Last night, our part-time copy editor asked me what our style was for dates. Apparently, he had been told three different things. I don't know why there is confusion on the copy desk; this is a basic style rule and there shouldn't be a question about it. Because our copy-desk chief told him a different rule than I told him, I'm now a little unsure myself what our style is on dates. If it comes down to it, I will have to go with what the higher-ups say. (But I think I'm right.)

Here is the correct way to handle the style of dates, or at least the way I've always handled dates.

When you are talking about an event that happened within seven days, either in the past or future, use the day of the week:

On Monday, the mayor signed the decree. 

The meeting on debt management will be held Thursday.

If you are talking about an event that happened, or will happen, more than seven days out, then use the date: 

The planning meeting is set for Aug. 12.

A deadly fire destroyed two homes on July 20.

For the most part, there is never a reason to use a day and a date together (Friday, Aug. 1). Use the day of the week if it is within seven days past or future. Use a date if it is beyond seven days. 

These rules are for newspaper style. You can relax them for other writing, such as fiction:

Stan thumped my head. "Are you an idiot? I told you about going to the baseball game last Thursday." 

A compound modifier is two or more words that act together to modify (or make less abstract) a noun. To show that they work together, you can combine them with a hyphen. 

An example would be "a hard-fought battle." It is not a hard battle, or a fought battle; it is a hard-fought battle. The words work together to describe what kind of battle it was.

So, should you hyphenate every compound modifier? 

You could. There isn't anything wrong with it, except being a little stiff, perhaps. But, you don't have to. There are two basic camps on this issue. One camp says every compound modifier should be hyphenated: 

• High-school student

• Orange-juice salesman

• Small-business owner

• day-care center

The other camp says you should only hyphenate compound modifiers if the reader would be confused without the hyphen. Those who belong to this group probably would not hyphenate "high school student" (unless perhaps they were writing about teenage drug use), day care center, or orange juice salesman (I've seen greedy salesmen, but not juice salesmen who were orange). But they would probably hyphenate small-business owner, not wanting to confuse them with short restaurateurs.

For some reason, word nerds take compound modifiers personally and can get overheated about them in a hurry. If you want to hyphenate all compound modifiers, go for it. But it's also okay to hyphenate only those that would cause confusion. Or, you can take my stance. I hyphenate most compound modifiers unless they are so common or so clear that there is no real chance for confusion.

Recently, a question came up in the newsroom about capitalizing types of animals or critters. Would it be Miami Blue butterfly, Miami blue butterfly, or Miami Blue Butterfly? I've found that most people don't know the rules for capitalizing species of animals, or plants and diseases. Here is a simple guide for figuring it out:

First, look in a good dictionary. I use Webster's New World College Dictionary, because it's the official AP Style dictionary used by newspapers. It's a good choice. If the dictionary has the name of the type of animal, then go with it's suggested capitalization.

Second, if the name is not in the dictionary, the general rule is to uppercase words that derive from proper nouns: Galapagos tortoise, Boston terrier, African violet, monarch butterfly. 

So, the answer is "Miami blue butterfly."

During one of my first months as a copy editor, I wrote a headline using the word "judgement." It got printed, and boy was I embarrassed the next day when the editor put it on my desk with a big red circle around it. It's a mistake a lot of people make, but there is no "e" in the middle of the word. I've seen it with the extra "e" twice in as many days, and the fact that it is misspelled so often probably leads people to think that "e" is supposed to be there. Misspelling words is my biggest weakness as a copy editor, but slowly, as I work with words more, I am getting better at spotting those kinds of mistakes.

Just remember, if you find a "judgement" in your writing, you have been found guilty of bad spelling. 

People seem to not care so much nowadays about basic writing skills, especially when writing on the Internet. Does it matter? In the new information and Internet age, is it acceptable to let grammar rules disappear? I am not nearly as uptight as some grammar geeks are--I think there is a natural evolution to language--but that doesn't mean we should let anything go.

Take a look at a couple examples I found yesterday. They are remarks made about an online news article that addressed a drawing of Barack and Michelle Obama on the cover of The New Yorker:

i am a young educated black woman..and i got it. i truly believe people overreacted...if they truly understood the cartoon...its actaully looking up for obama!!!!!

It is somewhat ironic that this poster calls herself educated (and she probably is), yet she doesn't know or care to write using basic grammar rules. To be fair, when I write instant messages or e-mails, I don't follow all the rules, either. But, some of the grammar goofs you can find are inexcusable. Here is how I would correct her sentence:

I am a young, educated black woman, and I got it. I truly believe people overreacted. If they truly understood the cartoon, they would see that it's actually looking up for Obama! (Only one exclamation point, please.)

Here is the next comment about the article: 

AMERICAN LIBERALS USE THIS AS A WAKE-UP CALL AND DO THE RIGHT THING & START USING YOUR BRAINS TO THINK WITH RATHER THAN JUST USING IT TO FILL THE SPACE BETWEEN YOUR EARS.

I'm working to get my first grammar video lesson on the site. The goal is to have a ton of videos that will help writers understand what they need to know with easy-to-understand lessons. Later, I'll make some style videos. I see a lot of weak writing in newspapers and other places. The videos will target big mistakes writers often make.

The biggest mistake writers make is to not rewrite. Everything I write these days, even e-mails and blogs, I rewrite. Almost without exception, I will find grammar problems, spelling problems, redundancies and other style problems all over. I have to rewrite at least a couple times to get my writing to say what I really want it to say(thank god for computers).  

There are two important steps to writing:

1. Get it out, and don't worry if it's shit. A lot of writers (and I used to have this problem) want to make everything perfect in their first draft. This is a big mistake. It slows your rhythm down. It's better to open the flood gates and let it pour. Don't care if it doesn't make sense or has big agreement problems, or anything else. It's okay. No one is going to see your first draft but you. They will never know how much you suck.

2. Rewrite. After you have it all out and on the screen--or paper--now you can perfect it. Delete whole paragraphs if you have to. Bring the third paragraph to the front because it has a better hook. Fix those spelling errors. After the first rewrite, you might take a break from it for a while. When you come back, you'll see other things you want to fix. By the second or third rewrites, it will be ready (or just about). If you are as critical of your stuff as I am of mine, then you might never be completely satisfied, but at some point you have to let it go. It will be a lot better than that terrible first draft.