Write Pretty

 

One of the biggest flags that writing wasn't professionally edited has nothing to do with correct grammar or punctuation. It's about looks.

A number of the style conventions that publishers follow exist purely for aesthetic reasons. In fact, that's why, in American English, a period or comma always goes inside a closing quotation mark:

Right: He loves the word "bodacious."

Wrong: He loves the word "bodacious".

This rule, which is universal among American publishers, came into being solely because the period after the closing quotation mark is an eye sore. (Here's more on using quotation marks with other punctuation.)

But that's just one of many rules and guidelines you can follow to make your writing look like a top pro edited it. From single spacing after each sentence to spacing around ellipses to keeping capital letters to a minimum, here are some tips for better-looking writing.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2016 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Write Pretty”

  1. February 22, 2016 at 2:47 am

    I think, as writers, we become so focused on the words we're putting down that we forget how those words will look once published. With anything published being accessible from anywhere at anytime, it's so important to think about this topic when writing, so as to keep our readers. Thanks for the tip!