Editorial Methods

Featured Topic: Efficiency in Editing

I’d love to write you an in-depth column on how to edit more efficiently, but I don’t have the time to write it—and I’ll bet you wouldn’t have time to read it. Instead, three quick reads that will speed up your tasks.

I might not always agree with Bill Walsh, but I respect his work. And I agree with his modus operandi that copyeditors need to do more than mechanically search and replace; we need to think.

Featured Topic: Working as a Copyeditor

Are copyeditor prescriptivists? Nitpickers? Help John McIntyre find the right word. Then check out these tips for working more efficiently and wrestling Word’s comment balloons into proper shape.

See the previous posts in this series on costly issues for additional information on the top three costly manuscript issues that copyeditors can help authors and publishers spot and avoid: copyright, attribution, and libel. Attribution, Part 1 expanded on the basics and gave some helpful resources for specific fields and genres.

See the previous posts in this costly issues series for additional information on the top three costly manuscript issues that copyeditors can help authors and publishers spot and avoid: copyright, attribution, and libel. This post and the next look more closely at attribution.

Attribution Basics

Featured Topic: Editorial Methods

We can all benefit from tips that helps us work more efficiently and effectively. Today’s News Roundup has three ideas for you.

Featured Topic: Words, Words, Words

In today’s News Roundup: how words get into the Oxford English Dictionary, nine ways to avoid singular they, and fancy-dancy reduplicative compounds.

Featured Topic: Editing Lessons

What do you need to do better? Today, you can get quick lessons on splitting long sentences, editing copyrighted materials, and using as a result correctly.

Featured Topic: Quick Lessons in Language Mechanics

Before you start editing, learn how to reduce word repetition, how to recognize direct objects, and whether to put something on the other hand.

One of my clients heads up a new content marketing department at a large company, and he has hired me to copyedit and to keep the style sheet. Because the department is new, all the documents we’ve been working on are now going through an in-house review for branding and legal issues.

It seems, unbeknownst to both my client and me, that the company also has an extensive media style guide, so the copy was reviewed for that as well.

I’m comfortable with that. Tell me what I didn’t know, and I’ll happily absorb those rules into my style sheet and correct for them going forward.