A Proofreader's Tools

Proofreading sounds like something anybody can do. When your mom reads your 5th grade homework, she’s proofreading it.

But professional proofreading is a specialized skill that’s as much about knowing where to find the answers as about knowing the answers.

So here’s my list of the proofreader’s must-have resources.

A Business Proofreader’s Must-Haves

AP Style is the default for almost all business communication (at least for now), so the AP Style Guide is

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Style Guide for Web Writing & Yahoo!

Yahoo is stepping up to fill a huge void in the world of online writing. Their new The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World is now available for pre-order.

I've ordered my copy. Do you have yours?

Why we need a new style guide for the web

The existing guides weren't written for the online world.

The Chicago Manual of Style is really for books. The AP Stylebook is really for newspapers. PR people

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Dashed Off

I think I see more confusion and problems with dashes than almost any other punctuation mark these days (with the possible exception of the ongoing serial comma wars). Part of the problem is that Microsoft and html both make it really hard to get hyphens right.

So here a quick guide to dashes in common word processing and online writing situations.

Dash v. Hyphen

(-) A hyphen connects two words. Like obsessive-compulsive. (Why did I choose obsessive-compulsive to illustrate this nitpicky punctuation point? Uh, no reason.)

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