Michelle, Editor

@deidrejowen That sounds like a template issue. It's loading the normal template every time you reopen it. But I don't know why it wouldn't save your page choice.

Folks who are proficient with MS Word, I need help! I want a page size of 8.5 x 5.5 I set this page size, apply to whole document It accepts and adjusts I save and close When I reopen it, it has CHANGED my page size to 8.35 x 5.35! I know Word well! Wtf is happening?!? 😭

@ParanormalJunk2 Depends on what your "developmental editor" actually does. A true DE can't be replaced by AI, but there's a no true standard for what the editing levels are or what they're called, especially in the indie market.

I haven’t used a developmental editor for 3 or 4 years, and AI has infested everything now. How can you be sure that a dev editor doesn’t use AI in their process at all?

@leCoinBureau @engineers_feed No, the commas are not grammatically necessary in US English. But if you had included them around "inevitably," it would just have a different emphasis: will, inevitably, itself contain ...

@ExcellentEdits @engineers_feed OK, I see your point. I thought the ‘grammar’ part might set it apart enough to qualify on its own. BTW: While I have an Editor on the line: should I have used commas before, between, and after ‘inevitably’ and ‘itself’? Thank you.

The laws of the Internet: 1. Streisand effect. Any attempt to censor info on the web will lead to said info being widely spread. 2. Muphry’s law. If you leave a comment correcting someone, there will always be a mistake in it. 3. Cunningham’s law. The best way to get an answer to a question is to answer it wrongly yourself and wait for someone to correct you. 4. Armstrong’s law. The longer a conversation goes without mention of America, the more likely an American is to arbitrarily bring up the moon landing. 5. CAD’s theorem of topic culture. A smart is less likely to receive a reply than a stupid post because it leaves less to be said, but a really full and comprehensive post will bring the conversation to a halt. 6. Wadsworth’s content. The first 30% of any video contains no worthwhile information.

@leCoinBureau @engineers_feed That's Muphry's Law.

@engineers_feed Does this one already have a name or can I claim that right? Any attempt to correct someone’s grammatical error will inevitably itself contain an even more egregious grammatical error.

@thekimkavin @DrFreelance I had the same experience as Kim, so they are mailing me a check.

@DrFreelance Interestingly, a new client I just added wanted everything done electronically, but didn't have a secure portal set up to receive information like bank details. I ended up having to call them and do it over the old-school landline phone.

Freelancers: How many of your clients still pay by check? (Please RT for visibility)

@epawawx I'm sorry for your loss. Beautiful tribute to your dad.

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. RIP Dale Martrich, Sr. (1954-2026) Thank you for being the dad that you didn't have to be.

@deidrejowen It's hard to pick up sometimes with the tone, mood, flow ... I have it too even with short stories.

Guilty haha

@JamesAFurey Sadly, this is true.

At my first school, I was tasked with running the reading intervention class. I have a bachelor's degree in Comprehensive English Education, no minor, and at the time I didn't know anything about how to teach reading. These intervention courses are often just a box-ticking activity, created to cover the school's ass.

@deidrejowen @BowlersReviews Both my hubby and son are dyslexic. Because of how school is today, there's less room for the dyslexic learner to catch up. We couldn't have done it without speech-to-text and text-to-speech (audio).

@ExcellentEdits @BowlersReviews That's crazy. Both my husband and my daughter struggle with dyslexia and get much more out of listening to media than reading it. By that logic, reading to our children "doesn't count" either 🙄

Imagine being so toxic you think it’s a cop out for a blind person to listen to an audiobook when the tempo parietal cortex is still taking the words into meaning by decoding and analyzing them which exercises the brain, the phonological processor processes those words, the occipito temporal still recognizes the words, the orthographic processor still stores the information, it’s almost the exact same thing. Someone needs to explain to me why you care so much how someone consumes literature? If they’re not illiterate why care? If they have a disability and they choose this method as they find it easier how is that harming you? This is the weirdest “Holier Than Thou” thing going on I’ve ever seen in my life! 🤣 #Audiobooks #AudibleAppで #Audible @audible_com

@deidrejowen @BowlersReviews It is, unfortunately. Audiobooks are used widely for students with dyslexia, and the argument that "they aren't really reading" or are cheating is everywhere.

@BowlersReviews That can't be a real opinion lol

Looking for tips about homeschooling a child with dyslexia? Check out my article in Homeschooling Quest magazine here: thehomeschoolquest.com/5tipsforhomesc…

🚨Big news for me: I am excited and proud to announce that my article about five unusual signs for dyslexia has been printed in EP Magazine. You can see it at: reader.mediawiremobile.com/epmagazine/iss… It's a terrific magazine, so be sure to check it out!

@JamesAFurey What you're talking about is modification. An accommodation doesn't change the work. An accommodation is no different than letting someone who needs glasses wear them to see. If you need more information about this aspect of school, please feel free to DM me.

Too often “accommodation” replaces instruction. It’s a game of “We didn’t know how to teach you, so we’re making the work easier.”

@GovernorShapiro Maybe you should talk about what you're to blame for instead. Like ... utility costs. And property taxes.

I know people are worried about rising costs, and the never ending cycle of President Trump's tariffs are driving those costs even higher.   In Pennsylvania, we're working to lower energy bills and we passed the largest targeted tax cut for seniors in nearly 20 years.    I don't know why the President is doing this — but I do know we're fighting like hell in PA to keep costs down and put money back in your pocket.

@GovernorShapiro So are my property taxes! To the tune of 10% in two years. And so are my electric bills! PA produces power all right, but not for Pennsylvanians.

Just look at the facts: In the last two years, we’ve created jobs, built shovel-ready sites for businesses, supported our main streets, and secured the largest private sector investment in our state's history.  Pennsylvania is on the rise.

@GavinNewsom For heaven's sake, what are you, nine years old? Aren't there other things that you could be doing?

Hey @JDVance — nice of you to finally make it out to California. Since you’re so eager to talk about me, how about saying it to my face? Let’s debate. Time and place?

@JamesAFurey What do you have against kids with dyslexia? You as an educator didn't even know what it was! And if you ever were a parent who tried to get a diagnostic through an uncooperative and uneducated school system, you couldn't even make this post.

Do parents know that, under IDEA, their kid who receives services for dyslexia might not even have dyslexia? The school evaluation is not a diagnosis. Seems like something more people ought to know.

@sharemath A beautiful story about the power of a true teacher. I wish there were more -- or at least a system that allowed more people to be this for their students.

The other teachers at my school hated hall duty, but I kinda liked it; it gave me a chance to talk to some of the kids outside of class - and to learn why they were out of class. I’ll never forget one “frequent flyer” who always had at least one shoe held together with tape. “Don’t you ever actually need a drink or to use the bathroom?” I asked him one day before shooing him back to class. “No. I just need to get out of there.” “Why?” “I don’t even know what they’re talking about.” “Do you try?” “Yeah, but I’m dumb,” he replied, trying to laugh it off. “This is the fifth school I've been at, and I never learned any of the math they’re talking about.” “Then it’s not your fault then!” I said, trying to be helpful - but I felt dumb as soon as the words left my mouth. Things were silent for a moment. There was clearly nothing he - or I - could do to change the situation, so we wrapped up our conversation, and he went back to class. Two marking periods later, I saw his name on the roster for a “math lab” course I was teaching. The point of this “extra” course was to give our middle schoolers another crack at basic math before they started Algebra. The students in my math lab would be getting themselves up to speed with the self-paced example-based “see it, do it, check it” math method that eventually morphed into the You Teach You worksheet series. On day one, it became clear he hadn’t been kidding me that day in the hallway. He was operating at a first grade math level, at best. I started all of the students at the very beginning of the sequence so that, over time, they would fill in every single gap they had. He seemed to be nothing but gaps. I let the students skim the stuff they had already mastered. There would be no skimming for him; he had to go the long way. The rest of the students made progress quickly - with many of them exclaiming “Big brain!” as they checked their answers against the fully-worked solutions on the answer keys, even as the material made its way toward the more complicated stuff like fractions, decimals, percentages, negatives… Meanwhile he slogged his way through multi-digit addition, silently. It was just a matter of time until he gave up. I felt sick for him, of course, but there was nothing else I could do. One day, however, during my prep, a familiar pair of taped shoes walked into my room. “Can I work in here?” he said. “I can’t think in study hall. It’s too noisy” “Of course,” I said, thinking he was about to pull out work from another teacher’s class. Instead, he continued working on the worksheets from math lab, this time exclaiming “Big brain!” himself every time he got an answer right. He continued to put in the work like that, day after day, throughout the remainder of the math lab course, and he made solid progress into fractions, decimals, percentages, and negatives, but after that semester I lost touch with him. So I don’t know if he ever made his way to Algebra. But I’m positive he knew he could.

@JamesAFurey I don't know how it is possible for you to diagnose someone with dyslexia because of poor instruction when the criteria for diagnosis clearly point to it being a learning difference they are born with. I can provide you with more if you want it.

All of the following are true: 1. Schools have done a poor job teaching kids to read, particularly dyslexic ones. 2. Some of those kids are diagnosed dyslexic BECAUSE of poor instruction, not something inherent to the kid. 3. Some parents PUSH for the dyslexic label because it’s the only way a school will take their struggles seriously. 4. Some parents push for the label simply because they want their kid excused from rigorous work. It’s complicated, but the best way to prevent almost ALL of these issues is to simply have quality reading instruction from the beginning, anchored in the science of reading.

Why would you listen to anyone who tells you not to use legitimate punctuation because it makes you look like AI? You came first. AI is a copycat. Use the em-dash freely.