I developed a repetitive strain injury in my elbow this past year. At first, I thought it was an injury from lifting; I decided to rest my arm and let it be. However, the pain got worse. I couldn’t grip things with my left hand; I couldn’t sleep without propping my arm on a pillow; I couldn’t put a jacket on without wincing. After 4 months of this pain, I finally decided to see my doctor. It took her less than 5 minutes to diagnosis the problem as tennis elbow, a type of repetitive strain injury. Since I don’t play tennis, I may never know what repetitive movement caused this injury (dishwashing, maybe?), but now I know how to recognize the signs and to reduce my risk.
Keep reading to find out more about repetitive strain injuries and how to reduce your risk of developing one from computer use.

Tennis elbow is a common name for a repetitive strain injury (RSI) known as lateral epicondylitis.  This is caused by overuse of the muscles and tendons located where bone and tendons join in the elbow. You may have heard of other RSIs, including golfer’s shoulder, carpal tunnel syndrome (median nerve compression), and stylus finger. These are all repetitive strain injuries that affect different parts of the upper extremities. As Johansson describes in his informative book What You Can Do About Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Other Repetitive Strain Injuries (Contemporary Diseases and Disorders), RSIs are also known as

• CTD - cumulative trauma disorder
  
• RMD - repetitive motion disorder
  
• MSD - musculoskeletal disorder
  
• OOS - occupational overuse syndrome
• WRULD - work-related upper limb disorder

The Cleveland Clinic gives a good overview of what RSIs are and how they develop. Briefly, they all stem from microinjuries in joints and ligaments that occur repeatedly during daily activities. The body doesn’t have time to heal these micro wounds because the injury keeps occurring (think typing). We are all at risk of RSIs because of the repetitive movements of jobs, sports, and other hobbies, including music!

The association between repetitive movements and work has been extensively studied and reviewed. RSIs are very costly to employers in the form of lost work hours and costly to employees due to pain, prolonged injury, and lost income. As described in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the best way to combat the problem of work-related RSIs is to implement work practices and environments that reduce the risk of developing these injuries. These practices include

• Engineering controls (changing the layout of a workstation)
  
• Administration controls (changing job rules or procedures)
• Personal protective equipment (the jury is still out on whether braces are effective measures of prevention)

Extended computer use is a well-known risk factor for developing an RSI. A recent literature review states that more than 50% of computer users experience some form of MSD, with the most common areas affected being the back, neck and shoulder. Unfortunately, if you’re a writer, editor, or administrator (and many others), your job probably involves extended computer use and sitting for long periods. So what can we do?

In a 2005 in-depth review on MSDs and computer work, Wahlström cites studies on the association between computer work-related injuries and muscular load, postures and movements, and force.  To reduce work-related—including computer work—risk of RSIs, the field of ergonomics emerged. Ergonomics entails modifying a work environment to reduce the repetitive motions or postures that increase the risk of RSIs. As I stated above, this is a type of engineering control: modifications of the types and setup of chairs, desks, keyboards, and monitors can help reduce the risk. Dygma gives a great summary of how to ergonomically set up your work station in their How to Prevent RSI with an Ergonomic Setup article.

Here is another good article with 10 suggestions for preventing RSIs.

Aside from an ergonomically setup workstation (discussed above), you should take breaks from your desk (at least every hour), use good posture and support your back and arms, and reduce the amount of keyboard use.

So how does an editor or writer reduce keyboard and mouse use. In my experience, my job is typing and mouse work! Each keystroke requires pressure from a finger. And if you add up all the keystrokes over 8 hours of computer work, that’s a lot of pressure. For an interesting and high-level discussion on the pressure of typing, check out this post on keyboard switch forces.

To reduce the number of keystrokes and mouse movements throughout the day, you can try the following:

• Macros
• Shortcut keys
  
• Text expander
  

Macros are little computer programs that automate repetitive tasks. Paul Beverley has an outstanding list of macros that are free to download and use. He also has YouTube videos about how to use macros in writing and editing.  

Do you need to make a list of all the hyperlinks in a document? There’s a macro.

Do you need to find the next highlighted item? There’s a macro.

Do you need to remove all highlights and/or text colors? Yes! There’s a macro.

Check out my previous post on Macros to find out how I use these wrist-saving tools!

Another way to reduce the number of keystrokes (and mouse use) is to use shortcut keys. Google shortcut keys to find lists of the shortcuts that are already within your writing software. Here’s just a few of the ones I use regularly.

• Crtl+V – paste
• Crtl+S – save
• Crtl+home (end) – go to the start (or end) of the document

And so on!

You can also set your own shortcut keys. And yes, you can assign shortcut keys to macros! (I highly recommend this for macros you use while editing: “InstantJumpUp”, “HighlightFindDown”, “GoogleFetch”, etc.)

To customize shortcut keys, go to your ribbon and right click. Click on “Customize the ribbon…”. Click on “Keyboard shortcuts: Customize” from there you can assign any combination of keys to many different commands. Have fun!

Text expanders are tools that allow you to automate repetitive typing. They use snippets, which are shortcut phrases that insert long phrases, sentences, and blocks of text. Check out this post for a comprehensive guide to text expanders.

When I’m editing, I often leave the comment “Please ensure that my change doesn’t alter your intended meaning.” That’s a 10-word sentence that I type in almost every comment bubble. If I used the snippet, pec, then the text expander would automatically insert the full sentence.

This saves time and pressure on my fingers and wrists.

RSI is a serious injury that we may all be at risk of developing. With a few changes in habits and useful tools, we can reduce our risk of this costly disease. Do you have tricks for reducing the risk of RSIs? I’d love to hear from you.

As a copy editor, one of the most common punctuation mistakes I encounter in STEM writing is the use of a hyphen when an en dash is needed. Do you know how to correctly use the en dash in scientific writing? Read on to learn how and when to use this misunderstood punctuation mark.

Can you pick out the en dash from the picture? Here’s a hint: longer than a hyphen, but shorter than the em dash.  And not to be confused with the minus sign. Common knowledge says that the en dash is so named because it is the approximate width of “N”. However, the name origin is more complicated. As described by Matthew Butterick in hyphens and dashes, “em and en refer to units of typographic measurement, not to the letters M and N.”

According to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), the authoritative style guide for writers and editors that I describe here,
"Hyphens and the various dashes all have their specific appearance…and uses…. The hyphen, the en dash, and the em dash are the most commonly used. Though the differences can sometimes be subtle—especially in the case of an en dash versus a hyphen—correct use of the different types is a sign of editorial precision and care."

In UK English style the en dash with space before and after replaces the em dash, but this use of the en dash won’t be discussed further because it is atypical in US English style.

Recently, when I wanted to reviewing the rules on en dash usage in science writing, I grabbed my copy of the “Best Punctuation Book, Period” by June Casagrande. I love this book. It is very readable and easily searchable. Casagrande has a section for each punctuation mark, which includes a Punctuation Panel’s, made up of professional copy editors in news media and book publishing, preferred usage of the mark. As expected, the chapter on the en dash is quite short. However, I did a double take when I read, “The en dash…applies solely to book style. It does not exist in news, science, or academic style.” WRONG!
The en dash has very specific uses in STEM writing.
The en dash is used to

• improve clarity of compound adjectives
  
• indicate equal contribution
• indicate numerical ranges
• indicate chemical bonds
  

Both CMOS and the American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style 11th edition prescribe use of the en dash when the compound adjective has an open element or already-hyphenated element. This helps avoid ambiguity.

For example:
From CMOS, Chuck Berry–style lyrics (here, the name “Chuck Berry” is a known open unit, but it is a compound adjective with “style”)

From the AMA, non–English-language journals

When a compound adjective has two components that have equal weight, the en dash is used. The American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Psychological Association both describe this usage, known as the peer en dash. This includes collaborators of scientific findings or joint authorships.
Here are examples.

• Diels–Alder reaction
• Beer–Lamber law
• Test–retest reliability
• Structure–activity relationship
  

Another use of the en dash is to indicate inclusive numerical ranges (no spaces before or after the en dash). Use it for dates, times, data, and so on.

“The graph shows the mean of the data from multiple biological replicates (n = 3–6).”

However, don’t use the en dash when “from” precedes the range—the word “to” is used instead.

“Participation in the study was measured from May 2010 to April 2012.”

Furthermore, if one of the numbers is negative, then the en dash should not be used.

“Over the last week, temperatures were −10 to 23 °F.” Not “−10–23 °F”.

Follow your style guide of choice to determine if units need to be repeated within numerical ranges. Of note, the AMA style guide 11th edition uses hyphens for numerical ranges. WEIRD!

Perhaps my favorite use of the en dash is in the chemical bond as prescribed by ACS. This is near and dear to my heart as I spent 6+ years working in chemistry and chemical biology. Here the en dash indicates a single covalent sigma bond.

H3C–OH
R2C–C(H)=O

Notice that the equal sign (same width as the en dash) denotes a double covalent pi bond.

The en dash has specific uses in science, and it’s important for clarity, formality, and professionalism to understand the different uses. Although CMOS recommends using other punctuation instead of the en dash or completely recasting the sentence, I suggest using the en dash without reservation. What do you think?