Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ask Jack Writing Style Questions!

Yesterday, Pete asked:
Incidentally, Jack, I've gotten into the habit recently of setting off my "that is," statements from what precedes it with a semicolon; is that correct?
No, that is not correct. Your statement should read:
Incidentally, Jack, I've gotten into the habit recently of setting off my "that is" statements from what precedes them with semicolons.
In other editing news, the first book that I copyedited is actually in the warehouse now, which feels a little anticlimactic, since my work was finished months ago. Still, I can now say I'm a Published Copyeditor, except no one says that, and I should probably check again whether "copyeditor" is really a closed compound before I embarrass myself.

Also, Pete, "that is" statements often will be set off with a semicolon, just since they start a second thought and you don't want run-on sentences. If it's not a full clause (that is, something that'd be an incomplete sentence on its own, like this) you can use parentheses (like that) or just commas, if it's clear enough.

1 Comments:

Blogger Pete said...

I was really worried that I was going to have to write something insulting to you in the comments here, until that last paragraph. Thanks.

1/29/2009 5:06 PM  

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