Editor's Corner

What do poppies and questions about graduation have in common? They both seem to pop up in late May or June!

Not much of a riddle, but I do get tons of questions this time of year about the proper grammar for discussing graduation and the appropriate way to punctuate different types of degrees.

Donna covered the graduation question a couple months ago here: https://episystechpubs.com/2014/06/09/pet-peeves-graduation/

As far as degree types, here are some general rules:

· Use lowercase letters for the degree unless you are writing the formal name for a particular degree:

o I think she has a master’s degree of some kind.

o Jane has a Master of Educational Technology Degree from San Diego State University.

Note: Universities and other institutions often capitalize academic degrees, but when speaking of degrees in general prose, it is most appropriate to lowercase them.

· The Chicago Manual of Style recommends omitting the periods between abbreviations. For example:

o BA = bachelor of arts

o BFA = bachelor of fine arts

o DDS = doctor of dental surgery

o JD = juris doctor (doctor of law)

o MBA = master of business administration

o MD = medicinae doctor (doctor of medicine)

o Etc.

· Don’t let the apostrophe throw you off. Here are the correct versions of some of the most common degrees:

o associate degree

o bachelor’s degree

o doctoral degree

o master’s degree

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
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Pet peeves, everyone has them.

Grammatical pet peeves, persnickety people with too much time on their hands have them.

Untrue! Unfair! I do not have too much time on my hands—and neither (I’m sure) do the readers who asked me to cover today’s topic: the phrase “graduated high school.”

Incorrect sentence: My son graduated high school in 2009.

What’s wrong with that sentence, you ask? It’s missing its preposition: from. (A preposition is a word that relates a noun or pronoun to other words.)

Correct sentence: My son graduated from high school in 2009.

Without the trusty preposition, from, it’s the high school that is actually graduating—and my son is the all-powerful being that made it happen. I think he’s pretty awesome, but come on!

According to the Quick & Dirty Tips website, more than half of us use this incorrect phrase. That’s kind of disheartening.

Of course, that number does not reflect subscribers of the Editor’s Corner, since we are nearly perfect in every way. J

When I searched the term “nearly perfect in every way” expecting to find something about Mary Poppins, I found this picture of Macy (a pet, but not a pet peeve), who was rescued days before a scheduled euthanasia.

Macy graduated from doggy prison and now she has a family who loves her. Happy Monday!

Donna Bradley Burcher | Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Ext: 765432

Good morning and happy Friday!

Transitions, if written well, connect your paragraphs into logically coherent information.

Whether they are single words, quick phrases, or full sentences, transitions also help readers understand how the information works together.

Documentation without transitions resembles a traffic collision because it doesn’t flow . Think of transitions as a way to merge your information. Transitions will give your writing clarity and make it much more effective to the reader.

Writing effective transitions isn’t as difficult as it may sound. You just need to highlight the connections between corresponding paragraphs.

Here’s an example:

I loved reading Roald Dahl books as a child. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first book I read and I was fascinated with the characters. Dahl’s stories kept me entertained for hours. He had a gift for storytelling.

Because Dahl’s books brought pure delight to my childhood, I decided to buy my children his books. We read his books together every night before bedtime.

When you read your document, look at each paragraph to make sure it connects to the beginning of the next paragraph. If there is no connection, you may need to improve the transition or reorganize the paragraphs.

Have a great weekend!

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

About a year ago, I sent out a list of gender-neutral job titles (Editor’s Corner – July 19, 2013). While researching a question from one of you about non-neutral titles, I ended up at the same resource I used before. Today I’m going to give you another taste of the gender neutral version of some titles and terms. I have to say that the neutral terms take some of the pizzazz out of the original term; but when you want to be safe from offending someone, you should consider the terms on this list. Here are a few terms I selected for you from Writing Help Central. I can’t imagine the folks in our Human Resources battle with these titles and terms too often.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. The message,
together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please
immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

Here are some additional tidbits about capitalization, most of which is from the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training.

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. The message,
together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please
immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

First, I must apologize for an error I made the other day when typing. When I provided Grammar Girl’s information on the correct way to begin an email or letter, I left out the period on the second example. The examples should read:

Dear John, (correct)

Hi, John. (correct)

Hi John, (common usage but not technically correct)

And now, for some Q&A from the Chicago Manual of Style:

Question:

I have a disagreement with a coworker about how to alphabetize street names with foreign words in them. I live in San Diego, so there are a lot of Spanish street names. I, for example, would file Via Hacienda under V. She argues that because Via means “street,” it should be under H instead. She reasons that if it were House Street, we would file it under H. My argument is that since we are not speaking Spanish, we should follow standard English alphabetizing rules.

Answer:

You are right; there could be any number of foreign-language terms among the street names in San Diego, and unless all readers knew all the languages, the list would be useless. You can see that the city government of San Francisco puts Via Bufano under V.

In other words, if you are multilingual, fantastic! But don’t alphabetize according to translations to English, alphabetize street names according to the spelling on the sign.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Welcome new subscribers! Last week we began reviewing Capitalization in the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training. Today we are going to talk titles.

Guideline: In titles, capitalize prepositions that are five letters or longer. (Prepositions are words that create relationships between other words in a sentence. For example, at, about, above, below, between, by, to, up, with, etc.) Do not capitalize prepositions of four or fewer letters in a title, unless one of the following criteria pertains:

· the preposition is part of a verb phrase (“back up,” “check out,” “hand out,” etc.)

· the preposition is the first or last word in the title

Examples:

· Applying Relationships Between Tables

· Taking Books off the Shelf

· Backing Up Your System

· Out of Memory Error

Speaking of titles, this might be an interesting read.

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

Good morning! It’s already a busy day at 6:30 a.m., so I have to rush the Editor’s Corner. We are quickly closing in on the end of the alphabet for social media vocabulary. The letter “U” is brought to you by Sesame Street and The Concept Company web page. Enjoy!

· Unfollow
By unfollowing someone in Twitter, you no longer receive their updates in your own timeline.

· Unfriending
Disconnecting with someone on Facebook. When you unfriend someone, the person does not get notice that you have done so.

· URL
The technical term for a web address. For example, http://www.constantcontact.com. (URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.)

· URL Shortener
A Web tool that converts a long URL into a shortened version that is easier to share. Shortened URLs are especially prevalent on microblogs such as Twitter, which only allow a limited number of characters. Examples of popular URL shorteners include Bit.ly and Tiny URL.

· User Generated Content (UGC)
UGC is anything published online by the average person. Includes all forms of user-created materials such as blog posts, reviews, podcasts, videos, comments and more.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

It’s Friday, so let’s go back to something fairly easy—social media vocabulary. Today’s definitions for the letter “T” are from The Concept Company web page:

· Tag
Certain applications, like Facebook allow you to “tag” friends in pictures, places, videos, and in text, which places a link from the item to their profile. In Facebook, tagging a person’s face in one of your own photos will allow that person’s friends to see your photo, depending on the tagged person’s privacy settings.

· Tag Cloud
A visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites. It is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or descriptions that people are using on a blog or website. Popular tags are often shown in a large type and less popular tags in smaller type.

KC-The image below is a “World Population” tag cloud. Click the image for more detail.

· Terms of service (TOS)
The legal basis upon which you agree to use a website, video hosting site, or other place for creating or sharing content. Check before agreeing to concede the rights the site owners may claim over your content.

· Thread
A strand of related messages that represent a conversation, e.g. messages on a discussion forum or a series of e-mails that use the same subject line, or a blog post and any related comments and trackbacks.

· Trackback
A link used to facilitate communication between blogs. When one blogger refers to another blog in his or her post, if both blogs support trackbacks, then the trackback will notify the owner of the original post that the blogger has referred to his or her post.

· Traffic
Or sometimes called Web Traffic. This refers to the visitors that visit a website.

· Transparency
The concept that social media users expect to engage in clear, open considerate online conversations with individuals and businesses.

· Trending
A word, phrase or topic that is popular or gaining popularity on Twitter at a given moment.

· Troll
Someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

· Tweet
The name of posts on Twitter.

· TweetDeck
A service that allows businesses, organizations, and individuals to monitor, manage, and schedule their social media marketing activity.

KC – This “Purple Martin Condominium” has several tweet decks. J

· Tweetup
A term for events (i.e., meetups) that spring from Twitter connections. Tweetups are typically informal gatherings that let Twitter followers meet in real life, and coordinators often use a hashtag to unite tweets related to the event.

· Twitter
The social media network based on 140-character micro-blog posts. Users post short updates that can be seen by anyone, even if they are not logged into the site. Posts can only include text and links; any multimedia content (photos, video, audio) must be linked to. The people who follow you will see your updates in their timeline when they log in. Unlike with Facebook, you do not have to confirm or reciprocate the follower connection, meaning people can follow your updates without you have to see theirs.

· Twitter Handle
Another word for a Twitter username, designated by an @ (“at sign”).

· Twitterverse
A fun term used to describe the world of Twitter.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Good morning, fellow language lovers! This week we’re trying to provide you with tools to improve your writing. Most days it a little something about vocabulary, grammar, or punctuation; the other day it was directions to the Editing Submissions webpage; and today it is an introduction to Nifty Nuggets. Nifty Nuggets is a weekly email that my fellow editor, Jackie Solano, sends out to our group (Symitar Education & Technical Publications). Jackie’s nuggets of goodness include general writing tips and specific information from the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training.

These gifts are only available from one place, so if you write for JHA in any capacity, I highly recommend Jackie’s articles. If you are interested, please email jsolano and you will be added to her special list.

Here’s a sample. The first one’s free. J

Nifty Nuggets

Use parallel construction in lists and in sentences that list items. Be sure that each item is parallel with the other items in the list. Otherwise, the list can sound awkward and be confusing. Use the same sentence structure and the same verb form and tense for each item in the list. For example:

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory