A Guide to Editing Stories for Your Publication — As an editor, your responsibilities include: Working with your writers to create stories that are as they should be: accurate, authentic, cohesive, complete, consistent, explanatory, sincere, truthful, and understandable Revising stories submitted for publication according to the standards of your publication Working with your writers Wouldn’t it be lovely if you had unlimited time…

Medium says “not without attribution” — but … — Scott Lamb, vice president of content on Medium, has come out with the official Medium statement on AI-generated writing: [W]hen we encounter content that we believe is AI-generated but not disclosed, we won’t distribute it across Medium’s network. When I encountered AI text generation for the first time a couple…

A bit of … Alzheimer’s? Oh, no, not that! — “Ya know, when they tell ya, if you fall offa horse, you better get yo ass right back up on that horse? Well, what ah say is … ” Here, the old man pauses. Looks around to see who’s paying attention. I’m paying attention even though I’ve never ridden a…

The answer may surprise you (it certainly surprised me) — The Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that by 2035, there will not be enough money to pay full Social Security benefits to everyone who had money taken out of their paychecks during their working lives. The previous yearly estimate by the board of trustees was that there would be…

Writing complex sentences without the right punctuation is like offering your reader a spoon to carve up a steak — As an editor, I work with writers to construct stories that are readable. Most of the stories I edit have no problems with sentence structure — subject, predicate, and object. Where my assistance is needed more often is with punctuation. Punctuation is like a knife: It slices up a story…

🦎🦋❌🍎🥑🚂🚦⚾🔥😜️ — As an editor, you may want to enhance a story for a writer who is not familiar with the visual aspects of reader engagement. You can do this with emojis, emoticons, smiley faces, symbols, changed fonts, and text art: With a quick click or two, you can add all kinds…

I found out why (and it may not be what you think) — Why do we have refugees, many of whom are used to temperatures in the 90s and 100s, sleeping on our streets in 28-degree weather? Why do mothers set out on a 2,000-mile trek to the U.S., babies in their weary arms and small children stumbling along behind, homesick and hungry…

No! No! I give you some viable alternatives — According to a recent YouGov chat, almost 75 percent of Americans wish Kevin McCarthy would just go away. I’m in agreement with the majority: Neither the McCarthy in the 1950s nor the current McCarthy should ever have been granted power over other people. Both of them could be described as…

Gotta love those commas; after all, you’re a writer — As an editor, I’m concerned with commas. Too concerned? Well, I do know that concentrating on the correct use of commas can take my attention away from the meaning of a story, leaving me nitpicking about what my writer may find inconsequential. However, not getting the commas right can sometimes…