Tech Biz Writing

Morphemes
Morphemes are the parts of words which change when the word applies to a distinctly different situation. For example, a plural, or a change of tense. So that children is the plural of child, and “ren” is the morpheme. For a verb, we get: play plays playing played.

Phrases
Phrases are bundles of words which naturally cluster together and perform a particular function in a sentence. For example:

His beautiful girlfriend Sally has been assembling a new wardrobe of designer clothes.

You can easily divide this sentence into three parts:

His beautiful girlfriend Sally
has been assembling
a new wardrobe of designer clothes.

It will not divide any other way without losing its essential meaning, which can be reduced to three words: Sally bought clothes. These are phrases.

Clauses
Clauses are made up of either words or phrases, and each of these atoms has a different role in the process. Thus:

* Sally is the subject, or what the clause is about.
* bought is the verb, or the action part.
* clothes is the object, or what has been affected by the action.

Sentences
If, as is often said, a sentence is the complete expression of a single thought, what are we to make of those sentences in 19th-century novels which go on for more than a page or two? Or, by complete contrast, “sentences” in advertising-speak, such as Brilliant!

At its most basic, a sentence is the same as a clause: subject, verb, object, as in the above case. Sometimes, however, sentences consist of more than one clause, and the more they contain, the less easy they are to read.

Building Texts
The largest unit we have considered so far is the sentence, on the basis that words combine to form phrases which combine to form clauses which combine to form sentences. But sentences combine in many ways to form texts, and that is what we will now examine.

A text is a unit of communication which is largely self-contained and which serves a specific purpose. It contains a series of sentences which are related to each other by:

* Structure
* Coherence
* Cohesion

Structure
Many texts are given structure by a formal pattern, the most common of which is the paragraph. There are other conventions, however, e.g. the layout of some advertising copy or a recipe.

Paragraphs form a useful function in that they formulate sub-topics of the text into recognisable units, which break up the page and make it more comprehensible and easier to read. Though representing a sub-topic in the text, most paragraphs tend to lead on from the previous one, and provide a linkage with the next. Generally we can break down a paragraph into three sub-units:

* Topic sentence which introduces the main theme of the paragraph.
* Development sentences which take the theme forward.
* Rounding-off sentence which naturally concludes it and leads on to the next.

Next: 64. Creating texts — Part 3.

The putting together of texts from the individual atoms of writing involves another bete noire of the written universe: grammar. To say that grammar is easy is a very smug statement, especially as it’s scarcely taught in modern schools. Whole English departments are grammar-free zones. Yet you can hardly call yourself a writer if you know nothing of it, or imagine it’s a word describing your grandmother.

We’re going to tackle grammar here in its basic form, beginning with the atoms that compose it, and moving on to how these elements are put together for building texts. For that is what writing is: creating texts from smaller elements, while retaining coherence, cohesion, structure, and, ultimately, meaning.

The Levels of Grammar

Grammar operates at five levels of increasing complexity:

* Words
* Morphemes.
* Phrases
* Clauses
* Sentences

These all work together at any one point, so although we can define them singly, we must bear them all in mind when creating, or parsing sentences.

To make the point clearer, we shall examine all these levels in the context of a single sentence: The children played Scrabble while their father sent an email.

The sentence breaks naturally into parts, each virtually a complete sentence in itself:

* The children played Scrabble
* Their father sent an email.

The five levels of grammar are represented thus:

* Word: Children.
* Morpheme: Child - ren.
* Phrase: The children.
* Clause: The children played Scrabble.
* Sentence: The children played Scrabble while their father sent an email.

Words
Words are the building blocks of a text; they both bear the meaning and hold the sentences together. Thus there are two types of word.

* That carry meaning.
* That bind a sentence together.

The words that carry the meaning in the example sentence are:

children played Scrabble father sent email

Each has a specific meaning which can be defined in a dictionary.

The words which bind the sentence together are:

The while their an

These words don’t bear a specific meaning, but the dictionary tells us how they are to be used, e.g. “indicating a contrast”.

Apart from these two types, there are also classes of word. The meaning or content words are classed into:

* Nouns
e.g. Scrabble
* Verbs
e.g. played
* Adjectives
e.g. yellow
* Adverbs
e.g. quickly

Binding or structure words are classed into:

* Pronouns
e.g. she
* Conjunctions
e.g. while
* Prepositions
e.g. beside
* Determiners
e.g. an

Next : 63. Creating texts - Part 2

Tedious thought it may seem, the only way to master punctuation properly is to go through the elements of it one by one. The rules are not quite as onerous as most of us remember from our schooldays. In fact they’re great fun if we approach them in the right spirit of enterprise.

To command the dizzy heights of superior punctuating, only twelve elements need to be learned. Grasp these and you are in control. One hour of your time and you’ll be master of the dot in dotcom, if nothing else.

Enough of the pep talk, let’s get down to business.

Full stop
Or “point” in American. This minuscule entity ends all sentences which don’t end with a question mark or exclamation mark. The next character is usually a capital letter.

It can also be used for abbreviations: etc. or e.g.

After a quotation, the full stop goes inside the quotation marks if the whole sentence is the quote; outside the quotation marks, if the quote is only a part of the sentence.

Comma
Of all the objects in the world of punctuation, the comma is the most problematical. Placing this curiously attractive little entity in a sentence is a minefield of rules and, even worse, opinions. The old-school, rather disciplinarian approach, was to place a comma at every point where there was a natural pause for breath. Nowadays, whole texts seem to rush by with scarcely a comma to be seen. The latter solution is clearly unsatisfactory because it results in much ambiguity of meaning. The following is a fairly comprehensive guide to comma usage using the system suggested by Oxford University.

a) Between similar qualifying adjectives: “An abstemious, taciturn woman.”
But if there is no similarity, there is no comma: “A dull grey shirt.” Just think list. Abstemious and taciturn are a short list of qualities pertaining to the woman. Whereas dull and grey are different qualities; indeed a form of grey might well be described as dull. It’s clearly not a list.

b) Separating items in a list: “Books, CDs, and videos.” The comma after CDs is sometimes omitted. It’s often known as the “Oxford comma”.
Exception: “A black and white picture.” Where black and white form a recognisable phrase rather than a list. Black and white could be changed to monochrome. “Books, CDs” is not reducible because it is a list.

c) Separating co-ordinated main clauses: “Residents to the left, visitors to the right.”
Exception — when they are closely allied: “Listen to me and you might learn something.”

d) For parenthetical words/phrases: “If you do go, however, you may regret it.” Or “The man, who was not strong, soon gave up.”
Exceptions — restrictive relative clauses: “People who are short should wear high heels.”

e) Following participial or verbless clauses. “Having gone for a walk, I felt a whole lot better.” “The concert over, the audience left.”
Exception — “My daughter Mary.”

f) A separating comma is used to avoid misunderstanding: “From the houses above, the church seemed very small.” Otherwise you would read: From the houses above the church…followed by the meaningless “seemed very small.” These nuances can be very important, especially in technical writing where unclear instructions could lead to danger.
Exceptions: do not use a comma to separate a verb from an object that is a clause: “They thought, that they had it made.” is wrong, as is a comma used to separate a phrasal subject from its predicate: “A man with great strength, should always be careful of others.”

g) Use after words which introduce quoted speech: “He shouted, ‘Watch your back!’”

h) In letters following Dear Susan, Dear Sir, &c., and after Yours faithfully, etc.

But it’s not necessary following a number in an address, e.g. “10 Downing Street”; or between month and year in a date, e.g. “October 2001”.

Semicolon
A comma is the least emphatic break in a sentence. If there is a need for a more distinct break, but not sufficient for a new sentence — always a hair-line decision — a semicolon is mustered. Usually the semi will divide clauses of equal importance and similar grammatical construction, e.g. “Waking is a pleasure; sleeping on even better.” It may also be used in a sentence where commas are already employed, but where a stronger break is called for, e.g. “They approached quickly, though with some trepidation, and took stock of the situation; but decided it was none of their business.”

Colon
a) The colon connects two grammatically complete clauses where the second represents a step forward from the first, or gives further explanation, e.g. “The idea had widespread support: the merging of the two groups would improve finances.”

b) To introduce a list: one, two, three. Or after expressions, “For example”, “the following”, &c.

c) For an emphatic, formalized introduction to speech, “He emphasised: ‘Don’t do it!’”

Next: 61, Punctuation — Part 2.

Development, Line, and Content Editors
If a lot of work, or development, is needed on a manuscript, it is usually handed to the Development Editor. This may be the Senior Editor, or it may even be done by a very well-proven copyeditor side by side with the copyediting itself. These folk are also referred to as Line Editors, because they work line by line with the author, or even as Content Editors, because they are concerned with the structure of the text, which needs considerable adjustment.

As you can see, distinguishing between different types of editing is no simple matter, largely because there’s no fixed demarcation drawn between them, and different publishers have a variety of ways and means of doing them. Editors often double up on tasks, and, if someone is on leave, others may pick up the cudgel for them.

Line editing is quite a specialised activity, though, depending as it does on preserving the author’s style. Line editors often work with the author to produce the manuscript — the recent case of Joan Collins, who was taken to court by her publisher for submitting a substandard MS, and who blamed the absence of a Line Editor for the fiasco, is a good reminder of the importance of the breed.

The Commandments of Writing
These “commandments” were said to have been copied from a notice in the US Congress. Editors take note:

• Don’t use no double negative.
• Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
• Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
• About them sentence fragments.
• When dangling, watch your participles.
• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
• Just between you and I, case is important too.
• Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read.
• Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
• Try to not ever use split infinitives.
• Its important to use your apostrophe’s correctly.
• Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
• Correct spelling is esential.

The Production & Managing Editors
In book and magazine publishing the Managing Editor is usually just that: a manager. He/she will control much of the editing process by outsourcing work to freelancers. The Managing Editor may not even read the MSS as they come in. To get freelance work in this area, it’s usually this person you have to apply to.

The Production Editor is the first main point of contact in the production process, all content problems having been resolved by this stage. Quite often there will be either a Production Editor or a Managing Editor, the roles overlap so much. The job is almost always advertised along the lines of: “Manuscript to finished copy”. It is an in-house job and an important as well as varied one.

The Verifier or Fact Checker
Such folk spend all their time verifying facts and statements in manuscripts scheduled for press. In technical writing and editing, it’s one of the most vital areas in the production process — mistakes can be very costly in terms of time, money, and reputation. It should never be skimped

The Copyeditor
The unit on copyediting will give more precise definitions of what exactly a copyeditor does. For now we’ll give a brief outline for completion in this section.

Copyediting is, let’s face it, the lowest form of editing there is. Paradoxically, it’s also one of the most important. A poorly copyedited book, or even worse, one that hasn’t been copyedited at all, is a disgrace to the publishing industry and, I regret to say, is becoming more and more commonplace as sub-publishers rely on spellcheckers and grammar software to do the job. That these don’t work unless checked themselves is well known even to fourth formers, let alone the big-wigs of the book trade. Too often authors are expected to send in word processed copy on disk which is perfectly copyedited and proofed. Some do, many don’t.

A good copyeditor, if asked, will fill in many of the gaps that the initial process has missed. If a book is worth publishing, it’s worth copyediting. Thankfully, the best publishers still acknowledge this truism.

The Proofreader
Proofreading generally comes below copyediting in the publishing pecking order. It is, however, the final textual check before production. The proofreader is the back-stop of the process. If he misses anything, it’s too late to put right. Many a good title has been saved by an observant and intelligent proofreader who, if justice is done, will soon be entrusted with copyediting and even line editing jobs. The unit which covers proofreading, gives greater detail.

Next: 60. Punctuation — Part 1.