There’s no one right way to run your business, only the way that works for you at any given moment. It’s all trial and error. Efficiency isn’t about what you do so much as doing it the same way every time.

One of the most effective quality-control and disaster-prevention tools ever developed is also one of the simplest: the checklist. Surgeons use checklists. Astronauts use checklists. Stage managers use checklists. And editors use checklists.

The first thing you need for truly great corporate documents is a truly great style guide. Knowing it all off the top of your head is not good enough. You’re not the only person handling the text and you may leave the company someday. More importantly, no human can ever be one hundred percent consistent.

Independent editors play a crucial role across nearly every industry. However, if you run your own editing business then you know how difficult it can be to find time to market your services. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you demonstrate and market your value.

So much of life is about who’s in your set. Word’s wildcards are really no different. Most of us have a ‘crowd’ that we feel some sort of affinity with. Professional groups, special interests; type of food or music we like; and so on.

You’re in a management or leadership role, so you have to review draft documents. The question is: Do you micromanage your review? You’re a good manager, so you don’t micromanage other tasks.

Admit it: English spelling is evil and wants you to suffer.

It’s not just that the rules are weird and capricious and there’s an exception to everything. That’s the inevitable fallout of centuries of what linguists call “language contact” and most other people call “invasions and trading.”

Like birds and trees, abbreviations are often seen in the wild and seldom remarked on. But, like slime molds and toads, abbreviations come in more kinds than most people realize and, while some people find them repellant, others can be quite passionate about them.

If you work with medical text, you’re familiar with how authors like to salt their text with SLTs (Simple Lexical Tools) representing SLTs (Standard Learned Terms). Sometimes, however, these are SLT (Single, Limited, or Transient) in use, and much of the time their real function is just as SLTs (Shiny Little Toys).

If your goal is to get everyone in your organization or group to follow your house style—and to learn the principles behind it—there’s more to it than simply adding terms and adjusting settings in the Style Sheet Editor. The exact words you use to describe the issue make a difference.

We live in a capitalist society. Which means it’s full of businesses that are full of businesspeople who just love using Capital Letters because they seem Important.

Hyphenation can seem like the editor’s party trick. A party trick is something that few people know how to do, and while it’s not that important to most people, it’s always impressive to see someone pull it off. You know, like tying a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue.

Hyphenation can seem like the editor’s party trick. A party trick is something that few people know how to do, and while it’s not that important to most people, it’s always impressive to see someone pull it off. You know, like tying a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue.

Those of us writing business proposals can’t rely on a Hollywood ending. Bid documents require the art of persuasion. That’s more of a challenge for many of us than we would like it to be. So if you’re more concerned about huge grants than Hugh Grant, here are some things to watch out for when writing proposals, bids, and other pieces designed to sell your company to clients.

You’re taking the plunge: you’re setting up as a freelance editor. You’re going to have your own company and you’re going to get clients and edit their text and invoice them and make a good living as a midwife of words. But the first choice you face is a big one: What are you going to name your company?

If you read the title and just said “Don’t you mean Felix Ungar?” then you know you are. The very fact that you’re reading this makes it likely that you’re a Felix. You’re probably an editor, and editors tend to be Felixes (or should that be Felices?).

There are five important things to watch for in numbered and bulleted lists. If you’re editing according to a style manual such as The Chicago Manual of Style, you’ll have good guidance for many of these things. But even if your style is entirely at your discretion, you’ll still want to think before you list.

Here’s a quick test on when to use a and an. Spot the errors: I was at an historic occasion, a meeting at a hotel near an university to discuss an HUD directive, when my recorder ran out of power. For want of an AA battery, my records of the meeting were lost, and it was all consigned to no more than a * in an MS.

How many slip-ups do you count? There are actually six mistakes in there. Let’s see what they are—and why!

Here are some ideas for what to do about 42 of the most hated buzzwords.

Before you schedule an interview with your SME, you’ll want to do a bit of homework first. Plopping down in front of them and saying “tell me everything you know” will waste both of your time—and likely won’t get you the focused content you need. Instead, take an organized approach to working with an SME. Here are six steps to guide you through the process.