Recently it came to my attention that an issue I’d thought of for years as a grammar error is, in fact, a matter of personal writing style—my personal style, to be specific.

In some situations, however, a more collaborative process is not just appropriate, but critical. Let’s take a look at what collaborative editing is and how you can make use of it to produce the best writing possible.

When hiring an editor for your writing, you first need to make sure you understand the different types of editing. Underneath the umbrella of editing, there are four main activities, ranging from intensive developmental editing to light proofreading:

ProofreadingPal LLC paid out over $471K to work-from-home contract proofreaders in 2016, and we're looking to expand our network of professionals! Are you looking to make extra money with your proofreading and editing talents? If so, we'd like to learn more about you. Please visit our career opportunities page for application details.

People like to say, “I feel badly," but it's wrong. Let’s look at exactly why this is not an idiom, a turn of phrase, a colloquialism, or anything other than a flat-out mistake.

Let’s look at a word pairing that can trip up even experienced writers (and some proofreaders): the almost-twins affect and effect.

A good poetry editor fixes bad grammar just like a good prose editor does. But a better poetry editor must also pay attention when grammar is being manipulated to aid meaning.

Here’s a quick guide to how you restore individual editors to a document in Word 2007, 2010, and 2013 in Windows and 2016 in Mac.

Professional and academic documents demand the principle of “Keep It Simple.” While some document styles can take a more flexible approach, academic documents in particular should always be simple, easy to read, and visually uncluttered. Let’s take a look at why.

I describe some areas of confusion about capitalization I have often observed in my work here at ProofreadingPal.

There are word pairs, even trios, whose meanings are similar, but distinct. The shades of difference are subtler, and so sometimes even educated speakers find themselves unsure of which is correct.

Canadian English is unique. Neither American nor wholly British, it’s a robust hybrid of British Commonwealth English and cross-border influences. Before we can assess the Canadian dialect, though, we need to understand how global languages become localized, and for that we need to examine the origins of American English.

I have been noticing recently that willy-nilly use of upper- and lowercase letters is pretty common, although it is far from correct. So I thought it time to review some basic capitalization rules. Here are the types of words that should be capitalized:

So much can be done with good comment boxes here’s an old-fashioned list of dos and don’ts.

In this blog post are a few of the most common comma errors and tips to avoid making them in your own writing.

A written joke is immortal, and once e-mailed or messaged, it lives forever outside your control. You have no idea whose eyes may see it or in what situation your joke may suddenly appear.

The more work you put in before you submit your document, the better your document will look after the professionals finish with it.

Try these tips in your writing. Practice makes perfect (as opposed to, “In order to achieve perfection, you should take the time to practice”).

Agents are businesspeople and creative professionals. They’re here to help you get your book into the publishing mainstream and into the hands of readers everywhe