Author: Manuscriptedit

For many people who ‘live by the word’ – Public officials, PR spokesmen, advertisers, campaigners, and the like – euphemism is a favourite weapon. Advertising copywriters, for instance, scared of…

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Consider the following two versions of a text the conclusion of a short story written for a training course. The narrator recalls an incident from his childhood. He and his…

Here are extracts from two editorial articles in The Times of London. They appeared on the same day – 82 years apart. Note how the style of writing has changed.…

Rearrange the following seven sentences into the well-structured paragraph they originally formed. (Just to establish the context: in the book from which the paragraph is taken, the preceding paragraph had…

Here is a clever transition or ‘bridge’ between two items on a weekly magazine programme  on the radio. Following an extract of serious modern music, the presenter repeats the composer’s…

Here are a few captivating opening paragraphs or sentences from various novels. Non-fiction too reads all the better for an interesting opening – it lures the reader in. On a…

Consider the following overloaded sentence from a newspaper. Professional  journalists, no matter how hurried, really should do better than this: it would have taken only a minute or two more…