Because, Because, Because: Causality Problems

by | Aug 27, 2010 | style

It’s a danger inherent to complex and formal writing, and I see this mistake often while editing—and in revising my own writing. It’s the error of attributing multiple, competing causes to the main clause in a sentence. Here’s a totally fabricated...

Small Caps = Big Deal

by | Aug 25, 2010 | style, writing tools

Continuing the trend of capitalization-related posts, here is an ode to the wonders of small caps, a formatting trick that elevates the look of documents instantaneously. For beautifully typeset headings, try small caps. It gives the look of initial capital letters...

Toggling Letter Cases

by | Aug 24, 2010 | style

Microsoft Word has a handy tool for rectifying inadvertent caps lock: Change Case. This feature will take A PASSAGE LIKE THIS and make it A Passage Like This or a passage like this. All you need to do to access this feature is hit SHIFT+F3 on a Windows-based computer...

Writer-at-Work Doortags

by | Aug 23, 2010 | frivolity

Now in the TWEED Library: Writer-at-Work doortag templates (PDF). Print them off in sets of three per page. Put one on every door behind which you happen to work, or keep one and give the rest to other committed writers in your life. You can never broadcast too loud...

Shhhhh: Silently Altering Quoted Material

by | Aug 9, 2010 | punctuation, style

Sometimes quotes just don’t want to fit within the structure of our sentences. Unless you are in a legal field, some sciences, or writing for a UK publisher, you can silently tame quoted material in a number of permissible ways. This means that you don’t...