EDIT

from page 19

capitalize it when referring to specific clubhouse or room in a clubhouse. Don’t use “the” before the name of a clubhouse.

• Capitalize titles such as president, reverend and chairman only when used before a person’s name. If used as an identifying term or in a general way, do not capitalize it.

For example:

• President John Doe is going to...

• John Doe, president, is going to...

COMMON AREAS OF STYLE MISUSE

The following are areas in which editing is most often needed:

• Don’t use please; thank you can be used only with bylined stories and must be written in third-person (i.e., “The club thanks its volunteers,” not “We thank the volunteers”).

• Capitalize only proper pronouns when listing menu items (i.e. house salad, Caesar salad, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, etc.)

• “underway” is one word in all instances.

• “cutoff” as a noun and adjective is one word; as a verb, two words.

• When referring to a decade, the 1930s, 1990s, etc., is the correct usage (without the apostrophe). For example: “A group of women in their 90s” and “He was a mechanic back in the ’20s.”

• Periods and commas are inside quotation marks; semicolons are outside.

• “brown-bag lunch” has a hyphen.

• “car pool” is two words as a noun and an adjective; one word as a verb.

• Use “its” when referring to a group. For example: “The Community Club will hold its meeting...”

• Seasons (winter, summer, etc.) are not capitalized.

• Academic degrees should appear as: bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, doctoral program, a doctorate degree (preferred form for Ph.D.).

• Most acronyms do not have periods: example, CSULB.

• In the LW Weekly, Mutual is capitalized.

• Board is only capitalized when referring to the GRF Board.

• “Sign-ups” (the noun, not the verb) and “long-term” has a hyphen; “nonprofit” and “longtime” do not.

• Use hyphens and parentheses for phone numbers, i.e. (562) 555-5555.

• Don’t abbreviate the days of the weeks. It’s Sunday, not Sun.

• Overused and trite phrases will be edited out of stories. For example, “mark your calendar” and “and a good time was had by all.”

• Use women, not ladies.

• Avoid overusing exclamation points. Editors will delete these.

• Movie, play, song and book titles should be in quotes.

WRITING TIPS

• Limit use of adjectives and adverbs: In general, they should not be used except when there’s a bylined article. Never use “very.”

• Use the fewest words possible (i.e., not “will be meeting” but “will meet”).

• Don’t describe the weather for a past event, unless it was significant. For example, “The heavy rain resulted in low attendance.”

• Remember to write for all Leisure World residents, not just members of the club or organization.

• Remove redundancy in phrases, words and whole sentences, e.g., “the fact that” or “in order to.”

• Keep it simple: Long sentences often contain more than one idea. Cut longer sentences in two.

• All the sentences in a paragraph should relate to the point of that paragraph.

• Keep verb tense consistent all the way through, don’t switch from past to present.

• Remove jargon and references that others outside the club might not understand, and avoid exclamatory phrases (for example, “We’ll see you there!”).

• Try to use the active rather than the passive voice. Use “the club accomplished its goals in 2020,” instead of “the goals were accomplished by the club in 2020.”