Do You Know What These Writing Symbols Mean?

If a different letter, word or phrase is needed, use a caret shows where the additional, corrected or substituted information is to be inserted.. That new information is placed at the point of insertion in or above the line.

Draw a horizontal line through a phrase, sentence or paragraph to indicate it should be deleted. The horizontal line has a small loop at the end of the line.

A more accurate way to delete a single letter or punctuation mark is to use a vertical line delete mark with a loop at the end.

A single line under a word, phrase or sentence indicates that selection should be italicized.

It seems like most editors like to delete, that must be why there are three different ways to show deletion! One would use this writing symbol to delete a letter or punctuation by circling it and connecting the circle to the vertical or horizontal delete mark.

If you want a letter to be capitalized, simply put three small lines under the selected letter, word or phrase.

To tell the writer to lowercase a letter or word, simply strike-through the offending capital letter with a diagonal stroke.

A squiggly line under a word, phrase or sentence indicates the selection should be set in bold type.

A series of strike-throughs on the underline itself means to remove the underlining.

There is more than one way to add a space, and in this case using a hash mark is ideal because you write more than one to indicate more than one space is needed.

Although it would seem one would have a single parallel line, instead, two short parallel lines means to insert a hyphen.

"Keep as is", or "keep as it stands", is what a writer likes to see after the hard work of writing the first draft. You can use the "stet" word or three dots to indicate not to change the copy.

Editors need to make room for both photos and copy in a story. They use this mark to close up space.

Even though editors have to save on space, if an acronym or an abbreviation won't be understood by the reader, it is better to have it spelled out.

Sometimes the parenthetical phase works better at the beginning of the sentence, than the end. That's when editors use this mark which means to change the order of—or transpose— the letters, words, or phrases.

An em-dash is longer than a hyphen. It is used to create a strong break in the structure of a sentence, yet connect the thoughts.

Add a period and it's hard for the writer to see the change, so the period needs to be circled.

News reporters quote people often, and editors make sure the quotation marks are used properly and in the right placement.

This symbol helps in the formatting of the paper, report or presentation. It shows where to begin a paragraph.

Superscript is usually used with an asterisk or number to indicate there is more information about the topic in the legal copy.

Adding a comma to a sentence is hard for the writer to detect, hence a caret is used to indicate where it should be inserted within the sentence.

Chemical equations, trademarks and mathematical equations will have subscript information as part of the idea being conveyed. An upside-down caret is used to indicate subscript.

It would be hard to receive a manuscript where you need to look at every word to figure out if there is a change like adding a period, comma or apostrophe. The caret is used to make adding an apostrophe bigger, to catch the eye.

So as not to be confused with a capital "C", the parens has the double slash marks to identify it as a parenthesis.

A long vertical line shows the placement of where all items (of a list, for example) should begin.

This writing symbol helps in the layout of the page. For instance if you don't want a line or sentence to extend beyond a certain point, use the flush right symbol.

Flush left is like a tab to keep all copy aligned left, however it is indented from the major text.

When two brackets are used, it is meant to center the copy that is between the two brackets. This is a formatting symbol used by editors.

When a word is in all caps, and the editor wants an initial cap only, this symbol is used to keep first letter capitalized and lower case the remainder.

When you want the text to follow the preceding word, this loopy line is what most editors use to instruct the writer or author.

Some words are more understandable in their shortened forms. For instance, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may be circled so the writer knows to use "NASA" instead.

Just follow the arrow. The editor circles what needs to be moved and shows where it should be placed by using an arrow.

Sometimes when writers want something to jump off the page they may change the type font, but when the editor wants to change it back, a "wf" in a circle is the symbol that's used.

Take a bracket and make it horizontal and you have the symbol to raise the text that the bracket is touching.

The bracket is placed above the text that should be lowered. This symbol helps format the page so the text can surround quotes, pictures, charts and other information.

The need to equalize the spacing can happen when trying to left justify, or aligning one word under another word. The computer chooses how to set up the justification and it doesn't always look right.

You can circle something that is in italics to let the writer know to change it to a non-italic font, or you can write "rom".

Editors don't always have time to find the perfect word, but can quickly spot a word or phrase that is being used incorrectly. If that happens, the writer will see this symbol.

To express the importance of a sentiment, there are times only one word or two words are on a single line. That's when an editor might choose to implement this mark.

There is more than one way to indicate a single space is needed. Simply put a a slash between letters. Many times this symbol is also used with a hyphen since the correct spelling is a hyphenated word, not a combined word.