Editorial Inspirations

“Have you ever thought of me as more than a friend?”

“No.” They are all the same. He and the other coworkers are friends. Though several have asked me out, none lives up to my standards for a boyfriend—a husband.

But we hang out—alone. We talk, and I test him with questionnaires. There are no correct answers, only preferred ones. We have a lot of common interests, but he has one major flaw—he has a girlfriend.

He says that he and his girlfriend are having problems. I give advice to each of them and try to help them resolve their problems. I tell his girlfriend that I am not trying to steal him.

He breaks up with her, and she blames me. She stalks me on the internet and stalks us when we sit in parking lots talking. I don’t understand why he broke up with her after three years. He says it is because he likes me.

She moves out of his apartment, and a few months later, I move in. I have never lived with a guy before, nor do I believe it is good. But I am in college, and I do not like my roommates. My awkwardness of living with the ex-girlfriend’s ghost encourages him to get a new bed—one that has not comforted a previous girlfriend.

I am shy and conservative, and he reassures me by moving the relationship at my pace. I test his faithfulness by living with him, but never having sex. He responds by not pressuring me, by letting me enjoy and explore my naiveté.

“I love you,” he says. But I am too scared to respond. I have strong feelings for him, ones that I have never felt before, but I do not know if it is love.

Those who freelance are often stereotyped as introverts. However, freelancers must be good communicators for their audiences and among the people they work with.

As Dan Pletta, Ph.D., P.E., says about engineers, freelancers, too, must manage ideas and lead people:

“[M]anage ideas and lead people…. It is we who can manage ideas and lead people or formulate goals, so as to leave the world a bit better than we found it, who must never lose hope. Nor must we ever forget that as technology shrinks the time and space frames in which the world functions, the challenges expand. Man now possesses the knowledge to enhance society’s cultural atmosphere and living standards by orders of magnitude, or to annihilate everything.

“And yet, even though we ‘go around only once,’ there will be ample time for those engineers who care enough to lead and to serve the engineering profession and its emerging public purpose.”

“Ut prosimus et ducamus. That we may serve and lead.”

Freelance editors must be able to manage the ideas of authors to create them in a more coherent fashion while leading the authors through the process. Freelance writers must be able to manage their ideas while allowing them to be led by editors to create a more coherent piece that will have a greater effect on its readers.

Though many freelancers work from their own homes, they are no less connected to the people in their field. They must manage and lead in a more difficult manner than most other professions because freelancers often never meet the people they work with.

With the several types of punctuation, there should be some hard and fast rules for their usage, right? Well, there are. The problem that people have generally lies in either they don’t know the rules or they confuse American rules with British rules.

The Period and the Comma

When in a quote, the period always goes inside the quotation marks. It never goes outside of the quotation marks because it can be easily lost and mistaken for a printing error.

Example: “I am going to the mall tonight.”

Like the period, the comma always goes inside the quotation marks.

Example: “Bob,” she said, “We need to be quiet in the library.”

The Colon and the Semicolon

The colon always goes on the outside of the quotation marks, unless it is part of the quoted text.

Example: I like the theme from The Sun: Love thy neighbor.

The semicolon always goes on the outside of the quotation marks, unless it is part of the quoted text.

Example: Jesus always said, “Love thy neighbor”; these are definitely words to live by.

The Question Mark and the Exclamation Mark

Some marks of punctuation depend on the context of the words as to whether they will go inside or outside the quotation marks.

The question mark is one such punctuation mark. When what is in the quotation marks is a question, the question mark will go inside the quotation marks. When the entire sentence is a question, not the quoted material by itself, the question mark goes outside the quotation marks.

Example: When we finally found Jackie, I asked, “Where have you been?”
Example: Why do many people prefer responding, “Just kidding”?

The exclamation mark is used in the same way as the question mark, depending on the context.

Example: “Hey!” I cried.
Example: “I am so tired of these so-called “girls”!

As a final thought about common errors in punctuation usage, there is generally no need to use more than one at the same time. For example, when quoting a person, a comma generally comes before the end quotation mark when the speaker follows. However, if other punctuation is used in this place, such as the question or exclamation mark, the comma is omitted.