Article Edit Guide

(This guide is a living thing. It’ll change as needed.)

Rules

Apart from sticking to grammar guidelines, gearguide.co authors bind themselves to using language free of swearing and sexually provocative language.

But we’re not trying to cultivate a PC culture. We don’t condone bullying, but we don’t want to be politically correct.

• The word, “very”, must never, never, ever appear in your article. It’s very important that you never use it.

Editing tools

The idea with editing is to kill redundancy and bloat, and to remove mistakes. You need tools to do that well.

Built-in grammar tools

WordPress (the system running this website) comes with built-in grammar tools which you should set up. Setup is a once-off requirement. You can change the settings if you wish, but you needn’t set up your grammar profile every time you log in to add an article.

Follow these steps:

1. Open gearguide.co/wp-admin and sign in (if you’re not signed in already).
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “Profile”.
3. Under the “English Options” heading, check all options.
4. Under the “Language” heading, check the option.
5. Click the blue “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the page.

You might find these editing tools overbearing, in which case you can always go back and un-check the options that are driving you insane.

In my opinion, WordPress’ built-in tool is sufficient for polishing your writing. But if you want to double check, there are hordes of online tools.

Online grammar tools

Here are four tools to help fix your grammar:

• Check your grammar
  • gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck
  • hemingwayapp.com
  • languagetool.org
• Thesaurus
  • powerthesaurus.org

Kill redundancy

The built-in grammar tool should do a great job of cleaning up your writing, but here are words and phrases you should remove or replace to further polish your article.

Follow these guidelines:

1. Open your article in a Chrome tab (if it’s not open).
   1. It must be open in the edit form.
2. Hold down the “Ctrl” button and press the “F” key.
   1. This pops open Chrome’s search box.
3. Search the words and terms in the left-hand column of the table below one-by-one and replace with an option from the right-hand side column.
   1. If the right-hand side column is empty, remove the word in the left-hand column from the article.

In many cases you’ll use a word or term in the left-hand column, because you have to. I’ll forgive you if you have no other choice, but if it happens often I’ll have to make you an offer you can’t refuse.

A lot	(If there’s an exact number, use it. It’s better to say, “it gives you 13 settings,” than to use “a lot of settings” or one of its replacements.) Plenty / many / abundant / copious / profuse
Absolutely
Actually
Allows you	Lets you
Asked
Basically
Be
Began
Begin
Begun
Believe
Breath
Breathe
Certainly
Completely
Definitely
Down
Enough	(Use an exact number if possible.)
Exhale
Feel the need
Felt the need
For you
Get rid of	Murder/ kill / chuck / throw out / sack / send packing / slaughter / remove / expel / purge / eradicate / ditch / scrap
Great	Phenomenal / fantastic / splendid / terrific / superb / grand / tremendous / extraordinary / exceptional
Has
Have the
Have the option
Important	Crucial / essential / critical / vital / momentous / weighty / eminent
Inhale
Just
Literally
Make use of	Use
More brightly	Brighter
More clearly	Clearer
More quickly	Quicker
Most
Mostly
Nod
No other choice	No alternative
Of a
Of an
Of the
On a daily basis	Daily
Ponder
Probably
Quite
Rather
Reach
Realise
Realize
Really
Replied
Said
Should
Shrug
Somehow
Somewhat
Start
That makes it
That means
Then
Think
Thought
Throw away	Chuck / discard / scrap / jettison / junk / dump / shed
Totally
To use
Understand
Very
Virtually
Was
Wonder
You can
You like

Kill passive voice

The built-in grammar tool will highlight passive voice. Please ensure that you remove as much of it as possible.

Here are some examples of passive voice:

• Example 1
  • They were called in by the headmaster.
    • …should be…
  • The headmaster called them in.
• Example 2
  • The product was recalled by the maker.
    • …should be…
  • The maker recalled the product.
• Example 3
  • This product should be used on a daily basis.
    • …should be…
  • Use this product every day.

That’s about it.

When you’re done, click the “Submit for Review” button and Whatsapp or email Jansie to inform him that your article is up for publishing.