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cover image BUGS in Writing:
A Guide to Debugging Your Prose

Lyn DUPRÉ
was born in Manhattan, where her father was an editor for the Wall Street Journal, the Herald Tribune, and the New York Times, and her mother was the buyer for the Teacher's College Bookstore. She studied philosophy and law at Barnard College and at Cambridge University. She has had over 15 years of experience as a freelance copy editor and developmental editor, specializing in computer-science, science, and medical textbooks. She has edited over 400 books for various major publishers, and has worked for numerous academic institutions. She also works directly with graduate students and other authors to help them improve their writing. Lyn edits and writes during breaks from her serious work as a wood carver and photographer. She wrote BUGS in Writing under the close supervision of her cats, BB and Red. Her fondest hope is that the availability of this book will eliminate any future need for her work as a copy editor.

Publisher : Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. - Reading, Mass.

Bibliographic :

DESCRIPTION :

"You can borrow my dictionary or steal my thesaurus. Just stay away from my copy of BUGS in Writing...After reading a few pages of this book I instantly ordered copies for all my students."
Patrick Henry Winston
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Those of us who have worked with Lyn Dupré treasure her keen wit, and, above all, her absolute mastery of writing."
Carver Mead
Scientist, Educator, Author
California Institute of Technology

"Lyn combines an intellectual command of her subject with a madcap imagination to take you on a joyous romp through the English language. Every scientist will want a copy to keep handy atop the computer."
Abraham Silberschatz
AT&T Bell Laboratories

"This book captures all of the subtleties that commonly hinder attempts at unambiguous and readable writing. Lyn's style is wonderful...humorous, enjoyable, and incisive. I even liked the plot; we really get to know Lyn, Max, Red, BB, and many other characters."
Peter G. Neumann
Author of the Dupré' ved Computer- Related Risks

BUGS in Writing, written with verve and wit, may be the first book on writing that people read for sheer fun. BUGS presents an alternative, intuitive way of looking at written language that is based on the concept of ear: the ability to hear, without analysis, whether a given word order, sentence, or term is correct. BUGS explores problems that writers face, and explains how to rid your prose of these bugs.

Designed for easy browsing, it comprises 150 independent and easily digestible segments, resembling a daily newspaper column. Simple principles for lucid writing are conveyed by numerous, intriguing, and frequently hilarious examples that are classified as Bad, Ugly, Good, or Splendid.

BUGS was developed for anyone who writes and who works with computers, including computer and other scientists, students, professors, business people, programmers, and technical writers. Rather than subjecting yourself to the pain and tedium of wading through a reference book on English grammar, pick up BUGS; you will soon find yourself browsing amusing and interesting material. While you are enjoying yourself, you will be tuning your ear: You will soon find that you are writing lucid prose that communicates your ideas.

CONTENTS :

1.Required Reading 2.Passive or Missing Agents 3.You and Your Reader 4.So, So That, Such That 5.Two or More 6.Only 7.Redundant Erms 8.Pronouns 9.Undefined this 10.Motivate 11.Oxymorons 12.Shall Versus Proved 13.Everyone, Someone, Noone, None 14.Color 15.Effort 16.Which Versus That 17.Spread-Out Phrases 18.While 19.Repeated prepositions 20.Abbreviations and Acronyms 21.Verbize 22.Commas 23.Number Spelling 24.Impact 25.Lists 26.Like Versus Such as 27.Either and Both 28.Hyphens 29.Full Versus Incomplete Infinities 30.Titles 31.Contractions 32.Per 33.Number Styles 34.Quotations 35.Fuzzy Words 36.Parentheses 37.Split Infinitives 38.Is Due to 39.Center on 40.Quotation Marks 41.Remarks Inserted After That 42.Picture Captions 43.Data 44.Ensure, Assure, Insure 45.Foreword Versus Forward 46.Blocks: Theorems, Proofs, Lemmas 47.Above and Below 48.En Dashes 49.As to Whether 50.Who Versus That 51.Though 52.References to Parts 53.Dates and Times of Day 54.Reason is Because 55.With Terms 56.Equals 57.Placement of Adverbs 58.U.S. Versus British Spelling 59.Placement of Prepositions 60.Different from 61.Callouts 62.Exclamation Point 63.Deduce Versus Infer 64.Citations 65.The Fact that 66.Cross References 67.Proposals 68.Better, Best, Worst 69.Missing Words 70.Aggravate 71.Upon 72.Whether Versus If 73.Sections and Heads 74.Comprise 75.In Order to 76.Em Dashes 77.Eminent, Emanate, Imminent, Immanent 78.Expected but Nonarriving Agents 79.Its and It's 80.Adverbs Versus Adjectives 81.Persons Versus People 82.Cap/LC 83.Feel Versus Think 84.Parallelism 85.Points of Ellipsis 86.Last 87.Focus On 88.Latin, Greek, and Other Troublesome Plurals 89.Around 90.Nose 91.Literal and Virtual 92.Semicolon 93.Colon 94.Comparatives 95.Tables 96.Tense 97.Abstracts 98.Neither Nor 99.Will Likely Be 100.Importantly 101.Since 102.References 103.Cannot Can Not 104.Also 105.Nonwords 106.Missing That 107.All of 108.Utilize 109.Dissertations 110.Issue 111.Terms for Describing Human-Computer Interaction 112.So Called 113.Note that Versus Notice that 114.A Lot of 115.Indices Versus Indexes 116.Solids 117.Equations 118.Half 119.Media 120.Not Versus Rather than 121.Visual Aids for Presentations 122.Plural Acronyms 123.Style Sheets and Spell Checkers 124.Maybe Versus May Be 125.Figures 126.General-Specific Words 127.Continuous Versus Continual 128.Fewer Versus Less 129.Italic Type 130.Truncated Words 131.Percent 132.Object, Modifier, Activity 133.Rewords 134.Further Versus Farther 135.Pronouns for Recipients 136.Authorship on Research Articles 137.Respectively 138.Possessives 139.Cliches, Jargon, and Euphemisms 140.Design Elements 141.Word Match 142.Sex Versus Gender 143.Awhile 144.Footnotes 145.Mouth 146.Boxes 147.Exercises, Examples, and Questions 148.Writer's Block

Includes indexes.

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