This professional manual has been revised and updated. It features Merv Block's countless do's and don'ts, distilling them into a handy set of pointers. Journalists who are stumped by a problem can consult the book's many chapters for mini-lessons on how to deal with it. Block points to action verbs and points out dozens of words not to use. And tells why not to use them. ""Every writer needs an editor"" is a truism, but editors are vanishing. So Block tells how a writer can be her own editor. His own, too.