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When "illegal" is inaccurate
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Election Day is less than three weeks away, and, as promised, we're continuing to share guidance on writing about issues that are front and center this election season. Today we're focusing on immigration, which is getting a lot of attention in the presidential race. We wrote a few weeks ago about abortion and how you shouldn't adopt the language of politicians when you're writing about the issue, and the same is true with immigration. Don't use the term "illegal alien" outside of direct quotes. Instead, use person-first language and describe actions rather than relying on labels whenever possible. But don't automatically substitute "people who entered the country illegally" for "illegal aliens." In some cases, politicians are using the label "illegal aliens" to refer to people who are in the country legally. Sharing this type of advice is just one way we're trying to help journalists during election season. We also have a free guide with research-backed strategies for dealing with everything from reporting on conspiracy theories to responding to accusations of bias. You can download it here. And of course, qualifying newsrooms can access Stylebot for free through Election Day, thanks to the Knight Election Hub. And before you go, we'd love your feedback on new features we're building for Stylebot. Please take less than a minute to answer these two quick questions:
Thanks for your help! ❤ Team Stylebot
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Hone your writing skills and never use "hone in" again. Get writing tips, have fun with words and learn something new in a one-minute read each week by signing up for Stylebot’s newsletter.
'Tis the season for confusion about apostrophes. You've probably already seen it: a holiday card from "the Smith's" or "the Lee's," instead of the properly unpunctuated "Smiths" or "Lees." In the spirit of this common seasonal mistake, we're reviewing apostrophe use today. And we have another holiday-themed reminder. The apostrophe serves a few purposes in the English language. It's used for possessives: "Jane’s favorite punctuation." It's also used for omissions: "I've been using apostrophes...
We're almost a week into the month of December, which means that you might have already cracked open a few days of your Advent calendar. The capital "A" version of the word refers to the period leading up to Christmas, which is why you should capitalize it. Usage of "Advent" goes back to at least the 12th century, while the lowercase advent, which essentially means "arrival," came into use in the 1700s. And yes, it evolved from the Christmas-themed "Advent." ❤ Team Stylebot Get a free...
It's the Friday before Thanksgiving, and with a holiday weekend coming up, we're revisiting one of our early newsletters that answers one of the most common questions we get when a long weekend looms: Is "weekend" capitalized? (And speaking of holiday weekends, we're taking next Friday off. We'll be back in your inbox on Friday, December 6.) Before we get to the writing tip, though, we want to say thank you to everyone who answered our question last week about "poor structure." If you didn't...