 When the student got to school, they realised they had forgotten their lunch.
There are three examples of the singular they in that sentence. Did you notice? Would you have written it any other way? Of course, I could have written: When the student got to school, he or she realised he or she had forgotten his or her lunch. That’s a bit unwieldy! And potentially wrong. But definitely not inclusive.  Italic font was first used in presses in Italy the 1500s and was designed to replicate the handwritten manuscripts of the time. Italic font was used differentiate informal manuscripts created for leisure reading from formal manuscripts, which used Roman font. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century that italic font was used for emphasis. It's tempting to use italic font to differentiate notes, long quotes or dialogue from the main text to help that text stand out but not be as in-your-face as bold font. But this can make the text harder to read than Roman (normal) font, which is especially important when taking into account accessibility. There are specific times when it is useful, but it’s important to not overuse it. As always, first check if your organisation has a style guide, and follow that. If there is no style guide, then the guidelines below will help you decide when to use italics in New Zealand English. As an aside, the first letter of italics is pronounced like the i in sit – not as eye-talics.  Related article:
NZE: How to write times and dates. We all know the rhyme 1, 2, buckle my shoe. 3, 4, knock on the door. Or should it be One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, knock on the door? Though a reader might not be conscious of it, if numbers are not formatted correctly and consistently, your writing will look unprofessional. This article is about how to make numbers and numerals in formal and informal writing consistent and easy to read in New Zealand English writing. Note that these guidelines don't apply to technical or scientific writing – refer to the appropriate style guide for these styles. The most common question for writing numbers, whether it’s fiction, non-fiction or business documents, is whether to spell out the number or whether to use the numeral, but there are also other rules and exceptions to consider. As always, first check if your organisation has a style guide, and follow that. If there is no style guide, then the guidelines below will help you decide how to write numbers in New Zealand English.  We use abbreviations and acronyms every day without thinking about them, and we instantly know the meaning of many of them – like FAQs, ETA, IQ, DVDs. And today's text language is full of them, LOL (or lol if you are of the younger generation).
It can be confusing to write abbreviations and acronyms correctly, and as there are only small style variations, it doesn’t always look wrong to use one or the other. However, to make your writing look professional, there are some style decisions you will need to make when writing in New Zealand English text, so let's have a look at what the options are. As always, rule number 1 is to be consistent – both within a document and across all your writing. For example, it doesn’t look professional, and can cause confusion, if you have 9 am in one place but 9 a.m. in another. But first things first: what's the difference between abbreviations and acronyms?  There are different ways to get your book published (that's a whole other topic!). But once you have made the decision to self-publish your book, there are more decisions to make.
Will you make print copies or e-books? Or both? Will you use a local designer and printer, or one of the many platforms to create your book yourself? Which platform should you use? Will you print many books and hope they sell, or will you print only as they are ordered? It can be overwhelming. So, let’s break it down.  1. What is dialogue?
2. Punctuation rules for dialogue 3. Internal dialogue (thoughts) 4. What next? Dialogue is notoriously complicated to punctuate, and many writers struggle to get it right. It also doesn’t help that there is a difference between New Zealand English and American English in the way dialogue is punctuated. But readers will notice if you get it wrong (even if they can’t say why they think it’s wrong!).  Last week I renewed my membership for the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), which is based in the UK, and last month I renewed my membership for the Institute of Professional Editors Ltd (IPEd), which is for Australian and New Zealand editors.
I am a Professional Member of both organisations. To be able to renew my CIEP membership, I had to answer a question on the CIEP Code of Practice. Doing this was a good reminder of one reason why I am a member of these professional editing associations. As these memberships all need to be budgeted for, I thought it would be a good exercise to write down all the reasons I continue to roll over my membership.  “I have written my book and done a spell check. Is my book ready for publishing?”
Well, you can publish it now. In this age of self-publishing, you can publish anything. Nothing is stopping you from uploading it onto Amazon or other e-book sites and putting it out there. But you'll want people to want to read it. And you want your book to sell. Or you might want an agent to offer you a contract. If you do, then the answer is most likely no.  Anyone writing a cookbook or a food blog will need to know how to format recipes so that the reader has an enjoyable experience making the dish.
There is an art to writing recipes that will inspire but are also easy to follow and make sense to the cook or baker – there is nothing more frustrating for a than trying out a new recipe and finding the instructions ambiguous, that something should have been prepared hours in advance, or that the ingredients are not easily obtainable.  Just like all punctuation, dashes provide information so that we can understand the intended meaning and nuances of a sentence.
Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes (also call en rules and em rules) all have different roles to play, but many people don’t know what they do – or have never noticed that there are actually three types of dashes. And it doesn’t help that only one is easily found on the computer keyboard. |