None of us writes in a vacuum. Everything we hear, see, and read influences what we write. And sometimes, it’s helpful to reference other people’s ideas and words in our own work.

However, it has to be done right. That means giving proper attribution and signaling when you’ve departed from the exact wording but kept the core idea.

​We’ll deal more extensively with proper attribution (giving credit to the originator of an idea and pointing readers to the original document) another day. At the moment, we’ll take a look at three ways writers incorporate another person’s words and ideas into their own work: quotes, excerpts, and paraphrases.
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I know I said we’d deal with attribution another day. What I meant was that we’d deal with the how of it.
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But I do want to stress that giving proper credit for another’s words and ideas is essential, whether you used their exact words or not. Failure to do so is commonly referred to as plagiarism and is a big no-no in publishing.
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Both quotes and excerpts deal with pulling the exact wording from another’s work to use in your own. They only differ in size and formatting.

Quotes are usually only a few sentences long and sit within the flow of the main text. They’re surrounded by quotation marks “ ” to indicate that they’re someone else’s words, and some sort of footnote indicator or in-text citation follows.

Excerpts are longer passages, usually consisting of multiple paragraphs or even pages. With that size of a passage, quotation marks aren’t an effective visual indicator and can get lost, so publishers will often use different formatting to differentiate them.

For example, there might be a larger space or even a line or other design element at the beginning and end of the excerpt. You might also choose to widen the margins around the passage so that it’s indented a little farther than the rest of the text.

​*Note—before including excerpts, you probably want to obtain permission from the author. A sentence or two usually falls within fair-use guidelines, but you’ll need permission to use larger passages.
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As I said above, when you’re using quotes and excerpts, it’s important to use the original author’s exact words. You can make a few changes to make the quoted material flow with your text, but those changes have to be minor, as in a word or a few letters here and there.

And any changes you make need to be clearly indicated. The exact methodology might vary depending on the style you use or your publisher’s preferences, but the following are a few general guidelines to follow.

The most common way to indicate changes you’ve made to someone else’s words is to surround those changes with brackets [ ].

If you’re quoting part of a longer sentence, and the subject of the sentence doesn’t fall naturally within the quoted material, you can add that subject.

“[She] always knew he was destined for greatness.”

Or if the subject of the sentence isn’t clear in the context of your writing or the quoted material, you can add a word or two to clarify.

“She [the artist’s mother] always knew he was destined for greatness.”
Or
“[The artist’s mother] always knew he was destined for greatness.”

If you’re using quoted material as part of a sentence of your own, you might need to make minor changes to verb conjugation.

According to Dr. —, this new discovery “revolutionize[s] medical science.”

If the quoted material you want to use is separated by a bunch of text you don’t need that would make the quote too bulky, you can use ellipses . . . to indicate that you omitted some material.

​According to Dr. —, this new discovery “revolutionize[s] medical science . . . beyond the wildest dreams of previous generations.”
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A paraphrase is a much looser construction than quotes or excerpts, not needing any special characters or formatting. Essentially, you’re taking someone else’s ideas and putting them into your own words.
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However, remember that they are someone else’s ideas, and therefore, proper credit needs to be given through attribution. Whether you choose in-text citations, footnotes, or endnotes, you’ll need to indicate any idea that’s not your own.
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When you use quotes, excerpts, or paraphrases to incorporate someone else’s ideas into your writing, you can make changes, especially when paraphrasing. However, whatever changes you make and whatever use you make of the other’s ideas, it’s important to keep their original intentions and message intact.

That means not twisting their words or selectively quoting them to make it sound like they said something you wouldn’t get from reading the original.

Not only is it a matter of ethics and integrity, but you also put yourself on shaky legal ground by doing so.

​Remember, you don’t own those words; you’re just borrowing them. So, use them responsibly.

So, you’ve written your masterpiece and think you’re ready to start your search for an editor? Great! But there’s a little prep work you can do ahead of time to make that process a little smoother.
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When you contact your potential new editor, there are a few things they’ll need to know to get an idea of how best to serve you. You can save yourself and your editor a lot of time and trouble by thinking through and having answers ready for the following questions.
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I’m sure there was some point in your elementary school English classes when your teacher went over the absolute rules for what words you capitalize and what words you don’t.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, I doubt you’ll be surprised by what I have to say to that. The rules aren’t as cut and dried as your English teacher told you.

To be fair, the rules they taught you are generally true. For example, the names of people, cities, states, and countries are usually considered proper nouns and capitalized, even when used as an adjective.

​However, there are exceptions to every rule, and that’s where style comes in.
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I’ve noticed a trend lately in some of the books I’ve been reading: authors choosing unusual layout and designs for parts of their books.
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I’m not saying that everything out of the ordinary is bad. Uncommon design elements and devices can make your work stand out or even enhance the reader’s experience. But unique doesn’t necessarily equal improvement.
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If you read my earlier post on the grammar police, you know I don’t believe in the stark right and wrong of English grammar. I prefer to think in terms of standard and nonstandard, reflecting whether or not a bit of grammar or punctuation conforms to the generally agreed-upon norms.
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But what does that mean for you, the writer?
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With the approach of Mother’s Day this year, I wanted to write something about mothers, so I went back and forth, looking for something to say about mothers and writing, editing, or publishing.
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But I found myself empty of any great lesson, information, or wisdom to impart, so the format of this week’s post is going to be a little different. Instead of giving information or instruction, I’m just going to share a story about my own mother and how she’s influenced my career as a copyeditor.
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Last week I wrote about dialogue tags. They’re a pretty simple device used to keep straight who’s saying what.

But what about punctuation? Is there a comma? No comma? Where does the comma go?

Punctuation can be a sticking point for many writers because it feels too technical, like science to an artistic mind. So, here are a few simple guidelines for punctuating your dialogue tags.
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Every writer has at least one aspect of writing that just doesn’t come naturally to them. For me, that’s dialogue. I can recognize unnatural or awkward dialogue and even correct it when I’m reading (a handy skill for an editor), but when it comes to creating it, I’m at a loss.
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And a big part of creating great dialogue is the dialogue tag.
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One year ago this week, I stepped way out of my comfort zone and put out my very first blog post!

Even though I never saw myself as a writer, I somehow became one. I’ll probably never publish a book (though never is a dangerous word to say because God seems to take that as a challenge), but through the simple act of putting words down and sending them out into the world each week, I am, indeed, now a writer.

​If you’ve been with me on this journey since the beginning, you might remember that, in that first post, I talked about all of the benefits of journaling. If you missed it, go back and take a look. (Also, no judgment from me if you want to refresh your memory because you read it but have forgotten everything I said. It’s still there and worth a read.) So, how’ve you done this last year?

Last week, I talked about how you, the author, are ultimately responsible for marketing your book and finding your readers. This week I’m back with a few tips for how to do that.
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Let me start by admitting that I’m no expert in this area, but if you’re just starting out as an author, these tips should give you a place to start.
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