Proofreading tips for those who agonise over their mistakes
By Dan Kaufman on March 20, 201702Everyone can have a bad day when it comes to proofreading.
Even the most experienced editors can (and do) read and re-read the same bit of copy only to miss a glaring typo that even a primary school kid can spot.
The reason …
The potty-mouthed guide to using apostrophes
By Dan Kaufman on February 15, 2017If you find yourself swearing while figuring out when and where to use an apostrophe, you’re not alone.
This tiny punctuation mark causes a lot of confusion – which might explain why someone finally wrote a book called Fucking Apostrophes …
Headline writing tips from David Ogilvy
By Dan Kaufman on November 30, 2016When the original madman David Ogilvy wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man, no-one had even heard of the web – and yet most of his headline writing tips are still worth following …
The evil writer’s guide to writing in the middle voice (and the nice writer’s guide to effective voice)
By Dan Kaufman on October 4, 2016My last post explained how to write in the active voice – but what’s far less known is the middle voice, not to mention the effective voice …
How to write in the active voice
By Dan Kaufman on July 18, 2016Writing in the active voice is key to making your copy sharper and easier to read. Yet while many people have heard about it, there’s a lot of confusion about what it means.
Some think it’s about tone or style, others think it’s about tense.
Instead, active voice is about having the subject perform the action of the verb – rather than being acted on by it …