Teaching the Rules of the Road

One of Kelli Christiansen’s favorite teaching moments came when a student in her online class, while working on his final grammar assignment late one night, suddenly shouted “Compound predicate!” across his house. His puzzled partner called from another room to check what was wrong. For Christiansen, this moment of syntactic excitement exemplifies why she teaches. “It seems like such a small thing,” she says, “but when that light bulb goes off, it’s magical. We’re talking about elements that can change the meaning of a sentence.” 

Christiansen brings this enthusiasm for language mechanics to her role teaching Essentials of Grammar for Professionals and Introduction to Acquisitions Editing in the Editing certificate at the University of Chicago. A veteran editor who transitioned from journalism to acquisitions editing—where she sought and developed new book projects—at companies such as McGraw Hill and the American Bar Association, she launched her own freelance business, bibliobibuli, in 2007 before joining the program as an instructor in 2019. 

“Grammar is like the rules of the road,” she explains. “Without it, we’d have language anarchy.” This practical perspective shapes her teaching approach, which balances theoretical frameworks with real-world applications. “Our first lesson tackles the debate between prescriptivism and descriptivism,” she says, referring to the tension between strict, rules-based grammar and more flexible, colloquial usage. “If you’re editing financial or legal documents, you lean toward prescriptivism. For a steampunk novel, descriptivism makes more sense.”

Students arrive with varying levels of experience—some are newcomers to editing, while others are seasoned professionals who want to strengthen their skills or refresh their knowledge. “Many students realize they’ve been relying on intuition,” Christiansen notes. “They know what sounds right, but struggle to explain why a rule is a rule or to use proper terminology with clients.”

Yet certain challenges unite editors of all experience levels. “Commas are the bane of every editor’s existence,” Christiansen says with a laugh. “Some writers sprinkle them everywhere; others use too few. Finding the right balance—where each comma serves its purpose—that’s at the heart of what we teach.” 

The detail-oriented program’s flexibility, with evening and weekend classes, allows working professionals to participate and still maintain their personal and professional commitments. Christiansen also emphasizes the importance of networking, encouraging students to connect on LinkedIn and to join professional associations. “Publishing is such a small world,” she says. “We tend to fall over each other. Having a network means that, when someone is overwhelmed with assignments, they have colleagues to whom they can refer potential clients. A strong network makes it easier to call on like-minded professionals for support, for questions, and for those times when you need someone to brainstorm with.”

Christiansen recently developed a new standalone course for UChicago's professional development programs, "Fact-Checking for Editors," and has updated her materials to incorporate the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. She continues to adapt her teaching to industry changes while maintaining focus on the fundamentals. “When students tell me I made grammar fun, that really pleases me,” she says. “Because, at its core, grammar is the basis of all communication.”