This is a Q & A with Wendy Burt-Thomas, a full-time freelance writer, editor and copywriter with more than 1,000 published pieces. Her third book, “The Writer’s Digest Guide to Query Letters” hits stores December 2008. To learn more about Wendy or her three books, visit www.GuideToQueryLetters.com.
1. Q: Can you tell us about your [...]

Example: Mother’s Day vs. Mothers’ Day vs. Mothers Day
With titles, you may think of the word in front of the noun as either singular, plural, or possessive. For example, do you think of the holiday as belonging to each mother individually (Mother’s Day) or to all mothers collectively (Mothers’ Day)? Or do you think of [...]

Rule: The following examples apply when using dates:
The meeting is scheduled for June 30.
The meeting is scheduled for the 30th of June.
We have had tricks played on us on April 1.
The 1st of April puts some people on edge.
Rule: When expressing decades, you may spell them out and lowercase them.
Example: During the eighties and nineties, [...]

Rule: Always spell out simple fractions and use hyphens with them.
Example: One-half of the pies have been eaten.
Rule: A mixed fraction can be expressed in figures unless it is the first word of a sentence.
Example: We expect a 5 1/2 percent wage increase.
Example: Five and one-half percent was the maximum allowable interest.
Rule: Hyphenate all compound [...]

If you question the necessity of punctuation, here is a story that should illustrate its power.
A professor wrote on the chalkboard: A woman without her man is nothing.
He asked students to correct any punctuation errors. While most of the male students saw nothing wrong with the sentence, most of the females rewrote the sentence as [...]

Regardless vs. Irregardless
Some words in the English language are so overused that we don’t notice that they are incorrect or don’t even exist. A perfect example is irregardless. There is no such word as irregardless because regardless already means without regard. The –ir prefix is redundant.
Sneaked vs. Snuck
Sometimes, two forms of a word may be [...]

Can you guess which word I see misspelled most often? Did you guess misspelled? You’re getting warm. Actually, it’s grammar. From my experience, I think it’s safe to estimate that 20 percent of the English-speaking world spells it with an –er ending.
Before anyone points an accusing finger at anyone else, we might want to explore [...]

Using bi or semi in front of time periods can cause tremendous confusion.
Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.
Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.
In addition, a biweekly publication is issued every two weeks and a bimonthly publication is issued every two months.
Semiweekly means twice a week.
Semimonthly means twice [...]

Is it necessary to put a numeral in parentheses after you have already written the number in words?
Example: We will need two (2) chairs.
Conversely, is it necessary to write the number in words after you have already used the numeral?
Example: We will need 200 (two hundred) chairs.
If your document is dense, has a lot of [...]

Prepositions are words that often show direction; for example, below, above, over, under, around, through, in, out, between, among, to, toward(s). Other common prepositions include of, for (also sometimes a conjunction), from, with, like (also sometimes a verb).
Rule: You shouldn’t use or end a sentence with an unnecessary preposition, i.e., when the meaning is clear [...]