Bugs In Writing - rev edition

Dupre, Lyn :

Lyn Dupré was born in Manhattan, where her father was an editor for the Wall Street Journal, the Herald Tribune, and the New York Times, and her mother was the buyer for the Teacher's College Bookstore. She studied philosophy and law at Barnard College and at Cambridge University. She has had over 15 years of experience as a freelance copy editor and developmental editor, specializing in computer-science, science, and medical textbooks. She has edited over 400 books for various major publishers, and has worked for numerous academic institutions. She also works directly with graduate students and other authors to help them improve their writing. Lyn edits and writes during breaks from her serious work as a wood carver and photographer. She wrote BUGS in Writing under the close supervision of her cats, BB and Red. Her fondest hope is that the availability of this book will eliminate any future need for her work as a copy editor.

"How often does a book come along that has you laughing out loud as it improves your writing, especially of technical and scientific material? How often does a book on writing come out aimed at scientists, mathematicians, and computer specialists in the first place? How often does a book on grammar keep you turning the pages from pleasure? Never, you say? Then get this one."

--Jef Raskin, professional writer and creator of the Apple Macintosh project

"As someone responsible for the creation of numerous bugs, literary and otherwise, I heartily recommend Lyn Dupré's exquisite book: a lucid guide to squishing bugs or, even better, exterminating them before they hatch."

--David C. Nagel, President, AT&T Labs

"You can borrow my dictionary or steal my thesaurus. Just stay away from my copy of BUGS."

--Patrick Henry Winston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"The quality of scientific and technical writing would increase considerably if this book were required reading for all authors." The Mathematica Journal "Lyn's style is wonderful: humorous, enjoyable, and incisive. I even liked the plot."

--Peter G. Neumann, author of the Dupréved Computer-Related Risks

"Those of us who have worked with Lyn Dupré treasure her keen wit, and, above all, her absolute mastery of writing."

--Carver Mead, California Institute of Technology

"BUGS in Writing deserves to become a standard. If technical writing isn't your principal activity, but you find yourself doing a lot of it, you should read this book."

--IEEE Micro

"This book will help me/you/we a lot/immensely."

--Martin Griss, Laboratory Scientist and Reuse Rabbi, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

"Lyn combines an intellectual command of her subject with a madcap imagination to take you on a joyous romp through the English language."

--Abraham Silberschatz, Lucent Technologies

"I just received a copy of BUGS in Writing, which I think is wonderful. (Reading this sentence again, I realize it is ambiguous; but both its interpretations are true. It is also passive, but since the package was waiting for me when I returned from a trip, it is hard to know just who brought it.)...BUGS will certainly be at my fingertips during the final rewrites."

--Andrew Koenig, author of C Traps and Pitfalls and coauthor of Ruminations on C++

"I highly recommend BUGS in Writing, by Dupré. It makes an excellent companion to Strunk & White and the Harbrace College Handbook."

--Martin D. Carroll, coauthor of Designing and Coding Reusable C++ A

Submitted by Publisher, January, 2003

1. Passive or Missing Agents.
2. You and Your Reader.
3. So, So That, Such That.
4. Two or More.
5. Only.
6. Redundant Terms.
7. Pronouns.
8. Undefined This.
9. Motivate.
10. Oxymorons.
11. Shall Versus Will.
12. Key Terms.
13. Proven Versus Proved.
14. Everyone, Someone, No One, None.
15. Colon.
16. Effort.
17. Which Versus That.
18. Spread-Out Phrases.
19. While.
20. Repeated Prepositions.
21. Abbreviations and Acronyms.
22. Verbize.
23. Commas.
24. Number Spelling.
25. Impact.
26. Lists.
27. Like Versus Such As.
28. Either and Both.
29. Hyphens.
30. Full Versus Incomplete Infinitives.
31. Titles.
32. Contractions.
33. Per.
34. Number Styles.
35. Quotations.
36. Fuzzy Words.
37. Parentheses.
38. Split Infinitives.
39. Is Due To.
40. Center On.
41. Quotation Marks.
42. Remarks Inserted After That.
43. Figure Captions.
44. Data.
45. Ensure, Assure, Insure.
46. Foreword Versus Forward.
47. Blocks: Theorems, Proofs, Lemmas.
48. Above and Below.
49. En Dashes.
50. As to Whether.
51. Who Versus That.
52. Though.
53. References to Parts.
54. Dates and Times of Day.
55. Reason Is Because.
56. With Terms.
57. Equals.
58. Placement of Adverbs.
59. U.S. Versus British Spelling.
60. Placement of Prepositions.
61. Different From.
62. Callouts.
63. Exclamation Point.
64. Deduce Versus Infer.
65. Citations.
66. The Fact That.
67. Cross-References.
68. Proposals.
69. Better, Best, Worst....291
70. Missing Words.
71. Aggravate.
72. Upon.
73. Whether Versus If.
74. Sections and Heads.
75. Comprise.
76. In Order To.
77. Em Dashes.
78. Eminent, Emanate, Imminent, Immanent.
79. Expected but Nonarriving Agents.
80. Its Versus It's.
81. Adverbs Versus Adjectives.
82. Persons Versus People.
83. Cap/lc.
84. Feel Versus Think.
85. Parallelism.
86. Points of Ellipsis.
87. Last.
88. Focus On.
89. Troublesome Plurals.
90. Around.
91. Nose.
92. Literal and Virtual.
93. Semicolon.
94. Code.
95. Comparatives.
96. Tables.
97. Tense.
98. Abstracts.
99. Neither Nor.
100. Will Likely Be.
101. Importantly.
102. Since.
103. References.
104. Cannot Versus Can Not.
105. Also.
106. Nonwords.
107. Missing That.
108. All Of.
109. Utilize.
110. Dissertations.
111. Issue.
112. Terms for Human-Computer Interaction.
113. So Called.
114. Note That Versus Notice That.
115. Affect Versus Effect.
116. Indices Versus Indexes.
117. Solidus.
118. Equations.
119. Half.
120. Media.
121. Not Versus Rather Than.
122. Visual Aids for Presentations.
123. Plural Abbreviations.
124. Style Sheets and Spell Checkers.
125. Maybe Versus May Be.
126. Figures.
127. Gender-Specific Words.
128. Continuous Versus Continual.
129. Fewer Versus Less.
130. Italic Type.
131. Truncated Words.
132. Percent.
133. Object, Modifier, Activity.
134. Rewords.
135. Further Versus Farther
136. Pronouns for Recipients.
137. Authorship on Research Articles.
138. Respectively.
139. Possessives.
140. Cliches, Jargon, and Euphemisms.
141. Design Elements and Eye.
142. Word Match.
143. Sex Versus Gender.
144. Awhile.
145. Footnotes.
146. Mouth.
147. Boxes.
148. Exercises, Examples, and Questions.
149. Writer's Block.

Index by Category.
Index of Principles.
Index of Photographs.
About the Author.