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Q&A

General Q&A about the craft of professional writing, editing, and publishing. Questions about all types of writing are welcome -- fiction, technical documentation, scholarly articles, poetry, scriptwriting, blogs, and more.

Filters (None)
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What is the correct way to mark a section as a translation?

I am often in the situation where I would like to cite a source in another language, and as such include my own translation alongside the quotation. I have been told that translation is a form of ...

4 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Moshi‭  ·  last activity 12h ago by paulscreationids‭

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Should I describe a person or a room first?

If you are introducing a new character and a new location, both are going to be involved for a while, which description should I put first? The character becomes close friends with the protagonist ...

6 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Ajnatorix Zersolar‭  ·  last activity 3d ago by scopegranites‭

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How to write a book from NOT the main character's POV and then organically switch the main character

How can you write a book from the point of view of a character who is not the main character and introduce the main character later on, who you want the story to focus on? How do I do this in an or...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Stupidzombiet ‭  ·  last activity 7d ago by paulscreationids‭

pov
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How to deal with online comments to published pieces?

I mainly write for academic journals (and creative writing for my own amusement), but from time to time, I publish opinion pieces in various mainstream magazines and newspapers, for which I am mode...

1 answer  ·  posted 9y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 8d ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How can I catch more errors when I proofread?

I have a problem where I often proof my own writing and I don't catch all the errors while I am reading through it. I often miss entire words out of sentences or find myself repeating words. I can ...

11 answers  ·  posted 12y ago by Joel Rodgers‭  ·  last activity 21d ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How do I write transitions between thinking and speaking?

I've just downloaded an open-source script-writing program, and have started converting the scripts for an anime I've been writing into industry-standard formatting. There are a few points in the ...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by F1Krazy‭  ·  last activity 21d ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Blog Timeline for mini stories

Does anyone know of any blog tools that incorporate a timeline? What I'm essentially wanting to do is write little short mini stories about my life, but on each blog entry I'd want a timeline to ap...

1 answer  ·  posted 7y ago by codemann8‭  ·  last activity 22d ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Is the genre 'fantasy' still fantasy without magic?

Is writing fantasy novel with no mages, witches, wizards or anything remotely magical a waste of time? Can it still be classified as fantasy?

10 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Chagat Nahn‭  ·  last activity 1mo ago by paulscreationids‭

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Should I use contractions in a technical tutorial?

In a technical tutorial which fits better: In this tutorial you'll learn or In this tutorial you will learn or in general does it make no difference?

5 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by learnAndImprove‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by rightangledevelopers‭

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Technical Writer Skill Set

As technology and industry demands evolve, what tools/skills should one focus on learning/improving as a technical writer?

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by yashikaissrani‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Sphinx: API documentation: How to turn off creating links to Parameter/Argument link creation

For projects with API documentation generated by Sphinx, I've noticed that some project's don't include links to the Parameter/Argument types (str, file-like object, int, etc) and some projects do....

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by CodeFarmer‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Choosing between your Mother Tongue and another language

OK, I know I was warned, but what can I do? I had this question for a very long time. I have decided where to write (platform like computer or notepad), I am in the middle of deciding my way of wri...

3 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by rptwsthi‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Do readers primarily identify with or judge heroes in a novel?

In this article about different categories of heroes, Matt Bird states that sensitive and unlucky heroes are hard to write because audiences have a hard time caring about them. He says: American...

2 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by icanfathom‭  ·  last activity 3mo ago by Antares‭

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Should one invest in a professional editor before querying?

Let's say you have completed a novel. Since you're not totally naive, you have also complete a few drafts, where with "few" I mean at least more than two. You are at a point that your book seems ...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by Liquid‭  ·  last activity 3mo ago by Mithical‭

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How can I make a character's emotions bolder and more obvious without overemphasizing?

How can I make a character's emotions bolder and more obvious without overemphasizing? On SE I asked a similar question about how to emphasize more. But I want to find a good balance that won't en...

1 answer  ·  posted 6mo ago by Austin Overton‭  ·  last activity 3mo ago by Mithical‭

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Who owns the copy if a copywriter provides copy as a paid service?

I build websites. I've used a copywriter to provide the website copy, the client paid the writer directly. I placed copyright signs on the site for the writer as requested. However, they have now ...

4 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Dano007‭  ·  last activity 4mo ago by Canina‭

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Bullets vs. Numbering: which to use when?

A writer can either choose to use bullets or else stick to conventional (or in certain cases non-conventional) numbering. Are there set guidelines about when to use what? Is the use of numbering pr...

1 answer  ·  posted 10y ago by Pravesh Parekh‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Canina‭

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Is it necessary to use words like "said", "asked," etc in dialog?

I am writing a novel. I'm not sure if the below sentence structure is correct. I have not used any word like said/replied/asked. He was looking at the painting. “You do not have to believe me. ...

4 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Abhishek dot py‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Canina‭

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Using accents while staying legible

My character is using a hardly legible accent, or simply an accent which is not comfortable for a reader to read. For example: “Ye've caught us in th' middle o' supper. Seein' as how yer no bleedi...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Prahara‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Canina‭

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Changing a story's title to hint at story's meaning

I wrote a short story here http://zecountess.deviantart.com/art/Mirrors-440990952 whose ending explains everything that is narrated before. The feedback I got from my readers is varied, and none o...

1 answer  ·  posted 10y ago by Kuchiki Byakuya‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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For HTML documentation sets, are there meaningful guidelines for topic length?

We produce a large HTML documentation set with the conventional two-pane view: expandable table of contents on the left, selected topic on the right. When you select a topic, if it has subtopics --...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How can we integrate a lightweight public ticketing system into our documentation feedback form?

We publish a substantial documentation set online. Each page has a place at the bottom that asks "was this helpful? (Y/N)", and if the person chooses "no" we offer a textbox. We collect all this ...

3 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 8mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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What is the possessive form of et al.?

When referring to a paper with multiple authors by using the name of the first author and "et al.", how does one indicate possession? For example, is it correct to write, "Einstein et al.'s paper ...

3 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by BR11‭  ·  last activity 9mo ago by ArtOfCode‭

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What is the Current State-of-the-Art / Any Successful Experiements with EPUB Format?

As a zipped web-page, EPUB has long offered the possibility of completely changing how a book looks and feels with dynamic content and interactive content. But since EPUB came out (2007), I really...

3 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by James McLellan‭  ·  last activity 9mo ago by ArtOfCode‭

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How to organize ideas to start writing a novel?

Beginner here. So, I have tons of ideas for a novel, and in fact I want to write one (even a series), but I'm struggling a lot in actually starting writing the story. I have ideas for characters an...

7 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by KLTKGK‭  ·  last activity 9mo ago by Mithical‭

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How do I know when I should rewrite vs. editing my first chapter

A little context for my question... A long time a go, I started writing little vignettes for a character I was playing in an RPG group. The vignettes ended up joining up and becoming sort of a ba...

3 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by pureferret ‭  ·  last activity 9mo ago by Michael‭

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When else ought you introduce new material in a final paragraph?

Are there any other "times" for introducing new content into a final paragraph? Have any other famous writers substantiate this bombshell? I was flabbergasted to read this para. because mo...

1 answer  ·  posted 3y ago by TextKit‭  ·  last activity 10mo ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How do we prevent Madcap Flare from injecting non-breaking spaces in our documentation?

We use Madcap Flare for our documentation, and it has an annoying property: if you happen to have the shift key down when you type a space, it inserts a non-breaking space (&#160;). Our docume...

2 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 10mo ago by Mithical‭

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How to cite a statistic from a website using APA?

Most of my life I've used the MLA citation format when writing any sort of essays or research papers about difference topics. However recently I've been exploring different types of citation format...

0 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Ski Mask‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by Mithical‭

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singular or plural for index entries

I am in the final stages of writing a book and currently I am preparing the index. Are there any rules whether index entries should be listed in singular or plural? Currently I have Markov chains...

2 answers  ·  posted 11y ago by jochen‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by Herem1956‭

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For starting a blog, is a niche blog or general/misc content better?

I am thinking of starting a blog and wondering how I should approach it. Is it better to have a niche blog or is general/miscellaneous content fine?

5 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by yashikaissrani‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by Mithical‭

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Is there a tool for determining the number of on in a word for the purpose of writing haiku?

In America at least, Haiku are commonly taught to students as poems having 5, 7, then 5 syllables, when in actuality, they have a structure of 5, 7, then 5 on. The NaHaiWriMo site explains what an ...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by zr00‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Mithical‭

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Ways to replace the phrase "after all?"

I recently noticed I use "after all" very often. But unlike other phrases, I never seem to find a way to replace it. Some examples: Like the books, they hadn't moved a single inch. Erin found t...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Mithical‭

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Need basic tools and ways to practice and polish my writing skills

What are the ways to practice and improve basic writing, like content and creative writing? I am not planning to write or learn to write fictional stories. By creative writing, I mean the essentia...

3 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Michael16‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by tripleee‭

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How do I translate into a gendered language where the gender would be a spoiler?

I'm (amateurly) writing the subtitles for an English TV show. I'll illustrate my question using a small example, but I'm hoping to receive answers as general as possible. One episode has a sentenc...

8 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  edited 1y ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Alternative to Strunk & White?

I have to confess that I find Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" to be a very tedious read. Can anyone recommend an alternative title that covers similar ground?

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Craig Schwarze‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How can I shorten a piece of writing without losing its original essence?

I need to know how to make my writing more brief without maring its original meaning and message. I have been struggling with that for a while, and still cannot do that. It simply seems to me that ...

3 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Stacy‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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Want to Expand my Writing Career as Freelancer [closed]

I've been working as a content writer and blogger for a few local agencies. I want to start freelancing this year but am slightly afraid to start. Could anyone help me how to start freelancing as a...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by proptijohn‭  ·  closed 2y ago by Mithical‭

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Should writers shun cognate stems that share roots, because readers take longer to process these stems? [closed]

Question 1 Here I am asking about merely reading and writing. Do human readers take longer to distinguish between stems (and bases) that share the same root, even if merely picoseconds? For exa...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by TextKit‭  ·  closed 2y ago by Canina‭

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Avoiding racist tropes in fantasy

I'm interested in starting a pleasure project: a fantasy story, along the lines of a witch delivering a prophecy to a king about a dangerous and deceitful foe who will overthrow him, and the king e...

9 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by weakdna says reinstate monica‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by James McLellan‭

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HTML tags versus CSS classes: is one preferred over the other for the same styling?

We publish documentation online using HTML. For things like fixed parameter names and other code literals, we use <code> tags. My question is about styling these in tables. On our referenc...

2 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Canina‭

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Why didn't 18-19th century Anglophone authors shorten their sentences, by starting more with Majuscules? Why lengthen them with commas, (semi)colons?

Shorter sentences have been proven more readable. Thus why didn't the authors below sunder their lengthy sentences, prolongated by commas and (semi)colons? Why not divide them into shorter sentence...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by TextKit‭  ·  edited 2y ago by TextKit‭

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Why didn't 18-19th century Anglophone authors shorten their sentences, by starting more with Majuscules? Why lengthen them with comma + conjunction? [duplicate]

Shorter sentences have been proven more readable. Thus why didn't the authors below sunder their lengthy sentences, prolongated by comma + conjunction? Why not divide them into shorter sentences s...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by TextKit‭  ·  edited 2y ago by TextKit‭

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How can I make the plagiarism detector "Ithenticate" identify "θ-continuous" as a single word?

I have a problem with the similarity index of one of my works since the plagiarism detector "Ithenticate" identifies θ-continuous as continuous. In my university, all that matters is the similarity...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Heba ‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Canina‭

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block-quotation narrative with dialogue

Over on the Judaism site, I summarized a narrative text in a block quotation. Because the narrative is well-known, I expected many people to skip the block quotation; therefore, I did not want it t...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by msh210‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by Mark Baker‭

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How can garden path sentences be used (and misused)?

"A garden path sentence is a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect; the reader is lured into a parse that turns out t...

1 answer  ·  posted 3y ago by Paul A. Clayton‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by gmcgath‭

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Will it help you to get published if you have a lot of followers of your writing?

Background To be honest, I really didn't know how to title this question. Anyway, the background. I was sitting around in front of the plan for the second book of my trilogy. Woohoo! I finished th...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Daniel Cann‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by desbest‭

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Why closed questions tend not to get reopened? [closed]

This post is about Q&A websites in general. In StackExchange there is a culture of closing questions which do not reflect "the standards"; it's a culture that I as someone who uses SE since 20...

0 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by deleted user  ·  closed 3y ago by Canina‭

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What are the benefits of including complete working code samples in documentation

When documenting software API so others know how to access the various methods, what data structures are used etc, I like to document each bit in detail and also include, regardless of the coding l...

4 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Lefty G Balogh‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭

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How should I document a database schema?

I am going to be writing some user-facing documentation for a database that visitors can query. That is, the people writing queries are not the ones who created the database; they can come in, look...

3 answers  ·  posted 10y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  edited 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭