Use Manuscript Markers for Your First Draft

In response to my recent post about parentheses, a commenter mentioned that he uses parentheses as markers for passages to return to later for reworking copy or for inserting missing text. Then he does a pass using Microsoft Word’s Find function to locate the parentheses and fill in the blanks.

That’s a good writing strategy: Many writing coaches and professional writers recommend, as much as possible, writing first drafts nonstop, especially when you’re in the groove — get your thoughts down, even if they’re incomplete, and jump over the gaps and keep on going.

Marking the blanks for attention later is a good strategy, but unless you’re unlikely to use parentheses in your prose, I recommend you employ another marker.

For example, it’s common in journalism to use TK, a phonetic abbreviation for “to come” that’s easily searched because those letters don’t naturally occur sequentially in words, which allows you to avoid false hits as you search for your markers for incomplete content. (Keep in mind, though, that both TK and TC are valid abbreviations.)

Book publishers, by contrast, often employ multiple asterisks or zeroes in some cases, including page numbers for a table of contents that has not yet been finalized; a proofreader fills in the correct page numbers later.

Graphic designers also use what’s called Greek text, though it’s actually adulterated Latin (also known as lorem ipsum because of that commonly appearing phrase). However, this placeholder text is used for design mockups, not as part of the writing process. (The same is true of the letter sequence ETAOIN SHRDLU, consisting of the twelve most frequently used letters in English.)

When I’m editing an academic text with references, I need to check in-text citations against the reference list to make sure every reference is cited and every citation is referenced. Instead of printing out a copy of the references as a checklist, or making a duplicate file, I simply mark each reference item as I find its in-text citation, using the “at” sign or another character that doesn’t otherwise appear in the manuscript. When I’m done, I do a Find and Replace search to delete the signs in one fell swoop.

That reminds me: Do you know the shortcuts for reducing or omitting letter and line spaces? Some educators still teach otherwise, but sentences should be separated by only one letter space. To reduce double spaces to single ones throughout a manuscript with just a few keystrokes and clicks, just type two spaces in the Find field and one space in the Replace field, then click on Replace All. Repeat as necessary until no instances are indicated. (Be careful not to click on Replace All before you type a letter in the Replace field, or you’ll end up with paragraph-long strings of type.)

To delete letter spaces at the end of multiple paragraphs, type a letter space followed by the symbol ^ (shift+6) and the letter p with no letter space between them into the Find field and ^p into the Replace field, then hit Replace All. Repeat as necessary.

To reduce two line spaces to one, enter ^p^p into the Find Field and ^p into the Replace Field and select Replace All. Repeat as necessary.