Questions for a Yahoo! Editor: Julie Wildhaber

Julie Wildhaber has been an editor for 20 years. Currently she's with the Yahoo! Storytellers, part of Yahoo!’s corporate communications group. Previously, she was professional development program manager for Yahoo!'s central editorial team and was one of the creators of the Yahoo! Style Guide. Julie will be our instructor for next week’s audio conference, “Copyediting the Web, Part 1: Using the Yahoo! Style Guide.”

How is Web editing different from other editing?

Web editing is most like news editing, rather than magazine or book editing, in terms of the pace and the process. Usually you turn pieces around quickly, edit in a content management system, and don't know how much is coming in and when. You need to be good at multitasking, prioritizing, editing efficiently, and making style decisions on the spot.

Editorially, you need to think about the medium. The words must be clear and correct, because Web readers aren't lingering over each one; they're skimming the page to see if it's what they want before they dig in or look for a better option. Words in key positions like the headline need to be the words readers are searching for. And, of course, Web editors must think about elements other than words: links, buttons, navigation, tags for images and videos, special characters and formatting that may need to be coded to render correctly.

What do you find satisfying about editing for the Web?

I used to work on college textbooks, and though I liked the material and seeing the finished books, the yearlong publishing schedules could be aggravating. Online, you get nearly immediate gratification. There's fresh content to edit every day, and fresh questions, too—new words and names that aren't in the style guide, new ways to tell the story, new aspects of the digital media to consider.

What resources besides the Yahoo! Style Guide are particularly helpful to your area of editing?

Like all copy editors, I triangulate, checking a variety of resources and weighing them against each other. At Yahoo!, besides our own style guide, we consult AP and sometimes Chicago, Garner for grammar questions, and we're fond of Connie Hale and Bill Walsh, among others. Our default dictionary is American Heritage, though we check others as well, because we encounter lots of proper names, technology terms, neologisms ("greenwashing"), and slang ("Brangelina") that aren't in dictionaries yet and may never be. If readers are interested in a sample decision-making process, I discussed how we decided on email (no hyphen) on Andy Bechtel's Editor's Desk blog.

Have you had any interesting adventures in editing?

Back in my textbook days, I worked on physical education titles. (Some colleges not only offer courses in bowling and volleyball, but they also require texts—who knew?) One of our authors had chapter-opening epigraphs, which seemed like a fun idea until we realized they were all quotes from Foghorn Leghorn, and few seemed relevant to the subject. The copyeditor gently negotiated him down to two or three rooster-based quotations.

Thanks Julie!

You can find a good chunk of the Yahoo! Style Guide online, including a downloadable word list and exercises. Julie tweets tips at @YahooStyleGuide, and you can find the style guide on Facebook. If you’re interested in editing for the Web, don’t miss Julie’s Feb. 16 audio conference “Copyediting the Web, Part 1: Using the Yahoo! Style Guide.”