Even if your copy is on message and reads well, small errors can sink you.
Every month, our team — led by proofreader Sarah Muench — shares a proofreading tip or two to help you strengthen your content, one detail at a time.
TIP: Cue vs. Queue
A “cue” refers to either a signal or a billiards stick, whereas a “queue” is a line. Nick jumped right on cue when he saw the spider. Cue the music; the parade is starting. Having [...]
Lie vs. lay
Don't lie to yourself. This grammar rule can sometimes be so confusing it makes you want to lay the rule book down and walk away or just lie down altogether. First, let's forget about the [...]
TIP: Compound Subjects Take a Plural Verb
When two or more subjects are joined with the word “and,” use a plural verb. But when one subject is the main focus and a second subject is just tagging along, use a singular verb. [...]
TIP: Italics or Quotation Marks?
Something different or special is in the text you're writing — so important or different that it warrants a little flash. Maybe it's a newspaper name or an article or song title. Should you: [...]
Tip: Flesh Out vs. Flush Out
It's a one letter difference, but sometimes that's all it takes to make a cringe-worthy grammar mistake. But fear not, we're here to not only give you an active voice, but an accurate one [...]
Pesky Prefixes: Tips on When to Hyphenate
We're living in a fast-paced world, and we tend to jam a lot of things together. We even make up words like hangry, J-Lo and whatev. Words that begin with prefixes — take, for example, [...]
TIP: Medium vs. Media
Is media always the plural of medium? If it were only that simple. But you don't need a medium to ask the now-dead person who invented these rules. We just need to remember a [...]
TIP: Em Dash (Part 2): Em vs. En Dash
So many options. So tempting to type a hyphen, hit the space bar, type another word and see your hyphen magically turn into an en dash. No one will notice ... But an en dash [...]
TIP: Em Dash (Part 1): Spaces or no spaces?
You see it both ways so often that its inconsistency has become consistent, but it still gets under your skin. Should an em dash (—) have spaces before and after it, or should it touch [...]
TIP: A Book Is “Titled.”
"Entitled" entails a right to do something. It is not the same thing as "titled." No: I wrote a book entitled "Grammar and You." Yes: I wrote a book titled "Grammar and You." Yes: [...]