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Tips on writing designed for academic authors

Track changes in MSWord

5/22/2022

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Viewing or concealing edits
Viewing edits
In the Ribbon’s Review tab, open the Show Markup (Windows) or Markup Options (Mac)
menu:
• Selecting “Comments” lets you switch between displaying and concealing the comments.
• Selecting “Insertions and Deletions” lets you switch between displaying and concealing
inserted and deleted text.
• Selecting “Formatting” lets you switch between displaying and concealing format changes
such as boldface, italics, and changes to paragraph styles.
This menu lets you focus on one or more specific types of change at a time (e.g., only comments,
both comments and inserted and deleted text). Turning off the display of a particular change does
not remove the change from your document; all changes are still present until you accept or
reject them. All this option does is conceal changes you’re not ready to consider right now.
Concealing edits
In the Ribbon’s Review tab, the unlabeled menu that usually starts by displaying “All Markup”
(called the Show menu in older versions of Word) gives you two useful options:
• Select “No Markup” to show the final manuscript that will result if you accept all of the edits.
Again, these edits are still present in the document; Word just doesn’t display them.
• Select “All Markup” to show all of the edits again. 
Accepting or rejecting edits
The easiest way to review the editor's changes is by using the tools provided in the Ribbon’s
Review tab:
• Click the Next Change (right arrow) or Previous Change (left arrow) icons to find the next
or previous edit, respectively.

• Click the Accept (checkmark) button to accept or the Reject (´) button to reject that edit.
• Click the Next Change or Previous Change icons if you don’t want to deal with the change
right now and will review it again later.
If you prefer, you can choose what to do about a given edit using the mouse: click on a change
with the right-hand mouse button (Control+click if your mouse only has one button) to display a
menu of options, and then choose the appropriate option (accept or reject).
If there are many edits, it can take a long time to accept each one individually. Fortunately,
there's a faster way:
• First, review all comments in the document. Make the necessary changes (e.g., insert a
sentence, change a word).
• Next, move through the document one sentence at a time, reviewing each edit. If you agree
with a specific change made by the editor, simply move on to the next edit.
• If you disagree with a change, reject that change (see the next point in this list), but insert a
comment that informs the editor what you did and why. (See the earlier section "Inserting
comments" to learn how to insert your own comments and the section “Replying to and
Resolving Comments” to learn how to reply to or resolve a comment.)
• To reject all of an edit, click the right-hand mouse button (or Control+click if your mouse
only has one button). Both actions display a menu of options for the edited text. Select
Reject Change from this menu. If you only want to reject part of the edit, select the inserted
or deleted text first by dragging the mouse cursor across it. (That is, position the mouse
cursor at the start of the text, hold down the mouse button, and drag the mouse to the end of
the text.) Then right-click or Control-click, and select Reject Change.
• Continue reviewing each edit or comment until you reach the end of the manuscript.
To accept the remaining edits (the ones you agreed with, plus your own changes) in a single step:
• Click the small triangle beside the Accept icon to display a menu of options.
• Select the option Accept All Changes.
If you intend to make any additional changes that you want the editor to review, turn on the track
changes feature (if it isn’t already on) so the editor can easily see what you did. (See the earlier
section "Inserting your own edits" for details.) This is more efficient (faster and less expensive)
than asking the editor to re-read the entire document to find what you did.
© 2019 Geoff Hart (geoff@geoff-hart.com)
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That v. Which

5/6/2021

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That v. Which is a constant issue in editing. This article explains the difference. The key though is not to precede either that or which with a comma. The comma indicates a non-restrictive clause. This type of clause should be rare in a formal paper. Typically I delete the comma and maybe you wonder why. The article will help.
​Which vs. That: Correct Usage | Merriam-Webster
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Possessives

6/5/2020

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For some reason, academics and journals frown on using possessives. I don't understand it myself. For journals, I think it is to eliminate apostrophes to save space. What is funny about that is to avoid them more words are typically used, or meaning is lost due to tortured strings of nouns. The possessive case is very useful and can improve your writing. Here is a good article on its types of use:
​https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/blog/2020/06/a-guide-to-double-possessives/
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Apostrophes

12/7/2019

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Here is a fun article I posted on LinkedIn:
​https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/apostrophe-society-shuts-down-because-ignorance-has-won-a4301391.html
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Colons

9/24/2019

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In academic writing I see mostly commas that are being used to accomplish much more than they are designed for. One option is to use a colon. This link is to an article that gives a overview of colon use. Punctuation can be used to enliven your text more effectively than verbosity.
​http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/blog/2019/09/a-guide-to-using-colons/
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Checklist for journal articles

7/13/2019

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 The link below goes to a checklist and advice on the steps needed to successfully submit your article. The checklist comes from the website of the Journal of Financial Economics. ​I though both young and old might find it useful. 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oMzJppG-7eg-z0Fj2laJObvcrj6HgDWI
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Wordiness

6/7/2019

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One of my jobs as a copyeditor is to weed out the wordiness in a paper. This article explains one form of wordiness that surrounds verbs. Another form is adding unneeded words to embellish another. An example is the word "activity." Risk-taking is an activity so saying risk-taking activity is wordy. Another very common add-on is "behavior." Risk-taking is a behavior and does not need to be labelled as such. ​Part of the problem here is the word order. The real phrase is that someone "is taking a risk." In this word order it becomes clearer that the activity is the taking of risk and if done frequently is a behavior that a person exhibits.
Here is the link to the article:
​https://aceseditors.org/news/2019/clamp-down-on-unhelping-verbs
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Dangling participles

3/22/2019

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A common problem in academic writing is long introductory clauses. Stylistically, these tend to be repetitive and to be used as brief summaries that are really needed and can confuse. That is particularly true when they create danglers, which are grammatically incorrect.
Here is  an explantion of the problem from The Chicago Manuel of Style:
5.115: Dangling participles Chapter Contents / Grammar / Verbs / Participles and Gerunds Both participles and gerunds are subject to dangling. A participle that has no syntactic relationship with the nearest subject is called a dangling participleor just a dangler. In effect, the participle ceases to function as a modifier and functions as a kind of preposition. Often the sentence is illogical, ambiguous, or even incoherent, as in Frequently used in early America, experts suggest that shaming is an effective punishment (used does not modify the closest noun, experts; it modifies shaming), or Being a thoughtful mother, I believe Meg gives her children good advice (the writer at first seems to be attesting to his or her own thoughtfulness rather than Meg’s). Recasting the sentence so that the misplaced modifier is associated with the correct noun is the only effective cure {experts suggest that shaming, often used in early America, is an effective punishment}. But rewording to avoid the participle or gerund may be preferable {I believe that because Meg is a thoughtful mother, she gives her children good advice}. Using passive voice in an independent clause can also produce a dangler. In Finding that the questions were not ambiguous, the exam grades were not changed, the participle finding“dangles” because there is no logical subject to do the finding. The sentence can be corrected by using active voice instead of passive, so that the participle precedes the noun it modifies {finding that the questions were not ambiguous, the teacher did not change the exam grades}. Quite often writers will use it or there as the subject of the independent clause after a participial phrase, thereby producing a dangler without a logical subject, as in Reviewing the suggestions, it is clear that no consensus exists. (A possible revision: Our review of the suggestions shows that no consensus exists.) 

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Plain writing

11/5/2018

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Editing in academia is a challenge. On the one hand, there is the need for jargon specific to the discipline. On the other, there is a need to make the writing easy to understand and to read. For example, many academics like to use long introductory phrases to explain why they are going to take the action at the end of the sentence. For the reader, this technique is laborious and can lead to rereading the sentence. There is also a tendency to add layers of redundancy; for example, "The firm value is related to firm profits that are the result of firm performance." This is a tough sentence to read. The English language allows this sentence to be simplified: "The firm's value is related to its profits that result from its performance." Now, the sentence is concise and has the same meaning.
Here is a short video on this topic: https://youtu.be/JT0U94349Hc
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Writing tip - Parallelism

6/2/2018

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A lack of parallelism is a problem I see in academic writing all the time. It often happens when authors try to combine two separate thoughts in one sentence. One solution is to create two short sentences, one for each thought. Another is to rework the sentence. In both the trouble for an editor is to pick the correct meaning, which because of the lack of parallelism can be tough.
Here is a brief article from the MLA style guide:
https://style.mla.org/parallelism/ 
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