What kind of a word nerd are you?

There’s only one thing more annoying than having a “selfie-obsessed” friend on Facebook: having a friend who is constantly taking those “What kind of ______ are you?” quizzes and sharing the results. I’ve seen: “What kind of best friend are you?”; “What kind of cupcake are you?”; “What kind of coffee drink are you?”; “Which ‘Little House on the Prairie’ character are you?” What’s next? “What kind of fungus are you?” However annoying it is, this phenomenon has inspired me to develop my own quiz. It’s called, “What kind of word nerd...

Write more better . . . a look at compar...

Bart Simpson: This is the worst day of my life. Homer Simpson: The worst day of your life so far. My first grader has worked hard this school year learning to write basic sentences.One area he struggles with is adjectives. He often writes “I have the bestest pet ever” or “Soccer is more harder than baseball.” As professional writers and editors, PR Daily readers aren’t making these kinds of mistakes. But the rules for comparative and superlative adjectives can be tricky. Not all adjectives have comparative forms (such as the word unique) and many adjectives have...

9 sources to help you find that perfect ...

I once worked with someone who used the word “secure” continually. He’d write: • “We need to secure donations.” • “Have you secured a printer for the newsletter yet?” • “I’m not feeling secure about our chances of securing this contract.” I often found myself correcting his writing and replacing “secure” with alternatives such as “obtain,” “get,” “acquire,” “find.” But he was set on the word “secure” and would often change it back. The importance of varying our words to keep our readers interested cannot be overstated, but...

10 more ways to make the writing process...

In a previous post, I shared 15 tips to make the writing process less grueling. On the list were: Write first, edit later; read your work aloud; and don’t bristle when another writer or editor corrects your work. At the end of the post, I asked PR Daily readers to share their writing tips. Here are some of those responses, along with a few more. The less hellish we can make our work, the better. 1. “Be ruthless in editing your own stuff. One writer who worked for me described my editing style as ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ and I took that as a compliment.” 2....

6 famous run-on sentences

Being a writer and editor can be exhausting. Not “I’ve just run the Boston marathon in two hours” exhausting, but “It’s 5 p.m. and I’ve lost the ability to form words” exhausting. Nothing wears me down quicker than run-on sentences. Lately, it seems every document I’m asked to edit is overrun with run-ons. Run-on sentences contain too many ideas and not enough punctuation. Not all long sentences are run-on sentences. It is perfectly acceptable to join several related ideas in one compound sentence, as long as the correct elements (commas, conjunctions,...