This continues our series about editing academic works. These include articles for academic journals, theses, and monographs. It’s niche work, if you can get it. And you can get it, if you try. Who Hires Academic Editors Individuals and corporations hire editors for academic works. All stages … [Read more...]
Academic Editing, Beyond Language
This continues our series about editing academic works, which include articles for academic journals, theses, and monographs. Beyond Language Copyeditors and proofreaders need a good grounding in grammar, and that means more than the hobgoblin-filled education that we get in school. A seasoned … [Read more...]
Academic Editing Basics
Editing theses and journal papers is a very common entry-point to the profession of editing. This may be because editing is a required step in the process for these materials. Or it may be because editing one-another’s papers (and peer review) is part of the culture of these publications. “I’ve … [Read more...]
How to Cushion Author Queries
Professional writers develop a thick skin; they learn not to take suggestions or criticisms as attacks on their self-worth. Eventually, the pro might even come to see a gentle query style as pandering, prodding the editor to “get to the point.” But that skin is slow to grow. Along the way, writers … [Read more...]
Camel Case in Canada, Eh?
Initial case, Title Case, and Sentence case are all headline styles that editors are accustomed to using. Enter the digital age, the age of URLs, and we find ourselves dealing with a new creature of capitalization: CamelCase. Camel Case is the term given to those trade names that have mid-word … [Read more...]
Tools for Correcting the Eggcorns
All tolled, idioms are something you hear more often than read. What makes sense and your head (such as the tally of items) maybe far from the actual saying (all told). In the simplest sense of the term, eggcorns include instances such as would of instead of would have. “Excuse me, while I kiss … [Read more...]
Checklist for Citations and Reference Lists
References are the pain of the editing process. At least they are for most editors. They can take as long to edit the citations in a document as it does to edit the document itself. Formatting is picky and slightly different for each style guide; information is out of order or missing; and citations … [Read more...]
Editing Is Not Math
I think all editors, at some point in their careers, go through a "Grammar Police" phase during which they offer unsolicited (and sometimes unsubstantiated) advice about how to "correctly" use a particular phrase, pronounce a particular word, or use a particular idiom. I know I did. It's an … [Read more...]