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I'm chagrined to report that on the first page of a lengthy cultural memoir that I edited, I missed the error in this passage:
"The man was lying facedown in the vestibule of the [temple]. ... Devotees looked at him with curiosity and went [around] his prostate body. ..."
Sigh. I will try to console myself by thinking about how much came out right in this 600-plus-page book.
Copyeditor Confessions: Me First
Photo: psyberartist Here in Chicago we have to work at celebrating the advent of spring. Even typing in my subzero office is challenging—thank god for fingerless gloves. So my idea is this: in the spirit of spring cleaning, since there’s no way I’m throwing my mattresses out in the snow, let’...
A little book by macro creator and user extraordinaire Jack Lyon is very helpful if you want to learn to create even complex macros that will let you multitask without having to learn a programming language: Macro Cookbook For Microsoft Word. See this link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/macro-cookbook-for-microsoft-word-jack-m-lyon/1107868228
Let’s Make a Macro!
Photo courtesy Kirby Urner In an effort to pretend that new versions of MS Word are improvements, Microsoft continues to foist meaningless, annoying changes on their users. In the version of Word fo...
Sending the author a copy of the style sheet is excellent advice that I always follow when working directly with an author. Surprisingly, though, when the client is a publishing house and not the author, the publisher's staff members often neglect to send a copy of the style sheet along to the author. That omission always complicates things.
Too Many Eyes: When Editing Is Second-Guessed
Photo courtesy Alaina Abplanalp Photography Goodness knows my projects always benefit from another pass with a competent pair of eyes. They often get one during proofreading, and it’s humbling to see the things I missed or flubbed. In the end I’m glad for the sake of the book that t...
Carol, I'm very much looking forward to reading what you and Ben Yagoda have to say on Lingua Franca, because I've long admired the work that each of you does.
Change Is Coming
For over a year, I’ve been turning up here weekly to rant and fume and share, and on my part, it’s been pure pleasure. I hear from enough of you to know not only that someone is out there listening, but that almost anything I’m experiencing in my life as a copyeditor has been similarly experien...
I'm liking your word "googobs," Carol. I'm off to go use it in a sentence somewhere.
Dear Carol: Critiquing One’s Colleagues and Stalking a Good Copyeditor
Dear Carol: I am sometimes asked to mentor corporate communicators new to the field. I find this relatively easy and fun, until it comes to copyediting. I have been asked to edit pieces seriously off the mark: no point, no alignment with corporate objectives, rambling, no logic flow, redundant, ...
Valerie can find links to many more editors' associations (both in the United States and in other nations) and their directories here:
http://www.kokedit.com/library_CE6.shtml
Susana can also find good places, through the links on that page, to the web sites of editorial associations that will post job listings.
Dear Carol: Critiquing One’s Colleagues and Stalking a Good Copyeditor
Dear Carol: I am sometimes asked to mentor corporate communicators new to the field. I find this relatively easy and fun, until it comes to copyediting. I have been asked to edit pieces seriously off the mark: no point, no alignment with corporate objectives, rambling, no logic flow, redundant, ...
Oh--and editors who misspell another editor's name. If it's your job to read text closely, you can darn well copy and paste your correspondent's name into your e-mail reply to avoid misspelling it.
Why Don’t We Follow Directions?
If you’re expecting me to scold writers for not reading cover letters carefully, I’m going to have to disappoint you. I could do it—standing on my head—but it would be hypocritical, because when it comes to not following directions, I’m as guilty as the next perp. Why do we ignore instructions?...
Ha! Thanks for this, Carol. It reminds me of my pet peeve: editors who don't take the time to fully comprehend the e-mails that other colleagues send them. I'm an editor, and I foolishly continue to be shocked each time another editor doesn't read one of my e-mails carefully enough to properly answer the questions I've asked. Grrr.
Why Don’t We Follow Directions?
If you’re expecting me to scold writers for not reading cover letters carefully, I’m going to have to disappoint you. I could do it—standing on my head—but it would be hypocritical, because when it comes to not following directions, I’m as guilty as the next perp. Why do we ignore instructions?...
I forgot to share these tips for building a trust-filled relationship with authors: http://editor-mom.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-start-off-right-with-authors.html
“Leave My Prose Alone”: The Resistant Writer
“Please tell the copyeditor to leave my prose alone.” That’s an actual author request I encountered in a newly arrived manuscript. I looked at the first few pages. The content was complex, phrasing idiosyncratic, punctuation random. A more mature and compassionate person would have recognized...
Carol, you have an important point: We can't bully authors into accepting our edits. Having a good manuscript-side manner goes a long way to establishing an effective author-editor collaboration. I did an audio conference for _Copyediting_ newsletter on this very topic: "Handling Difficult Authors." Here's the link to the audio CD: http://tinyurl.com/4e99lnw
“Leave My Prose Alone”: The Resistant Writer
“Please tell the copyeditor to leave my prose alone.” That’s an actual author request I encountered in a newly arrived manuscript. I looked at the first few pages. The content was complex, phrasing idiosyncratic, punctuation random. A more mature and compassionate person would have recognized...
Ah, but Larry K., "whinge" is so much more evocative--to me, at least--than "whine" is. Besides, it should never be an editor's function to dumb down good writing.
True Crime in Copyediting
To my regret, in a lather recently over copyeditors who waste time searching for rules that don’t exist, I failed to acknowledge something important in defense of the offenders: that is, how much credit they deserve for looking up anything at all. Our ignorance is a given. We all have vast defi...
Love the transcript of the editorial brain in action! And thanks ever so much for pointing your readers to the "Editing Tools" page of the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base.
True Crime in Copyediting
To my regret, in a lather recently over copyeditors who waste time searching for rules that don’t exist, I failed to acknowledge something important in defense of the offenders: that is, how much credit they deserve for looking up anything at all. Our ignorance is a given. We all have vast defi...
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