Monday, February 06, 2006

Spot the errors in a job ad

I ran across this ad a couple of years ago:

    Nameless Publishing, a publisher since 1982, of Law Books, Business Books & Training Videos has an opening for Editor-in-Chief. Duties include first line of contact with our Authors, reviewing new publications, insuring the supplements of all books are timely produced & etc. Will oversee a staff of 6 and act as in-house council for day to day matters. Must have experience in Civil Trials and show ability for writing & detail research to compliment our authors written material. Graphics background helpful. Salary based upon experience. Great benefits package, including medical insurance and 401K.

The Critique (from an able and anonymous commenter):

  1. Delete the comma after "1982" or insert a comma after "publisher" so that it is offset as parenthetical matter.
  2. Lowercase "Law Books, Business Books & Training Videos."
  3. Put a comma after "Books" and replace the ampersand (&) after "Books" with a comma and the word "and."
  4. Place a comma after "Videos" because "a publisher . . . Videos" is a nonrestrictive appositive.
  5. Lowercase "Editor-in-Chief."
  6. The duties are not constructed in parallel phrasing--"first line," "reviewing," "insuring," (which should be "ensuring").
  7. Lowercase "Authors" and delete "& etc."
  8. Change the "6" to "six."
  9. Change "council" to "counsel."
  10. Insert hyphens to make "day to day" read "day-to-day."
  11. Lowercase "civil trials."
  12. Change "detail" to "detailed."
  13. Change "compliment" to "complement."
  14. Add an apostrophe after "authors."
  15. Though most style guides are conceding that the parentheses in "401(k)" plan references can be omitted, but I'm pretty sure that the letter "k" needs to be lowercase.


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