Tech Tips: Two Chores Made Easy
Today I have tips for disposing of two tasks in mere seconds. While less savvy writers and editors are laboring over for the same chores for hours, we can go dancing!
Writer, Editor, Helper
(The Subversive Copy Editor)
Writer, Editor, Helper
(The Subversive Copy Editor)
Carol Saller
How Sticklers Give Copyediting a Bad Name
Public sticklers have annoyed me forever, and I’ve been meaning to write about that, but recently, in a post titled “Editors, Would You Do Me This Tiny Favour?” Katy McDevitt at PublishEd Adelaide did a great job of it herself. McDevitt gets to the meat of it in point 3:
For Writers: Promoting Your Book; Is There Any Point?
(Some chores are more fun than others!) How many times have you run into someone at a writers’ event who seems freaked out by the task of marketing a new book? It’s always the same: the writer is eager to…
Dear Carol: My Staff Is Out of Control!
I’m an editor who craves (and requires) an orderly chain of command when handling a manuscript. Up to this point, I’ve worked with a limited staff: me, a copyeditor, and a designer. We’re expanding the journal. It is now an online publication. Now, I’m working with others in the office who are in the habit of distributing manuscripts and video files to a whole group of people simultaneously for feedback. I hate this disorderly process, which seems counterproductive.
Going Up? Plan Ahead
A few months ago I encountered a bank of hotel elevators that made a big impression on me. This might be old hat to you,* but to me it was a wondrous invention: there were no buttons inside the elevators for choosing your floor. Instead,
Getting Freelance Work: The Essentials
A couple of weeks ago I attended Ruth Thaler-Carter’s Communication Central conference in Baltimore and participated in the “Editing Summit” panel. My contribution was to speak about what we look for at the University of Chicago Press when hiring a copyeditor. Afterward, I was dismayed when a young woman approached and said “You talked about what you didn’t want in an employee. Could you say something about what you do look for?”
On Being Offended by Language
This video from Stephen Fry isn’t new, but I somehow missed seeing it, and I’m guessing many of you might have as well. It expresses everything I believe about how editors might best respond to grammar and usage “out in the world” when it departs from the norms we follow in formal contexts. I could never say it as well as Fry does, so I’ll let him guest-post here today.
Away from my desk . . .
This week and next I’m gadding about and not thinking about my blog. I will of course be thinking about copyediting—in between crab cakes—while I attend Ruth Thaler-Carter’s excellent Communication Central conference in Baltimore with a crowd of like-minded writers and editors.
After that, I’ll be off to Daytona International Speedway, where I have a “4-Day Super Infield” ticket to camp at the track and watch my brother Tom race his vintage motorcycle.
In the meantime, don’t go away empty-handed! Here’s a vintage offering of my own: “Still Learning: Fun Language Words.”
So You Think You Know Where You’re Going?
Have you ever been put out of a cab after you ever waited forever and finally lassoed one and got in and after sailing past a street where you would have turned (if you had been driving), said, “Shouldn’t you have turned there?” and the driver slammed to the curb and said, “You can get another cab,” leaving you incredulously asking, “What—? Are you kidding? Are you putting me out?” and, seeing his face, had to grab your things and slam the door (cab drivers hate that) and hike back four blocks to the thoroughfare and wait for another cab? Me, too.
Dear Carol: Editing in Batches, Publisher’s Names, Is Secure Secured?
Hi Carol,
I’m in the processing of copy editing a 1,000-page textbook that is due in two batches. I’ve already sent in the first batch of chapters, and as I’m editing the second batch of chapters, I’m coming across errors I missed in the first batch. I’ve already sent a list of close to twenty errors (although some were related, such as the same word misspelled twice) that I missed to my project manager, but I’m still coming across more. Another person is doing the proofreading for this project so I won’t have the opportunity to fix these mistakes myself. Is there a certain number of errors, perhaps based on the number of pages, that copy editors miss and that is expected?