The ‘Bite-sized Tips’ series began when I realised after years of reading, writing and translating that I wasn’t actually that clear about grammar, spelling and punctuation rules.

While we may get away with a few errors in our own work if we’re consistent throughout a document, when we’re editing and revising others’ output, it’s imperative to understand these rules and justify any changes we make. That’s why I chose the New Oxford Style Manual as my go-to style guide.

I soon also turned to The Chicago Manual of Style for UK and US differences and because Chicago sometimes explains things better with more accessible examples.

I’ve now added Butcher’s Copy-editing and other reference books on proofreading, punctuation and style to my shelves.

If you’d like to find out more about why I spend time on this type of post, please read: ‘Why All the Fuss about Spellings and Style Guides?’

The ‘Bite-sized Tips’ series is divided into posts of ‘Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication’, focusing on errors I’ve noticed in my editing work of academic papers, spellings and other posts on specific areas, such as how to write the time, quotation marks, italics and false friends.

1. Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication Part 1 (some punctuation basics)
2. Spellings Part 1 – One Word or Two?
3. Spellings Part 2 – Ten You Should Know
4. Spellings Part 3 – Some You Might Not Know (mishmash & some UK/US differences)
5. Spanish Place Names (how to write them in English)
6. Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication Part 2 (data is or data are?)
7. Spellings Part 4 – One Word
8. Spellings Part 5 – Mostly Points & Hyphens
9. Spellings Part 6 – Hyphenated
10. Spellings Part 7 – Two Words
11. Spellings Part 8 – Only One Word
12. Spellings Part 9 – All One Word Again
13. Spellings Part 10 – By the Sea
14. Spellings Part 11 – Fighting the Spellcheckers
15. Spellings Part 12 – Pesky Hyphens
16. Times (Is is a.m. or am? What does 12.00 a.m. mean? And more)
17. Spellings Part 13 – Some that might trip you up
18. Spellings Part 14 – Some Tricky Ones
19. Spellings Part 15 – Another Ten
20. Watch out for the Dragon (spelling and punctuation problems with using DNS)
21. Spellings Part 16 – Getting Trickier Every Time
22. Spellings Part 17 – The Dragon Agrees (10 spellings DNS gets right)
23. Spellings Part 18 – Disagreements with the Dragon (10 things DNS gets wrong)
24. Quotation Marks or Italics
25. False Friends on Hotel Websites
26. Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication Part 3 – Numbers (1) general, decades and centuries
27. Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication Part 4 – Numbers (2) dates and currencies
28. Common Mistakes in Papers for Publication Part 5 – Numbers (3) percentages, mathematical symbols and footnotes

Image by Lorenzo Cafaro from Pixabay