Three Copy Editing Pet Peeves and How to Avoid Them

By Rima Parikh

As the copy editor at Widefoc.us, I’m lucky to engage with a lot of wonderful writing for social media. I love working with creative flourishes and inventive language! But as is common for a copy editor, I can’t avoid curmudgeonly tendencies. Which means that I do, unfortunately, run into grievances on occasion. Below, I’ve put together my three biggest pet peeves when copy editing content. I don’t want to just complain without offering a solution, so I’ve also included strategies for avoiding these common pitfalls. 

Meaningless buzzwords 

Whenever I see “connection,” “creativity,” “inspiration,” and the like, I wonder, “What does this actually mean?” When nebulous buzzwords are thrown into content at random (or seemingly random), it feels like you’ve let AI do the job (and badly). From an audience perspective, it doesn’t tell me much about the product or why the target audience should be interested. How would you describe what you’re asking me to care about in your own words? Why do you believe in it? Why should I? If you don’t include specifics, I tune out. To fight this, I like to do something that might feel a little silly, which is to talk out loud and describe the product/service/etc. in my own words. What does it really do? Why should someone find value in it? And how can I get that across with the most specific language possible that will truly resonate with key audiences? 

Em dash overload

As someone who previously (and still, to a certain extent) has used the em dash at egregious levels, it pains me to list it as a recent pet peeve. I don’t hate it (how could I?), and in many cases, using one is the best way to make a sentence work. But I’ve been seeing them used so, so much to the point of getting sick of them. I saw a tweet saying heavy em dashes in text are telltale signs of AI-generated content, and now I can’t unsee it. And don’t get me wrong: I hate that generative AI has taken em dashes from us! Obviously, they are not exclusive to AI-speak, but it does seem to be punctuation that large language models indulge in about as frequently as dash-loving writers do. Even if you’re not using AI, perhaps the em dash could be more effective if it were used sparingly. Experiment with different punctuation and sentence structures! I know it might feel scary, but try a period. 

Run-on sentences

I also understand the impulse to want to pack in as much information as you can into a single sentence. I’m often guilty of it too! But one of the most difficult types of sentences to read is a run-on. A run-on is a sentence that joins multiple clauses incorrectly — or, more colloquially, it’s a long, long sentence that feels like it never ends. One strategy for preventing these is to make a list of every idea you’re trying to get across, and write each one out as its own sentence. Then, look and see which ones feel like they make sense to combine. Use punctuation like periods, semicolons, and commas — okay and sometimes an em dash — to shape the run-on into more structured, focused sentences. If you find words that don’t feel crucial to the sentence, deleting them could also help with tightening it up. 

These are all pet peeves that have come up in the past (though rarely with WideFoc.us writers! Hi friends!), but I feel like I see them more as AI content drafting has increased. Ultimately, I believe that the best way to write better is to not use AI. The environmental devastation of generative AI is absolutely not worth spitting out copy that you could’ve written better yourself. Generative AI models can be trained to improve their writing, but you are also capable of strengthening your own writing in ways that AI never could. But also, it’s all up to you! This is just a screed from a cranky copy editor. 

Curmudgeonly, courageous Rima Parikh is a copy editor, fact-checker, and writer.