Category The Writing/Editing Life

Announcing . . .

In 2013, after a few years of writing essays here for copyeditors and writers, I stopped posting—mainly out of a fear of repeating myself. You were so good to keep coming back! I didn’t want to bore you. Meanwhile,

And the Winner Is . . .

Thank you so much, fellow confessors! It was fun, therapeutic, and a little painful reading about your gaffes and lapses. Many of them sound familiar: spelling-check errors, overlooked homophones, misguided global corrections, and those goofs that are simply too huge to catch. Maybe worst of all are the ones we introduce ourselves in a moment of mental vacation.

Copyeditor Confessions: Me First

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’s air our consciences instead. Let’s confess our copyediting sins! I’ll stop at three. (Not that I have more than that . . .)

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:

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.

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?”

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.