The Mechanics of
Writing
A Tutorial
Created by Julie
Contents:
- Tense
- Homonyms
Mechanics is the
term we use to describe the technical aspects of writing, such as spelling, punctuation,
capitalization, etc. Many fiction
writers, myself included, would say that mechanics are
not the most important part of writing.
They come second to other elements such as a good storyline,
well-developed characters, and so on.
However, mechanics are still very important. If your story is not mechanically
well-written, many educated readers will not even bother to read it, either
because it’s too hard for them to figure out what you’re trying to say, or they
just assume the story won’t be good because it doesn’t appear to be
well-written. Despite the phrase “Don’t
judge a book by its cover,” appearance matters in fanfic. If your story doesn’t look worth reading, people may not read it. Good mechanics make a story easy to read, and
that will attract more readers.
If you’re
not sold on the importance of mechanics, read the following paragraph, borrowed
from this site:
Memorable Students
they are the memorable students in any
class they participate fully in any mischief they see no point in volunteering
for extra jobs they delight in distracting their classmates they take no
pleasure in learning they are never satisfied
Not only
is the above example difficult to read because of the lack of punctuation and
capitalization, but it also impossible to understand the meaning of it. If it had punctuation, it could be read in
either of these ways:
Memorable
Students
They are
the memorable students. In any class,
they participate fully. In any mischief,
they see no point. In volunteering for
extra jobs, they delight. In distracting
their classmates, they take no pleasure.
In learning, they are never satisfied.
Memorable
Students
They are
the memorable students in any class.
They participate fully in any mischief.
They see no point in volunteering for extra jobs. They delight in distracting their
classmates. They take no pleasure in
learning. They are never satisfied.
So are
these “memorable students” good students or bad students? Based on the original text, we have no way of
knowing. Can you see how important
mechanics are to meaning?
I am
studying to be an elementary school teacher, and I have always been a bit of a
grammar police at heart, so I have to admit, some of the poor mechanics I see
when reading fanfic make me cringe. I decided to write up this tutorial so that
any writer who cares about the quality of their writing can read it and brush
up on their mechanics. Everyone has their
strengths and weaknesses, and not everyone is good with the grammar and
mechanics side of language. Not to
mention, there are plenty of fanfic writers who don’t
speak English as a first language, and sometimes the mechanics differ from
language to language. However, once you
have a solid understanding of the mechanics I’m going to cover in this
tutorial, you won’t think twice about using them correctly in your writing, and
your readers will thank you for it.
Let’s
start with the basics. To put it simply,
a sentence is a complete thought or
idea. [I write fanfic]
is a sentence. Like all complete
sentences, it has two main parts, a subject and an action. I is the subject, or
noun. Write is the action, or verb. [I am a fanfic writer] is another
sentence with the same meaning. In this
case, I
is still the subject, and am is the verb, though it does not really
describe an action. (It is called a linking verb, linking I
to fanfic writer, which are one in the same.)
Some sentences
contain more than one thought or idea.
These are called compound sentences.
An example of compound sentence is: [I am a fanfic
writer, and I write mostly drama.]
The two main ideas are [I am a fanfic writer.] and [I write mostly drama.] Each of these could be sentences on their
own, since they both form complete thoughts, but I chose to combine them
together into one sentence. Notice that
I did this by putting a comma and and between them. Words like and, or, and but are called conjunctions and are
used to join simple sentences into compound sentences this way.
A run-on
sentence is a sentence with multiple thoughts or ideas that are not joined
together in the correct way, using commas and conjunctions or semi-colons
(which I will get to in a bit). If I
wrote, [I am a fanfic writer I write mostly drama], that would
be a run-on sentence because there is no punctuation to separate the two
thoughts.
As you can
see, punctuation is important to writing sentences correctly, so I will cover
that next.
Punctuation are marks such as periods (.), question marks (?),
exclamation points (!), commas (,), apostrophes (‘),
quotation marks (“”), semi-colons (;), and colons (:). When used correctly, they make writing look
more organized and easier to read and understand. They tell you how to read a line and where to pause or breathe. Even if you’re not reading out loud,
punctuation is important to the meaning of text, as you saw in the example at
the beginning of this tutorial.
Most
people understand how to use periods, question marks, and exclamation points,
which are all used at the ends of sentences.
Many people struggle with commas and quotations, though, so that’s what
I’m going to focus mostly on here.
Commas
Commas are
one of the most important punctuation marks, yet they are often ignored or
misused. They have many different
uses. Usually, they are used to separate
words or phrases, such as clauses in a sentence, items in a list, transition
words, names, parts of a date or address, and more.
In the
sentence I just wrote, I used several commas.
Usually
is a transition word and should be followed by a comma. Such as clauses in a sentence is a clause, or
phrase, itself and should be separated from the other phrases in the sentence
for clarity. The ways in which commas
can be used formed a list in this sentence, and so I separated those by commas
as well.
If you are
writing a compound sentence, as described above, you can use a comma and a
conjunction to separate the two or more ideas in that sentence. Remember, though, to always use a conjunction
along with your comma. Writing a
sentence like [I
am a fanfic writer, I write mostly drama.]
is wrong. Technically, that is a
run-on. To make it not a run-on, you
would need the and
in there after the comma.
You could
also use a semi-colon. Instead of
writing [I am a fanfic writer, and I write mostly drama.], you
could shorten it up by writing, [I am a fanfic writer; I write mostly drama.] The semi-colon takes the place of the comma
and conjunction and is correct. This may
seem picky, but this is what the rules of English dictate.
Quotations
In
fiction, quotations are used mainly for writing dialogue, or your characters’
speech. A lot of people struggle with
the correct way to write dialogue, especially at first, but once you get the
hang of it, it’s easy. Here are the
basics:
First,
every time one of your characters is saying something, all of their dialogue
should be contained inside quotation marks.
For example, if you had Brian saying, “I’m going
to church,” you would write his line exactly as I wrote it – within
quotation marks. [“I’m going to church.”]
If your
line of dialogue stands by itself, like at the end of the above paragraph, you
should end it with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. The punctuation always goes INSIDE the
quotation marks, NOT outside. [“I’m going to church.” ]ß the right way [“I’m going to church”.]
ß the wrong way
If your
line of dialogue is followed by a clause like he said, you should use a comma instead of a period. For example:
[“I’m
going to church,” he said.]
However,
if the dialogue would normally have a question mark or exclamation point
instead of a period, you can keep the question mark or exclamation point. For example: [“Are
you going to church?” he asked.]
The punctuation still stays inside the quotation marks.
If you’re
writing a characters thoughts,
something they’re just thinking and not actually saying, you don’t need to use
quotation marks. For example, if Brian’s
just thinking, I need to go to church, you could write it like this: [I need to go to
church, Brian thought.] Some
authors choose to put thoughts in italics to differentiate them. I myself like doing this. I would write this sentence like this: [I need to go to church, Brian thought.] That is all a matter of the author’s
preference though.
A paragraph is a group of sentences that
all revolve around the same topic or idea.
In fiction, paragraphs can be as short as one or two sentences or much
longer, depending on how much you have to write about one certain thing and
your own preference. In general, a
good-sized paragraph is about 5-7 sentences.
If your paragraphs are consistently longer than that, you might need to
break up your story into more paragraphs.
Many
beginning writers write all in one big paragraph; a whole chapter may be all in
one or two paragraphs. Huge paragraphs
are hard to follow. It is easier to
read, both from a comprehension and a physical standpoint, when text is broken
up into smaller paragraphs with empty spaces in between. Notice that throughout this tutorial, I’ve
kept my paragraphs fairly short. This
makes it easier for you to follow the text.
The
general rule is, you should start a new paragraph
every time you start talking about something new. Going along with our last examples, if you
started a paragraph with Brian saying, “I’m going to church,” you might
continue that paragraph with a few sentences about Brian leaving. You could describe him putting on his shoes,
getting his keys, going out to his car, etc.
Once he gets to the church, or maybe even once he starts driving away,
you should start a new paragraph because you’re now describing something new.
When
writing dialogue, you should also start
a new paragraph every time there is a new speaker. This is a big one!! If Brian says “I’m going to church,” and then
Kevin replies, “Okay, see ya later,” these two lines of dialogue should be in
different paragraphs. I’ll show you
below:
[“I’m going to church,” said Brian, grabbing his
keys.
Kevin looked up.
“Okay, see ya later,” he replied.]
Even
though my paragraph about Brian was only one sentence, I had to start a new paragraph
when I got to Kevin because I knew he was going to start talking, too. Whenever the speaker changes, change
paragraphs. This makes it less confusing
and prevents you from having to say [Brian said…] or [Kevin said…] before
or after each line of dialogue. If you
change paragraphs each time, the readers can usually figure out who’s talking.
While I’m at it, just a couple notes about grammar-related
topics.
Tense describes when an event
happens. There are three main
tenses: past, present, and future. Most fictional stories are written in past
tense. This allows the writer to tell
the story as if it’s already happened.
The examples I’ve given so far are written in past tense, as seen below:
[“I’m going to church,” said Brian, grabbing his
keys.
Kevin looked up.
“Okay, see ya later,” he replied.]
If I wanted to make this chunk of text seem like it was
happening right now, I could write it in present tense. Then it would read like this:
[“I’m going to church,” says Brian, grabbing his
keys.
Kevin looks up.
“Okay, see ya later,” he replies.]
Most
stories aren’t written this way; if you are an experienced reader, reading in
this tense probably seems strange to you.
However, there is not really anything wrong with writing in present
tense; again, it’s all about the writer’s preference.
Future
tense isn’t something you see in the narrative (non-dialogue) part of writing,
so I won’t even talk about that here.
The most
important thing to remember about tense is to choose one tense and stick to it.
This is another problem some beginning writers have. Many kids, when learning to write in school,
switch tenses like crazy. As you gain more
experience in both reading and writing, you should be able to stay in one tense,
and if you start switching tenses, your writing should sound weird when you go
back to read it.
Here is
our example with mixed tenses. Read it
to yourself. Does it sound weird?
[“I’m going to church,” said Brian, grabbing his
keys.
Kevin looks up.
“Okay, see ya later,” he replied.]
Proofreading
is an important part of writing, and it helps to go back and read what you’ve
written, word for word. It helps a lot
if you read it out loud or whisper it under your breath or at least mouth it. This way, you can make sure you’re really
reading each word and also get a feel for how the text actually sounds. Does it flow together nicely? Does it make sense? Does it sound the way language should, or is
there something “off” about it? Changing
tenses all the time makes it sound “off.”
In the
English language, which is, admittedly, one of the more confusing languages out
there, there are different forms of every verb that go with different
subjects. One of the ones some people
struggle with is the verb [to be]. Here is the
correct subject-verb agreement for [to be]:
Present
Tense:
I
am
You
are
He/She/It
is
We
are
They
are
Past
Tense:
I
was
You
were
He/She/It
was
We
were
They
were
Even if you
do not use proper subject-verb agreement when speaking because of your dialect,
you should use them when writing, unless you are writing dialogue in a dialect
that uses unconventional subject-verb agreement, like “They was” or “We is.”
Homonyms
are words which sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different
meanings. They’re just another lovely
feature of the confusing English language.
There are many, many homonyms, but a few of them are used – and used
incorrectly – very often. Seeing these
common homonyms misused are big pet peeves for some people, so if you don’t
want to annoy some of your readers, learn how to use them correctly.
Your/You’re
[Your]
is a possessive pronoun. It always shows
possession, referring to something that “YOU” own. Examples:
Your dog, your house, your arm
[You’re]
is a contraction. It is a way of
shortening “you are.” Examples: You’re
going away; You’re
shorter than me
If you’re not sure which to use, ask yourself what the word
you want means. Is it referring to [Your] something, or is it that [You’re] doing something? When in doubt, try substituting “You are” in
place of [You’re/Your]. If “you are” makes sense, you should use [you’re]. If
“you are” does not make sense, use [your].
There/Their/They’re
[There] usually refers to a direction or place, such as in “over
there” or “here and there.” It can also
be used as a subject that is linked to an object in a sentence. Examples:
Put your coat over there; There is my house.
[Their] is a possessive pronoun, like [your]. It shows possession, referring to something
that “THEY” own. Examples: Their
dog, their house, their arms
[They’re] is a contraction, short for “they are.” Examples:
They’re going away; They’re both
shorter than me
Again, if you’re not sure which to use, ask yourself what
the word you want means. Try
substituting “they are.” If “they are”
doesn’t fit, ask yourself if you are referring to something owned by two or
more people (in which case you would use [their])
or to a place ([there]).
Its/It’s
Same principle as the last two.
[Its] is a possessive pronoun.
It refers to something that “It” owns.
Examples: Its hair, its smell, its arm
[It’s] is a contraction, short for “it is.” Examples:
It’s going away; It’s shorter than
me
Not sure? Try
substituting “it is.” If that doesn’t
sound right, use [its]. [Its’] is not
a word.
To/Too/Two
[To] is a preposition, used to link a verb to an object, such
as a person or place. Examples: The Backstreet Boys are flying to
[Too] can be used as a synonym (word
that means the same) for “also” or “as well,” or as an adjective that means “in
excess.” Examples:
I want to go to the concert, too. Unfortunately, the tickets cost too much money.
[Two] is simply the written form of the number 2. Examples:
Two of the Backstreet Boys are
cousins. The Boys made two videos for “I’ll Never Break Your
Heart.”
Then/Than
[Then] is a transition word, used to describe when something
happens. Examples: Howie put on his shoes, and then he walked out the door; He liked to
go for a jog now and then.
[Than] is a preposition, used to compare
two objects. Examples:
Kevin is taller than Brian;
Nick is younger than AJ.
Lose/Loose
[Lose] is a verb, the present tense form of the past tense
“lost.” It is related to the word
“loss.” Examples: I don’t wanna lose you now; If I lose it all, there’d be nothing left to lose.
[Loose] is an adjective and a synonym of
words such as “baggy” and “roomy.” It is
also a slang term that refers to promiscuity, which is why Nelly Furtado’s song “Promiscuous Girl” was a fitting first
single from her album Loose. Examples:
The t-shirt I bought at the Backstreet Boys concert was very loose on me. Brian held my hand loosely when he reached down from the stage.
*** This can be a confusing pair because the spelling of [lose] does not fit the rules of phonics based on how
it is pronounced. It makes sense that it
should be spelled with a double O, which is why some people spell it like [loose.]
However, there is NO EXCUSE for a Backstreet Boys fan to misuse this
pair. The Boys have TWO SONGS with the
word “Lose” in the TITLE (“Don’t Wanna LOSE You Now” and “LOSE It All”), so you
SHOULD NOT be spelling [lose] L-O-O-S-E. ONE ‘O,’ people, just one! If you’re not sure, just pull out Millennium or Never Gone and look at the tracklisting
on the back.
These are just a few of the most
commonly misused homonyms I see in fanfiction. For a complete list of homonyms and their
meanings, click here.
Proofreading
is an important part of being a writer.
Even the best writers should proofread their own work before publishing
it (even if it’s just on a fanfics website online) because everyone makes
mistakes, whether simply an accidental typo or a brain fart that leads to a
grammar error.
This last
section is a way for you to practice your proofreading skills. Read the following paragraphs, and identify
as many mechanical errors as you can (including sentence structure,
punctuation, paragraphing, grammar, and spelling). It might help if you keep track of these
mistakes on a separate sheet of paper so you can later tally up how many you
found.
Kevin Howie Brian AJ and Nick piled
onto the bus, they had just finished there concert that night in
Oh my God its’ the backstreet boys
screamed the gurl at the counter when they walked in
to order. I love U guys so much your my favorite band, will U sign a song 4 me? “Sure” Nick agreed and breaks into don’t
wanna loose you now, the other guys came in on they’re parts but the girl was
squealing louder then they could sing.
Done
reading? Now scroll down and check your
answers.
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This is
the mechanically correct version of the selection above:
Kevin, Howie, Brian, AJ, and Nick
piled onto the bus. They had just
finished their concert that night in
“How about
McDonald’s?” AJ suggested, smiling.
“You always want to go to Mickey
D’s, J,” complained Kevin. “Can’t we eat
healthy for once?” Howie agreed with
Kevin, but the two were quickly overruled by the other three, who insisted on
fast food. Before they knew it, the bus
was pulling up in front of the familiar golden arches.
“Oh my God, it’s the Backstreet
Boys!” screamed the girl at the counter when they walked in to order. “I love you guys so much; you’re my favorite
band! Will you sign a song for me?”
“Sure,” Nick agreed and broke into
“Don’t Wanna Lose You Now.” The other
guys came in on their parts, but the girl was squealing louder than they could
sing.
Here is a
list of the errors found in the first version:
1. Kevin Howie Brian AJ
and Nick
There
should be commas between the guys’ names when you list them like that.
2. piled onto the bus, they had just finished
This is a
run-on sentence and needs to be split up with a period or semi-colon, rather
than a comma.
3. there concert
It should
be “THEIR concert” because “their” shows possession.
4. they had just finished there concert that night in
The verb
“was” does not agree with the subject “they.”
It should be “were” instead.
5. on they’re way
It should
be “on THEIR way” because, again, “their” shows possession, and “they’re” means
“they are.”
6. to grab a bite to eat than they
This is a
run-on sentence and needs to be split up with a period, semi-colon, or
conjunction and comma.
7. than they would be
It should
be “THEN,” not “than.”
8. the next city
There
should be a comma separating “city” and “
9. “Wear should we eat”
It should
be “Where,” not “Wear.”
10. “Wear should we eat”?
The question
mark should come inside the quotation marks, not outside.
11. asks Howie
In
sticking with the past tense of the paragraph, it should be “asked,” not
“asks.”
12. asks Howie his body jerking
There
should be comma between “Howie” and “his” to separate the clauses.
13. “How about
McDonald’s”? AJ suggested
Because
the speaker has changed from Howie to AJ, this should be the start of a new
paragraph.
14. “How about
McDonald’s”?
Again, the
end punctuation should be placed inside the quotation marks, not outside.
15. AJ suggested smiling
There
should be a comma between “suggested” and “smiling” to separate the clauses.
16. “You always want two
go
It should
be “to,” not “two.”
17. go too Mickey D’s
It should
be “to,” not “too.”
18. Mickey D’s AJ
There
should be a comma between “D’s” and “J” to show that Kevin is speaking to AJ.
19. AJ” complained Kevin
There
should be a comma between “AJ” and the quotation mark.
20. complained Kevin “can’t
This is a
run-on sentence. There should be a period
or semi-colon after “Kevin,” and if a period is used, “can’t” should be
capitalized.
21. healthy four once
It should
be “for,” not “four.” “Four” is the
number 4.
22. Howie agrees with
Kevin
In
sticking with the past tense, the verb should be “agreed,” not “agrees.”
23. Howie agrees with
Kevin but the
This is
part of a compound sentence, and to break it up properly, there should be a
comma between “Kevin” and the conjunction “but.”
24. the to were quickly overruled
It should
be “two,” not “to.”
25. the other three who insisted on fast food
There
should be a comma between “three” and “who” to separate the clauses.
26. insisted on fast food, before they knew it the bus was pulling up
This is a
run-on sentence and should be separated with a period or semi-colon, not a
comma, or should at least contain a conjunction, such as “and,” after the
comma.
27. before they knew it the bus
There
should be a comma between “it” and “the” to separate the clauses.
28. Oh my God its’ the
backstreet boys screamed the gurl
Because
this is a quote, “Oh my God its’ the backstreet boys” should be contained
within quotations.
29. its’ the backstreet boys screamed the gurl
There
should be a comma after “boys” and before the quotation mark that should be
there.
30. Oh my God its’
There
should be a comma after “Oh my God.”
31. its’ the backstreet boys
It should
be “it’s,” not “its’.” “It’s” means “it
is,” and “its’” is not a word.
32. backstreet boys
As a proper
noun, the name of a group, Backstreet Boys should always be capitalized. (This is a bonus, since I didn’t really talk
about the rules of capitalization in this tutorial.)
33. gurl
“Gurl” is not a word; it is the teenybopper way of spelling
“girl.” “Girl” should never be spelled
this way in formal writing, which includes a story that you want to be taken
seriously. (Another
bonus point.)
34. I love U guys so much
your my favorite band, will U sign a song 4 me?
This is a
quote and, thus, should be put inside quotation marks.
35. U guys
“U” should
never be used in place of the word “you” in formal writing. If you don’t have time to spell out the full
three-letter word, you shouldn’t be writing fanfiction.
36. so much your
This is a
run-on sentence; there should be a period (or exclamation point) or semi-colon
between “much” and “your.”
37. your my favorite band
It should
be “you’re,” not “your.”
38. your my favorite band, will U sign
This is another
run-on; there should be a period (or exclamation point) or semi-colon between
“band” and “will.”
39. will U sign
Again with the “U.” The word is “YOU,”
Y-O-U – spell it out!
40. sign a song
It should
be “sing,” not “sign.” This is a typo
that spell check will not catch, since “sign” is also a word. Only good proofreading will catch these kinds
of mistakes.
41. song 4 me
Another
example of Teenybopperese, “4” should never be used
for the word “for” in formal writing.
42. 4
me? “Sure” Nick agreed
Since the
speaker changes from the girl to Nick, a new paragraph should begin with
“Sure.”
43. “Sure” Nick agreed
There
should be a comma after “Sure,” but inside the quotation marks.
44. Nick agreed and
breaks into
In
sticking with past tense, “breaks” should be “broke.”
45. don’t wanna loose you now
As a song
title, “Don’t Wanna Lose You Now” should be capitalized and put inside
quotation marks. (Bonus)
46. loose you now
It should
be “LOSE,” not “loose” – check the back of Millennium!!!
47. breaks into don’t wanna loose you now, the other guys came in
This is
part of a run-on sentence; there should be a period or semi-solon in place of
the comma after “now.”
48. they’re parts
It should
be “their,” not “they’re.”
49. the other guys came in on they’re parts but the girl
This is
part of a compound sentence and should be divided by a comma before the
conjunction “but.”
50. louder then they could sing.
It should
be “than,” not “then.”
There you
have it, fifty mechanical errors in just that small excerpt!! For the record, I wrote that excerpt myself
for this page and made up the errors on purpose, but all in all, it really
isn’t much of an exaggeration of writing I’ve actually seen in real
fanfics. Next time you’re writing, look
closely at your own work. Does it look
anything like this? Can you find any
similar mistakes? If your writing does
resemble the above example in some ways, you probably need some work. However, if you can spot the mistakes after
reading this tutorial and correct them, you’re on the way to better writing and
proofreading.
If you
found and corrected 45-50 of the mistakes in the above example, you either
didn’t need to read this tutorial or learned a lot from it. Good for you!
If you
missed more than a few of the errors, you might just need some more practice in
certain areas of mechanics, such as punctuation.
If you
were able to spot errors, but didn’t know how to correct them, you’re on your
way to becoming a good proofreader – you just need to learn more in order to be
able to fix your mistakes, not just find them.
When in doubt, just ask someone who can help you! The English language is tough, and some
people just have an easier time with it than others.
Thanks for
reading my tutorial on mechanics! I hope
the information and examples on this page made sense, and I also hoped you
learned something from it. It’s a lot to
digest, especially you’re trying to learn or re-learn it all for the first
time. If you feel overwhelmed, try to
break it down and look at a section at time, working on improving one
mechanical aspect of your writing before you move on to the next.
I have two
other suggestions for anyone looking to improve their mechanics, and they’re
easy ones. First, read as much as you
can. Read works that you know are
mechanically correct – not just fanfics (although there are some that serve as
good models), but also published books and articles that you know have been
professionally edited. Try to model the
format of your own writing on what you see in professional writing.
This
brings me to my second suggestion – practice!
Keep writing, and you WILL get better at it, in all aspects. As you write, make an effort to proofread and
fix your mistakes, or if you don’t yet feel comfortable with that, see if you
can find someone who will proofread for you.
Proofreading can be time-consuming, so not everyone wants to get stuck
doing it, but if you can find a willing proofreader, make sure you look at the
corrected versions of your story once he/she is done proofing. Find the changes he/she has made and identify
WHY the changes were made. If you aren’t
sure, just ask! Your proofreader should
be able to tell you why what he/she changed is better or more correct than what
you originally had. After more
experience, you should get a feel for how to make these changes/corrections on
your own.
Looking
for more information about mechanics or tutorials on other aspects of
writing? Try these links!
Grammar/Mechanics Links
Editing and Proofreading Strategies
Fiction Writing Tutorials
Beta Readers
Are you an
avid reader who would be interested in proofreading and editing (beta reading)
other writers’ stories? Email me if you’d like to
volunteer yourself as a beta reader for writers who don’t feel comfortable
doing it themselves. I will add your
name and email address to a list that will be a resource for writers in need of
proofreaders. The only qualifications
are that you are good with English mechanics, grammar, etc. yourself and have
time to dedicate.
Note: Please don’t ask me to proofread for
you. I just don’t have the time, which
is why I wrote up this tutorial – I’m hoping that more writers can learn how to
proofread their own work and not just rely on other people to do it for
them. I don’t mind proofreading in
general, but it can get very time-consuming, tedious, and frustrating, which is
why I tell people no. There’s just not
room for it in my schedule right now.
Thanks for understanding.
Any comments/questions? Email me at rokofages75@dreamers-sanctuary.com
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