Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and you need an editor.
No, seriously. I often hear people say that “even professional writers have editors,” but I’d put it even more strongly than that. “Especially professional writers have editors.” Books don’t hit Barnes and Noble without editors. Articles in newspapers and magazines don’t go to print without editors. The best writing is done under the watchful eye of an editor because you simply can’t catch all your own mistakes yourself. If you could, you probably wouldn’t have made those mistakes in the first place. And it’s an editor’s job to know all the little style tricks—the different sizes of hyphens, the special usages of commas, and so on. They’re nonjudgmental, too, because they see this stuff all the time and they know how difficult grammar can be.
Editors are easy to find, even if you’ve never had one before. You can simply check out laurensmythbooks.com—and that’s Smyth spelled with a Y—for all your proofreading and copyediting needs.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.