applications, segments of government material - for example, inquiry proceedings - and even shorter pieces still, like calls for conference papers. I couldn't claim that my PhD has benefited greatly as yet, but editing shorter docs certainly makes it easier to handle drought conditions on a small property. And, most importantly, I've thoroughly enjoyed working with these kinds of documents.

03.01.2022 http://www.bbc.com//20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-bu This 2016 article by Mark Forsyth is well worth a look, especially if you're into the niceties of adjectival order. If, for help in this matter, remembering 'I have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife' threatens to do your head in, you could just about content yourself with 'fine old red wine' as a guide. In case you don't know, if adjectives in a series belong to different categories - e.g. evaluative, descriptive or definitive, as in 'fine old red wine' - then there's no need for commas between them. (The whittling knife example includes many additional categories such as age, size, material and purpose.) As Forsyth says, most native English speakers know how to order these in an automatic but essentially unconscious way.

02.01.2022 Clarity tip #3: watch those devilish hanging participles. A press article in recent times ran as follows (but with different names): 'Murdered in her Bronte apartment, Isabella's killer may face justice in Peru'. Because the reader tends to look to the first noun after the participial phrase for the subject of the participle (here, 'murdered'), the sentence reads at first glance as though the killer murdered themselves. If we want to leave the main idea of the sentence in place but prevent the reader's being distracted by a technical glitch, then we need to recast the introductory phrase so that it says something about the murderer rather than Isabella. (For example, 'Having murdered Isabella in her apartment, her killer...')

02.01.2022 http://theweek.com//785/dashes-hyphens-comprehensive-guide If you think that a hyphen can serve as any kind of dash (as I used to do before I did an editing program in 2010), read this fascinating piece by James Harbeck in The Week and think again. You'll never see dashes in quite the same way afterwards.

01.01.2022 A bit of Monday fun. https://www.newyorker.com//obamas-barrage-of-complete-sent