Swet Columns
August 25, 2018
Punctuation Encounters and the J-E Translator
Reviewed by Lynne E. Riggs
Punctuation..? By User Design. 35 pages. ISBN: 978-0-9570712-2-3. £10.
Forty years trying to master the skills of clarity, consistency, and coherence have not made me a model copyeditor, yet. Reviewing the rules of correct usage set down in this slim volume tests my progress. Always distracted by the larger issues of accuracy and comprehensibility I face... more
January 22, 2018
Worth Waiting For
Reviewed by Anna Husson Isozaki
Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. By Lisa Cron. 272 pages. New York: Ten Speed Press, 2012. ISBN-10: 1607742454; ISBN-13: 978-1607742456.
Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story is the writing guide I was searching for during years of buying others, reading them, and... more
July 4, 2017
Collect These Jewels
Reviewed by Anna Husson Isozaki
Translator Perspectives: Honyakusha no mesen 2015. Tokyo: Japan Association of Translators, 2015, 137 pages. ISBN 978-4-906408-11-5. Translator Perspectives: Honyakusha no mesen 2016. Tokyo: Japan Association of Translators, 2016, 59 pages. ISBN 978-4-906408-13-9.
“The essays are to inform and inspire both translators and translation clients. This is the work we do. This is why it is important. This is how... more
November 1, 2016
Writing Strategies and Inspiration
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006, 295 pages. ISBN: 9780316014984
Reviewed by Richard Medhurst
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer is a series of short pieces on becoming a better wordsmith from pepping up sentences to forming habits that will pay off in the longer term. Although... more
September 14, 2016
Essential Weapon for Your Editing Armory
Reviewed by Clare Midgley
Effective Onscreen Editing: New Tools for an Old Profession. 3rd edition. By Geoff Hart. Pointe-Claire, Quebec: Diaskeuasis Publishing, 2016. Printed version: 518 pages, US$33 + shipping from Lulu, ISBN 978-1-927972-04-5; PDF version: 827 pages, US$28 outside Canada, ISBN 978-1-927972-05-2; EPUB version: unpaginated and included with PDF, ISBN 978-1-927972-06-9.
Are you struggling to apply techniques from... more
July 23, 2014
A Sugar-Coated Guide to Grammar
Reviewed by Susan Schmidt (April 15, 2007)
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies, by June Casagrande. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. 212 pages. Paperback. ISBN-13 798-0143036838; ISBN-10 0143036831. $14.00.
Subtitled A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite, this slim volume promises to be a treat for the word maven: a sugar-coated guide to grammar and usage that will entertain while it informs.... more