For editors and publishing professionals
Pick any two."
~ Stephen King
PAGE CONTENTS VERY BROADLY (scroll down for subtopics):
The business of editing
How to do the work
(tips on the craft and skills of editing)
Organizations, books, and other resources for editors and publishing professionals
Related topics
• The business of editing
• Contracts for editorial services (and/or rules of engagement)
• How much to charge (for editors, proofreaders and other publishing professionals)
• Is it worth doing sample edits? taking editing tests?
• Tips on marketing your editing, proofreading, and translating services
• Where to find work
• Where to find an editor
• Why editing matters
HOW TO DO THE WORK (tips on the craft and skills of editing)
• The art of editing
• The art of translation
• Author's alterations (AAs) and document version control
• Book doctors and consulting editors: What they do
• Book editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders: What they do do
• Clients: How to work with an editor, proofreader, or project manager
• Editing academic writing
• Editing Arabic translations to English
• Editing checklists
• Editing and revising fiction (under Fiction)
• Errors and error rates in editing
• Fact-checking and verification for editors
• Fact-checking sites (under Great Search Links)
• Formatting the manuscript (under Getting Published)
• How to approach an editing project
See especially The Business of Editing: The AAE Copyediting Roadmap (An American Editor)
• How to work with a writer/author
• Interesting examples of heavy editing in literature
• Interviews with (and profiles of) editors
• Kinds of editors and levels of edit (blog post)
• Macros and software for references, citations, footnotes and endnotes
• Macro tools for editors and proofreaders
(search and replace plus)
• Resources and tips for publishing professionals
• Sensitivity reading (under Fiction Editing)
• Style sheets and style guides
• The subjectivity of editing fiction
• Tips and tools for editors
• Tips and tools for proofreaders
• Translators and translations, For and about
• Training: courses, workshops on editing, proofreading, and publishing
• Training and mentoring, generally
ORGANIZATIONS, BOOKS, AND OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR EDITORS AND PUBLISHING PROFESSIONALS
• Organizations for editors and publishing professionals
• Associations of translators and interpreters
• Blogs, newsletters, Facebook groups, and websites by and for editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders
• Books for editors (and aspiring editors)
---Basic Style Guides (books).
---Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries
---Online style guides
---Online dictionaries and dictionary-style references
---British vs. American (and Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand) spelling, vocabulary, and style
• Training: courses, workshops on editing, proofreading, and publishing
• Training and mentoring, generally
• Q&As with literary agents
• Basics of self-publishing
• Citation and reference styles
• ISBNs, LCCNs, CIP, PCNs, WorldCat, barcodes, and other product identifiers
• Printers and printing
• Style, grammar, and word choice: Editing yourself and others (confusables, macro tools, style guides, tips and tools, etc.)
Editing is not just finding and correcting typos and spelling and grammatical errors. In looking to hire an editor, be sure to figure out which purpose you are hiring them for. Different types and levels of editing call for editors who charge different rates, or require different amounts of time and levels and kinds of expertise (and eye, or ear). For an excellent essay on what magazine and literary editors do (acquiring pieces for publication), and why, read "No" by Brian Doyle (Kenyon Review, Spring 2008).
Chapter 1 of the Editorial Freelancers Association's online Code of Fair Practice describes the various types of writing and editorial services (abstracting, copyediting or line editing, copyfitting and page makeup, desktop publishing, developmental editing, evaluating a manuscript, illustrating, indexing, project management, proofreading, researching, rewriting, substantive editing, technical writing, translating, typemarking, writin). See also Kinds of editors and levels of edit.
What an editor charges depends very much on what the local market will bear, but a proofreader will generally charge less than a copyeditor, who will typically charge less than a substantive editor, who will generally charge less than a writer. Book publishers tend to pay on the low side. Technical and marketing copy command higher rates than other copy, for different reasons (the technical writer must be able to make the meaning clear without changing it; the editor of marketing copy must aim for the best "selling" copy, which requires a different kind of flair). Experience and expertise count for a lot, so an editor with a law degree, for example, can expect to be paid more for more editing legal documents. Good judgment, common sense, and a deep and wide enough knowledge either to spot errors or to know when to check things out are important skills in an editor. Tact in editing will help you keep clients returning with more work.
That editing is valued less than it used to be is apparent in this bit of news: New York Times Will Offer Employee Buyouts and Eliminate Public Editor Role (Daniel Victor, NY Times, 5-31-17) 'In a memo to the newsroom, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, and Joseph Kahn, the managing editor, said the current system of copy editors and “backfielders” who assign and shape articles would be replaced with a single group of editors who would be responsible for all aspects of an article. Another editor would be “looking over their shoulders before publication.” “Our goal is to significantly shift the balance of editors to reporters at The Times, giving us more on-the-ground journalists developing original work than ever before."'
[Go Top]
BOOKS FOR EDITORS
The styles that clients may expect you to know (or have access to the style manual for) are primarily: Chicago, AP, APA, AMA, MLA, Microsoft, CBE/CSE. Books purchased through Amazon links on this website return a small commission to us, which helps us rationalize spending too much time working on the site!
• An Editor's Guide to Working with Authors by Barbara Sjoholm
• AP Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (an essential style guide for magazine and newspaper writing and editing, but absolutely not okay for editing books)
APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki, Shawn Welch. Also in paperback.
• Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style by Virginia Tufte (how standard sentence patterns and forms contribute to meaning and art)
• The Art of Editing in the Age of Convergence by Brian S. Brooks and James L. Pinson. The basics of newspaper editing plus editing in "convergent environments, where skill in print, broadcast and online operations" are required. See also Student Workbook for The Art of Editing in the Age of Convergence
• The Art of Literary Publishing: Editors on Their Craft by Bill Henderson
As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, ed. by Joan Reardon. (See also the story about DeVoto's involvement with publication of Elizabeth David's Italian Food: Importing Italian Food (Laura Shapiro, NY Times, 11-18-11)
The Business of Editing by Richard H. Adin (An American Editor). Download sample chapters, with TC and index, from Waking Lion Press.
• Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein (based on series of lectures he gave at the N.Y. Public Library in 1999)
• The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read by Jason Epstein (a reality check for the idealistic)
• But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?: Advice from the Chicago Style Q&A (University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff. Foreword by Carol Fisher Saller) CMOS in a nutshell.
• The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction by Amy Schneider.
• The Chicago Manual of Style by University of Chicago Press Staff (17th edition) The style bible for books, geared to professional and academic authors. You can pre-order the 18th edition. The Subversive Copy Editor offers a sneak peek at changes from the 15th edition. If you have the budget, you might also want Words Into Type). You may also sign up for FREE Q&A alerts (a free subscription to an informative monthly e-mail).
• Copyediting: A Practical Guide by Karen Judd (read the reviews before buying this one)
The Copy Editor's Guide to Working with Indie Authors: How to Find Clients, Market Yourself & Build Your Business by Sarah Barbour (Kindle, text-to-speech enabled)
*** The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz (4th edition). Best book for teaching yourself the basics of copyediting or for fine-tuning your skills, with helpful exercises and answer key.
• The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (Council of Science Editors, 9th Edition) Comprehensive and authoritative scientific style and format rules from the leading professional association in science publishing.
Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (primarily for editing nonfiction) by Scott Norton. Also available online at Scribd. Norton "creates several extended narrative examples and uses them to illustrate different aspects of the process he follows when working with manuscripts. The narrative examples are sufficiently detailed to illustrate his processes yet much easier to work with than actual manuscripts."
• Editing by Design by Jan V. White (well illustrated book on graphic design through which even wordsmiths can learn the value of white space etc.)
• Editing Fact and Fiction by Leslie T. Sharpe, Irene Gunther, and Richard Marek
• The Editor-in-Chief: A Management Guide for Magazine Editors by Benton Rain Patterson and Coleman E. P. Patterson (have not reviewed this one)
The Editor's Companion: An Indispensable Guide to Editing Books, Magazines, Online Publications, and More by Steve Dunham
• Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, by Gerald C. Gross (these essays by various editors in book publishing explain how the book publishing business works, what various types of editors do, and, as someone else put it, "the different sensibilities required for different genres")
• Edit Yourself, by Bruce Ross-Larson (how to edit bureaucratic flab into clearer, crisper, and more effective sentences); Bruce also has a series of workbooks for writing courses at the World Bank and similar organizations
**• The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist, by Thomas McCormack. Tom was a mentor and is a friend, so I may be biased, but quote someone else as recommending the book "because he is so good at explaining what makes someone a good editor for a particular manuscript."
• The Fine Art of Copy Editing by Elsie Myers Stainton
• The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner
• A Freelance Editor's Guide to Book Production by Rachel Hockett (EFA)
• Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner (the very best guide to word usage, for such things as the difference between "historic" and "historical" -- an invaluable tool for wordsmiths)
• Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd (also good on the author-editor relationship). See The Special Relationship by Scott Stossel (WSJ book review, 1-17-13). A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and his longtime editor offer a guide to the craft of nonfiction -- and a look at an excellent author-editor relationship.
• The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson
• Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences by Nicholas J. Higham
• Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing by Tiffany Yates Martin. See her piece The Über Skill for Writers "In analyzing what you read (or watch or hear or see), first start with your overall general impressions: Was the story effective? Did it engage you? Elicit any reactions in you? What were they—and where in the story did you feel them? By paying attention to how you are impacted by story, you can learn to trace those effects back to the techniques that elicited them.
• The KSJ Science Editing Handbook by Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT(PDF, free download)
• Levels of Technical Editing, by David E. Nadziejka (Council of Biology Editors)
• Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing by Claire Kerhwald Cook (line by line examples of how copyeditors fix sentences)
• Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to the Tools of the Trade by Hilary Powers, download for $10.25, 80 pages, or order the book for slightly more.
• Mark My Words: Instruction and Practice in Proofreading by Peggy Smith (exercises and answer keys help readers learn skills step by step)
• Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg (Perkins edited F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe, among others)
• The NY Times Manual of Style and Usage by Allan M. Siegal
• Recipes Into Type: A Handbook for Cookbook Writers and Editors by Joan Whitman and Dolores Simon
• Revising Prose by Richard A. Lanham (focuses on revising at the sentence level -- especially reducing flab by deleting prepositional phrases and forms of "to be" and replacing them with active verbs)
• Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing by Vincent LoBrutto
*** Self Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King (teach yourself the basic principles of fiction writing AND editing)
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker. See also Steven Pinker talks about The Sense of Style (CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual, 10-6-14)
• Side by Side: Five Favorite Picture Book Teams Go to Work, by Leonard S. Marcus
• Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose by Constance Hale
• Stet: Tricks of the Trade for Writers and Editors by Bruce O. Boston (for Editorial Eye)
• Stet Again: More Tricks of the Trade for Publications People, from the Editorial Eye
**Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup (good for deeply understanding the structure of a paragraph)
Substance & Style: Instruction and Practice in Copyediting (Mary Stoughton, for Editorial Experts). Instruction about, and a workbook in which to practice, proper copyediting and proper copyediting marks (a do-it-yourself workshop)
***The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) by Carol Fisher Saller, the woman who writes those witty, informative responses for the Chicago Style Manual Q&As.
• Technical Editing (fifth edition) by Carolyn D. Rude and Angela Eaton
*** Technical Editing, by Judith A. Tarutz (learn how to do this more highly paid kind of editing)
• Thinking Like a Designer: How to Save Money by Being a Smart Client, by Michael Brady (at least one copy editor buys this to give to his clients, so they understand the intersection between editing and design)
• The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers by Al Silverman (a delicious read)
• What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing by Peter Ginna (a Chicago guide). Essays by 27 of the most respected editors in publishing talk about their work. “A vital resource for writers and readers seeking a comprehensive exploration into the author-editor relationship, the lifecycle of a book, and how editors for publishing houses big and small have adapted to an industry in constant flux.”--Library Journal (starred review)
***• Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron. Many aspiring writers strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next.
• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. (Stamper's blog: Harmless Drudgery.. See review: The Secret Life of Lexicography: Beyond Drudgery (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-3-17)
• Words into Type (3rd Edition) by Marjorie E. Skillin (better organized that the Chicago Style Manual, and very useful for explaining the process of book editing and production, though way behind the times on technological changes)
Resources and tips for publishing professionals
Nuggets of gold!
• Acrobat: 13 Time- and Money-Saving Acrobat Tips
(Colleen Gratzer's excellent tips for editing in Adobe Acrobat, including Acrobat keyboard shortcuts, 6-13=16).
• Against Editors (Alexander Hamilton, Gawker, 8-18-14) In the writing world, there is a hierarchy. The writers are on the bottom. Above them are editors, who tell the writers what to change. Too many writers have to become editors to make more money. Etc. See Jack Limpert's response.
• Andrew Wylie: The superagent on upholding great literature in an e-reading world (Daniel Gross's edited interview with Wylie about the state of publishing, the need to get world rights right, and book publishers' early (wrongful) attempt to insist they already owned digital rights to backlist titles and wouldn't buy new titles without those rights.
• An Editor (Who Helped 'The Help') and an Agent Talk About Revision. Listen to Alexandra Shelley (editor of Kathryn Stockett's "The Help") and literary agent Eleanor Jackson discussing revision, publishing, and how to know when a book is 'finished' (on She Writes Radio).
• Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules
• Basic Style Guides (books). See also
---Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries
---Online style guides
---Online dictionaries and dictionary-style references
---British vs. American (and Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand)
spelling, vocabulary, and style
• Becoming an Editor (Jennie, 3-16-05), from the blog This Crazy Industry, a weblog about the glamorous publishing industry: books, editing, writing, style, language, long hours, poor salaries (or no salaries), grant money, authors, and very few cocktail parties. Really solid advice about the skills and training you need to be an editor.
• 'Be Wrong as Fast as You Can' (Hugo Lindgren, editor of NY Times Magazine, in the magazine, 1-4-13). Fascinating essay on how, in figuring out he was great on idea-making but not on follow-through, Lindgren came to accept as natural his role as an editor instead of as the writer-creator he dreamed of being.) Here's the wonderful Charlie Rose interview with John Lasseter (12-2-11, Lasseter being director and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studies), in which Lasseter attributes the "Be Wrong" quotation to Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, Wall-E, Finding Nemo).
• How to become a developmental editor by Scott Norton, from his book Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (excerpt posted on Scrib'd)
• Benchmarks for Estimating Editing Speed by David W. McClintock (originally published in Corrigo: Newsletter of the STC's Technical Editing SIG (June 2002), pp. 1, 3.
• Bib Me (a free online site for searching for bibliographic information, creating a custom bibliography, and downloading it in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian format), dependent on Amazon's database (which might limit scholarly uses)
• Black day for the blue pencil. Once they were key figures in literary publishing, respected by writers who acknowledged their contribution to shaping books. But, argues Blake Morrison in The Guardian, editors are now an endangered species (8-5-05)
• The Fallacy Files (wonderful analysis of various logical fallacies)
• False Titles and Faulty Fixes (Philip B. Corbett, False Titles, After Deadline, NY Times, 11-20-12) Is it "the publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr." or "Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher"?
• Female Editors-in-Chief Make $15,000 Less Than Men (Alexander Abad-Santos), Stat of the Day, The Atlantic Wire, 9-26-12)
• Fiction, editing and revising. Editing and Revising Fiction (in the fiction section of Writers and Editors)
• Finding an editor (Pat McNees, Writers and Editors blog)
• Five critical mistakes to look for when editing proposals (Joseph Priest, Aces, 11-9-18) One of them: "Proposals are chock-full of bulleted lists. So one error that easily makes the top of the list of things to look for is a lack of parallel structure in these lists."
• Five good reasons to hire an editor (Editors' Association of Canada)
• Five Ways to Succeed as a Book Copy Editor (Cindy Howle, ACES, 1-28-2020)
• Footnotes. See many helpful resources under Citations and References (guides to various documentation styles, Writers and Editors)
• Freelance copyeditors, directory of (listing maintained by the Copyediting-L listserv.
• Freelance editorial agreement, standard (a template provided by the Editors' Association of Canada)
• Freelancing as a fiction editor
---Fiction Freelancing: Part I – Proofreading for Trade Publishers (Louise Harnby, 5-29-12). " One of the dangers of proofreading fiction is getting so wrapped up in the story that you end up reading the book rather than proofreading it." And you won't be paid as much as if you were proofing technical material.
---Fiction Freelancing: Part II – Editing Fiction for Independent Authors (rather than for publishers, a different kettle of fish) (Ben Corrigan, on Louise Harnby's site, 3-6-12)
---Fiction Freelancing: Part III – Editing Adult Material (Louise Bolotin, on Louise Harnby's site, 5-6-12))
---Fiction Freelancing: Part IV – Editing Genre Fiction (Louise Harnby interviews Marcus Fowler, 11-2-13).
• Bob Miller: The Coming Editorial Crisis. HarperCollins chief Bob Miller tells Media Bistro about economic variables shaping publishing industry and prospects of "more work for fewer people" ahead, with YouTube video of his comments.
• Bradley Manning or Chelsea Manning? He or she? "Rules are useless unless you use them," Copyediting's explanation how to handle a change in whether a person considers self a man or a woman.
• Captions. When graphic designers are given caption copy, they will often type in the caption (especially in connection with a graphic) rather than cut and paste from the copy you give them. Many of the typos in final versions will be in re-typed captions, headings, and labels. So proofread the final against original copy.
• Chinese Romanization Guidelines, Pinyin Conversion Project (Library of Congress, 11-3-98) Wonder when and why Peking became Beijing? The Pinyin system of transliteration from Chinese to English replaced the old Wade-Giles system in 1998. See Pinyin (Wikipedia) and Pinyin Rules: Initials, Finals, and Tones (Learn Chinese, YellowBridge) and Chinese PronunciationWiki (AllSet Learning) (H/T to Copyediting-L)
• Choosing a freelance editor: What you need to know (Alan Rinzler, The Book Deal, 7-2-09)
• Choosing an Editor (Cambridge Academic Editors Network)
• Citation and Reference Styles (links to resources on footnotes, endnotes, documentation)
• Code of Fair Practice (PDF, Editorial Freelancers Association)
• CONSORT statement. Guidelines in the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement are used worldwide to improve the transparent reporting of randomized, controlled trials, enabling readers to understand a trial's design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, and to assess the validity of its results. It emphasizes that this can only be achieved through complete transparency from authors.
• Cookbook misprint costs Australians dear (BBC News 4-17-10)
• Copyediting has been purchased and absorbed by ACES (the society for editing), which publishes some great grammar quizzes, among other things.
• Copyediting Tutorials (Editing Hacks, a Wordpress blog)
• Copyediting. Exploring Craft — A master class in copyediting from the author of Dreyer’s English (video, Benjamin Dreyer, Random House executive managing editor and copy chief and author of the New York Times bestseller Dreyer’s English, offers a rousing behind-the-editor’s desk viewpoint on helping authors sharpen their writing and elevating their use of language. He explains that copyediting is reading on a sentence-by-sentence level--the basic mechanical stuff, spelling, subject-verb agreement, checking "facts in plain sight," etc. And among other things you should not address clients with a school-marmy tone.
• Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (KOK Edit, Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's website, excellent, well-organized, useful links -- an invaluable resource for copyeditors). See also her blog, EditorMom , on editing, medical editing, and the business of freelancing.
• The Copy Editor's Lament amusing verse by George Martin (on Tim Porter's site)
• Copy Editor's Lament (YouTube, The Layoff Song, by political editor Christopher Ave
• Corrections site (Poynter's Regret the Error, seems to end in 2015)
• Cut This Story (Michael Kinsley, The Atlantic, Jan 2010) Newspaper articles are too long.
• Dear Writer: Reasons to Love and Fear Your Copyeditor (Sally Fisher Saller, the Subversive Copy Editor, in Prime Number)
• The Decline & Fall of Editorial Quality (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 3-8-17) Editors used to seek "work for university presses because editors were more concerned about the artisanal aspects of editing than about the financial aspects. That outlook changed as commercial publishers consolidated and began lowering/stagnating their fees and university presses tried to maintain the fee disparity....an increasing number of error-riddled books are being published by both university and commercial presses. We are also beginning to see editors who have calculated and know their required effective hourly rate, and because they know their required rate, are turning down editing projects that do not offer sufficient compensation to meet that rate. Unfortunately, we are also seeing a parallel trend: the number of persons calling themselves editors is increasing and these “editors” advertise their willingness to work for a rate that is far too low to sustain life."
• Defining an Editing Project (Erin Brenner, Copyediting Tip of the Week, 3-7-12). Companion piece to Setting Editing Expectations (Brenner, 4-3-12)
• Dependency Calculator (Evaluating the complexity of a project--including such factors as how well I can depend on your getting back to me quickly with answers)
• Dictionaries and dictionary-style references (online--both general and specialized)
• Different Approaches for Different Folks: The Mechanics of Editing (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 10-4-10)
• Digital Imaging Guidelines (guidelines prepared by the UPDIG Coalition, to establish photographic standards and practices for photographers, designers, printers, and image distributors). The guidelines cover Digital Asset Management, Color Profiling, Metadata, and Photography Workflow.
• Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries (medical, legal, computer, Guardian, cookbook, etc.)
• Document comparison tools
--- Document and File Comparison Tools (Noupe)
---Compare two versions of a PDF file (Acrobat Pro)
---Draftable Online Compare (compare an older and a newer document; see the changes side by side). Accepts Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files.
---Copyscape (compare transcriptions, articles, web pages, etc.--paste one version in window one and another in window two)
---DiffChecker to compare text differences between two text files
---How Does Your Document Comparison Software Measure Up? (Law Technology Today, 3-8-17) A pitch for compareDocs.
• Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle (Elmore Leonard, NY Times, 7-16-01)
•Edifying Editing by R. Preston McAfee (PDF file). Among the qualities of a good editor of a refereed journal, writes McAfee, co-editor of the American Economic Review:
---Having a vision on which to base decisions about what is published
---"Obsessive organization, processing work unrelentingly until it is done" -- a "clear the inbox" mentality.
---Having no personal agenda (no bias)
---Having thick skin (as authors will complain about your decisions)
---Being a super referee (respond quickly with thoughtful reports)-- a good quality in someone wanting to become top editor. He also writes about common reasons papers are rejected.
• Editing for the Web (Thom Lieb)
• Editing lives: Marisa Wikramanayake (this guest post on PublishEd Adelaide, 5-20-13, suggests how editorial workers can stay calm. "My point is that how much self-belief you have is not determined by whether you’re an extrovert or introvert – you determine it for yourself, and I think that self-belief gets you through a lot of the fear, worry and stress that come with being an editor right here and now."
• Editing Multi-Contributor Collections (Dimitra Chronopoulos, Copyediting, 4-22-15) “The one thing you can make consistent between contributions is hyphenation.”
• Editorial skills, defined (EAC). Definitions covered: Developmental/project editing; substantive or structural editing; stylistic editing; rewriting; copy editing; picture research; fact checking/reference checking; indexing; mark-up/coding (designer-written specs for typesetter or word processor); mock-up (rough paste-up); production editing. (The Editors' Association of Canada/Association canadienne des réviseurs)
• The Editorium Jack Lyon's supermarket for macros -- programs that speed up editing processes: BookMaker, DEXter, DEXembed, Editor's ToolKit, FileCleaner, InDesignConverter, IndexDeconstructor, IndexLinker, ListFixer, LyXConverter, MegaReplacer, MultiMacro, NoteStripper, Puller, RazzmaTag, QuarkConverter, ScrIndex, WordCounter.
• Editors Only: The Newsletter of Editorial Achievement (discussing the changing nature of content delivery), sister pub to STRAT: The Newsletter of Print and Online Magazine Publishing Strategy
• EditTeach.org (resources for copy editing students and teachers)
• Education and certification for editors, copyeditors, proofreaders (KOK Edit's annotated listings)
• Effective Onscreen Editing: new tools for an old profession by Geoff Hart
• 18 strategies for brainstorming a title, an excellent guide to developing great titles, from Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton, posted on Scrib'd
• Electronic Editing: With Your Computer, Not Just On It (Hilary Powers, as reported by Dawn Adams, BAEF, 3-16-04)
• An English major in a science world: Peter J. Olson on STM copyediting (CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual, 7-8-14)
• Erin Brenner and Laura Poole talk about getting a start in copyediting (CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual, 1-11-17)
• Excellent forum discussions (these summaries are excellent articles on various aspects of editing, Bay Area Editors Forum, or BAEF)
• Evaluating a Manuscript (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-29-12)
• Evolution of the English Alphabet (Matt Baker's useful and interesting chart). On the same page, Evolution of the Latin Alphabet. If you have the wall space, you might want to buy his much larger chart, a wall poster: Writing Systems of the World
• GalleyCat (Dianne Dilworth, Media Bistro, 12-16-16). Media Bistro closed the book on GalleyCat.
• Getting Started as a Freelance Copyeditor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 9-23-11)
Google Docs (one way of writing in the cloud):
• Why Google Docs is a writer’s best friend: writing on the go, instant back-ups, advanced organization & tons of space (Hillary DePiano)
• Writing a book using Google Docs (Steven Daviss on how he and two co-authors collaborated on Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work
• Don't Lose Your Google Docs Data (Tony Bradley, PCWorld, 5-25-11, writing about what happens if Google crashes and my data disappears?)
• Microsoft Office vs.Google Docs: A Web Apps Showdown (Ian Paul, PCWorld 7-13-09)
• Publish Google Docs To WordPress To Twitter & Facebook ETC
• Google Docs tour and demo
Grammar Freaks Really Are Strange (Dennis Baron, The Web of Language, reposted on Cultural Weekly)
• How I Became a Full-Time Freelance Editor — Should you make the change? (Andrew Kim, Wordvice Workshop, 8-28-20) Most editors and writers dream of becoming a freelancer. How Kimmade the leap in the time of COVID-19.
• How to Be a Great Science Editor at a Student Publication (Claire L. Jarvis, The Open Notebook, 3-5-19) "Some of the challenges student editors face are unlike those outside academia because they and their writers must balance their reporting with classes, coursework, and lab experiments. Some student writers may never have written about science for a general audience before. And some journalism majors may have taken few university science courses. For all these reasons, editors at student publications—typically also student volunteers—are key to student reporters’ success."
• How to Become an Editor, Plus Where to Look for Editing Jobs (Dana Sitar, The Write Life, 2-28-21) Editing is often a natural progression for writers within an organization, and it’s a way for freelancers to broaden their work prospects.
• How to Edit and Proofread Your Way Around the World (Brendan Brown, GlobalEnglishEditing, 2-13-15)
• How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 1-4-17). Similarly, How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, The Editors' Weekly/ L’Hebdomadaire des réviseurs, official blog of Editors Canada, 5-3-16)
• How to Find Medical Editing Freelance Work (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KLK Edit Blog, 9-12-11)
• How to Make a Figures Manuscript (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 6-6-16) "When a product contains illustrations, graphs, and other visuals, a separate file containing them and their related instructions is sent with the manuscript. This separate Figures Manuscript can then be shuttled along to the art and production departments to do their magic." Among practical tips: "Editors need to remember that they are communicating with a visual person, not a word person. The artists will follow the sample more closely than the written description."
• Humor among peer reviewers. César Sánchez, in his blog Twisted Bacteria, quotes from the annual December issue of Environmental Microbiology, which features humorous quotes made by peer reviewers while assessing manuscripts submitted to the journal.
• “I Do Not Have to Put Up With Editors Making Demands on Me” Anne Rice, quoted by Jack Limpert on his blog About Editing and Writing, 5-17-18) "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me."
• I edit, therefore I live (tee shirts and other wearables from CE-L)
• Impostor Syndrome(when you aren't sure you're the real thing)
---Defeat Impostor Syndrome with a Win Jar (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 2-5-16)
---10 Actions That Combat Imposter Syndrome (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 5-7-18)
---Imposter vs. impostor (Grammarist). See also adapter/adaptor and adviser/advisor.
---How to Recover When Editing Goes Wrong (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 3-27-17)
• In defense of fact checking (Laura Miller, Salon.com 2-8-12). A controversial writer, John D’Agata, and his fact checker, Jim Fingal, battle in a new book. Too bad neither gets close to the truth.
• Indigenous writers and editors (Iva Cheung, report on a panel at Editors Canada 2017). See also what she writes about
---Indigenous editorial issues (Greg Younging)
---Reclaiming Indigenous languages (Nicki Benson, Editors BC Meeting)
---Dialogue on editing Indigenous writing (Editors Canada 2016)
• In Search of the Perfect Copy Editor 10 Copy Editor Traits That Guarantee You Success (Anne Glover, then Assistant Managing Editor/Copy Desk, St. Petersburg Times, later at Poynter, 8-25-02)
• Interviews with six editors (Editing Hacks)
• Language Log (educate yourself -- read a few months' worth)
• Lessons of a legacy--five editors on John Carroll (Poynter, 8-2-05) The five editors: Tim Kelly, Bill Marimow ("John is an A-plus headline writer. In describing a Maryland boot camp for juvenile offenders, John wrote the memorable headline in a very tight layout: “From ‘Yo’ to ‘Sir’ "), Marty Kaiser ("I learned from John that it’s important to be decisive and tough when being tough and being decisive are required."), David Holwerk, Wendell (Sonny) Rawls.
• Let us now praise editors (Gary Kamiya, Salon, 7-24-07) They may be invisible and their art unsung. But in the age of blogging, editors are needed more than ever.
• Levels of edit and kinds of editors: What every writer and editor should know (Pat McNees, blog post)
• Levels of edit discussion on Corrido (STC Technical Editing Sig)
--- My Top 3 Editor Roles (Yoel Strimling, Corrido, STC, 4-8-17)
--- Clarity for Editing< Justin Baker, Corrido, STC, 4-1-07) Discusses peer reviewing, proofreading, and UX (User Experience) editing
---Frequently Asked Questions: What Kind of Editing Do They Need, and How Much? (Christina Vasilevski, Corrido, STC, 2-3-16)
--- The Value of Levels of Edit [in Technical Editing} (Yoel Strimling, a summary article of the last watercooler chat of the year 2010, Corrido, STC, 2-1-11) Two questions were under discussion: (1) Are “the levels of edit” actually being used by technical editors in their jobs, and if so, how? and (2) Are the levels of edit a valuable tool that is helping (or can help) technical editors meet editing customers’ needs and achieve deadline, quality, cost, and other objectives for technical documentation? Or is the main value theoretical, rather than practical? 'One of the opinions expressed in the chat was that sometimes, editors deal only with quick, easy fixes at the lowest level (level 1), because speed is the crucial element when you pick that level. There was also another perspective that in tech documents, "tech" is more important than the grammar.'
Line editing
---The Wonderful Thing About Line Edits (Peter Selgin on Jane Friedman's blog, 12-18-19) A good before-and-after example. "The great thing about line edits: unlike many gifts, they can be accepted or rejected as one sees fit."
---What Is the Difference Between Copyediting and Line Editing? (NY Book Editors, "A line edit addresses the creative content, writing style, and language use at the sentence and paragraph level...a line edit focuses on the way you use language to communicate your story to the reader. Is your language clear, fluid, and pleasurable to read? Does it convey a sense of atmosphere, emotion, and tone? Do the words you’ve chosen convey a precise meaning, or are you using broad generalizations and clichés?...By contrast, the goal of a copyedit is to address flaws on a very technical level – to make sure the writing that appears on the page is in accordance with industry standards. This is like an incredibly high-end proofread....At a publishing house, a copyeditor is usually the last person who touches the text of a manuscript before it goes into production."
---What Is Line Editing and What Should Line Editors Do? (Jami Gold, 3-22-18, who writes fiction about the paranormal) With content/developmental editing (you fix story and character-level issues); with line editing (you fix scene and paragraph-level issues); with copy editing (you fix sentence, word, and grammar-level issues). "While developmental editing is about the story and characters and copy editing is about grammar rules and sentence-level issues, line editing skills are all about our writing—as a whole: voice, style, techniques....For most writers, if we can afford to pay only one professional editor, we should get a professional line edit." Read up here on how to pick a line editor.
---Is Line Editing a Lost Art? (Nick Ripatrazone, Lit Hub, 2-6-19) 'Line editors are often mistaken for copyeditors. Copyeditors tend to polish and perfect work at a later stage, but the confusion is telling. George Witte, editor-in-chief at St. Martin's Press, has said "many copyeditors do the work that line editors should have done."...Line editors tighten sentences when tension and clarity is missing, but they also give sentences breath when constrained. Beyond removing clichés, they excise a writer's pet words and mannered constructions. Line editors help sentences build into paragraphs, and paragraphs flow into pages....[Line editor different from acquisition editor:] The mode of acquisition is one of decision: this book works, it will sell. For Delany, that mode is similar to a writing workshop style of criticism, which will "list toward the generalized and effect-oriented, rather than toward the specific and causally sensitive."
"What Delany suggests—and what seems true for Erskine, Gottlieb, and other line-editors who stay the course—is a single, critical, editor-as-reader, who evolves and grows with the writer. Instead of thinking about line editing as a forgotten art, one callously consumed by the book business, we should consider it a privilege—a gift—enjoyed by some writers, but not most.... Line editor as teacher and guide feels like a useful metaphor—and one that I've experienced myself."
• Match Your Book Content with the Right Editor (Barbara McNichol, 3-2-10) From the publisher's viewpoint.
• Medical editing
---Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ, invaluable resources for health care writers and editors also)
---How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, The Editors' Weekly/ L’Hebdomadaire des réviseurs, official blog of Editors Canada, 5-3-16)
---How to Find Medical Editing Freelance Work (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KLK Edit Blog, 9-12-11)
---New Medical Writer Toolkit (American Medical Writers Association)
Metadata, explained
• What is metadata and how does it work? Metadata is data that describes other data, providing a structured reference that helps to sort and identify attributes of the information it describes.
Metadata is the background information we need to share a book with readers, libraries, and bookstores.
• Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers (PDF, Amy Brand, Frank Daly, Barbara Meyers, Niso Press)
• Best Metadata Practices (Ingram)
• An Entirely Too Brief History of Library Metadata and a Peek at the Future, Too (PDF, American Library Association) Worth reading for the footnotes alone!
• What Is Book Metadata, And How Can It Improve Your Sales? (Standout Books)
• What Is Book Metadata And Why It Is Important (Derek Haines, Just Publishing Advice, 12-29-2020)
• A Self-Publisher’s Guide to Metadata for Books (Carla King, MediaShift, 10-12-10) "Good book metadata is good book marketing."
• Publishers Take Seat at Metadata Table with Giant Chair (Jennifer Zaino, Semantic Web, 3-1-10).
• Metadata is the new most important thing to know about (Mike Shatzkin, IdeaLogical, 6-8-10)
Microsoft:
• 11 Ways to Contact-Microsoft (WikiHow) Or call 1-800-642-7676
• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus Microsoft's Get-Help app. https://www.wikihow.com/Contact-Microsoft
• Moonlighting: A guide for the part time freelancer (Editorial Freelancers Association, EFA)
• Networking (KOK Edit's annotated listings)
• New York Times Will Offer Employee Buyouts and Eliminate Public Editor Role (Daniel Victor, NY Times, 5-31-17) “Our goal is to significantly shift the balance of editors to reporters at The Times, giving us more on-the-ground journalists developing original work than ever before,” they said in the memo. Mr. Baquet and Mr. Kahn said that the savings generated by the reduction in editing layers would be used to hire as many as 100 more journalists.... The offer comes as The Times continues its shift from a legacy print operation to a more digitally focused newsroom....Mr. Sulzberger, in a newsroom memo, said the public editor’s role had become outdated. “Our followers on social media and our readers across the internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be,” he wrote. “Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.”
---'New York Times' Executive Editor On The New Terrain Of Covering Trump (Dave Davies, Fresh Air, NPR, 12-8-16) "I don't find covering his tweets confounding. I actually don't, even though many of them are inaccurate, as we said. I mean, I think that's, like, basic blocking and tackling journalism. The president says something, you fact-check it, you report it and you say whether or not it's accurate." ... "I authorized and pushed us to use lie for the first time in relation to Donald Trump when he finally acknowledged that he thought Barack Obama was born in the United States....A lie implies that it was done with complete, total knowledge that it was a falsehood and that the person pushed it despite all evidence against. And I think what Donald Trump pushed about President Barack Obama not having been born in the United States was a lie. And I think there's no question he knew it was a lie."
• Newsthinking: The Secret of Making Your Facts Fall into Place by Bob Baker (how to structure a story so it holds the reader's interest)
• No (Brian Doyle, Kenyon Review, Spring 08) On rejections and why editors do and why.
• Online Portfolios for Editors (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Copyediting, 8-20-12, Part 1)
---Part 2, Clean Capture (9-10-12)
---Part 3, A Venue (10-02-12)
---Part 4, Enhanced Graphics with ThingLink (10-29-12)
---Part 5, Your Portfolio on LinkedIn (11-19-12)
---Part 6, Unify Your Online Presence (12-10-12, all in Copyediting)
• Online quizzes: ACES' Grammar Guide Quizzes (short and surprisingly helpful!)
• Online resources for journalists (Poynter)
• Online style guides
• Oxford Etymologist (an Oxford University Press blog)
• Parent-teacher relations for editors (Hazel Harris, Editing Mechanics, 5-21-13, on three approaches to editing). See also Why being on a publisher’s list might not be enough to get you work (3-1-13)
• Paris Review "Writers at Work" Interviews(selections from 1953 on, a gift to the world, and with a single click you can view a manuscript page with the writer's edits)
• PDF Editing Stamps (Copyediting-L's stamp tool for making proofreader marks on a PDF document. Go to "Resources" tab and under Miscellaneous you will find Diana Stirling's zip file of proofreading marks in red and black. Louise Harnby offers a set of stamps for UK proofreaders and editors.
• The peripatetic copy editor (Ruth Walker, Christian Science Monitor, 3-27-14). On the road, stuck in traffic, copyeditors tend to proofread bumper stickers and road signs and wonders why everyone can't distinguish between "mass nouns" and "count nouns" ("fewer" or r "less" emissions, "10 items or less" or "fewer." Not to mention which state abbreviations are right in which contexts.
• Picture research and permissions: Adding to your editorial toolkit. Panelists Kris Ashley, Veronica Oliva and Tim Cox on a Bay Area Editors' Forum; notes by Micah Standley 3-24-09.
• A Primer on Medical Copyediting, Health fellow Angilee Shah interviews medical editor Katharine O'Moore-Klopf (for the Reporting on Health blog, 7-1-11). Much of KOK's work is editing medical articles from ESL (or EFL) authors, of which the supply is increasing, according to this article: China poised to overhaul US as biggest publisher of scientific papers (Alok Jha, Guardian, 3-28-11). The subhead: Royal Society report shows China pushing UK into third place in scientific publishing
Proposals. Five critical mistakes to look for when editing proposals (Joseph Priest Aces, 11-9-18)
• Publishing: A helping hand (Karen Kaplan, NatureJobs.com, orig. pub'd in Nature 12-1-10). Can the growing number of manuscript-editing services turn a mediocre paper into a publishable one? A plug for the legitimate editing of scientific papers, with sidebars on Opportunities in editing and How to choose a manuscript-editing service. Writes Kaplan, "Prices — which vary depending on the level of service, the length of the paper and the turn around time — can be anywhere from $250 for a 6,000-word paper with a 14- to 21-day turnaround to $5,000 for a 12,000-word paper with a 48-hour turnaround."
• Read First, Then Edit (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 9-4-12)
• Regret the Error Craig Silverman reports on trends and issues regarding media accuracy and the discipline of verification.Stories about errors, corrections, fact checking and verification. You can also read the book: Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech
Relationship issues -- getting along
---My Life with All Those Damn Editors (Tom Shales, guest-posting on Jack Limpert's blog About Writing and Editing, 4-23-13). See also All That Information; All That B.S.
---The Relationship Between Editors and Freelance Writers (Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, on Content Marketing, 4-17-08)
---Edits -- it's just you and me, and we both disagree... (Behler's blog, an entry on how to make author-editor disagreements constructive)
---No Egos Here: Working with Another Copyeditor (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 4-16-13)
• Remembering Tom Wolfe, the master of the long sentence (Roy Peter Clark, Poynter, 5-15-18)
• Resources for starting a proofreading and editing business (Louise Harnby, excellent and useful blog posts)
• The Rise and Fall of the English Sentence (July Sedivy, Nautilus, 11-16-17) The Declaration of Independence Is Hard to Read. The surprising forces influencing the complexity of the language we speak and write. Sentences like the opening line of the Declaration of Independence simply do not occur in conversation....We utter the first syllables of a sentence while taking a leap of faith that we’ll be able to choose the right words en route....The unpredictable aspects of language, the things you just have to know, may be especially slippery for the adult mind.
• The Secret Life of Lexicography: Beyond Drudgery (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-3-17) A review of the book Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. (Stamper's blog: Harmless Drudgery.
• Sentence diagramming: Putting some of the worst sentences ever constructed on solid, dotted and diagonal lines Sarah Garrett, ACES Conference 2018, 5-8-18) Hillary Warren opened her funny and enthusiastic talk by saying she hasn’t seen this many people "come to hear me talk without paying tuition."The Seven Deadly Copy Editing Sins (Anne Glover, Poynter Online, 8-25-02) Arrogance, assumptions, sloppiness, indifference, ignorance, laziness, inflexibility--explained, so you can avoid them.
• 7 Phrases You've Been Misquoting (Haley Marie Craig, Odyssey) Blood is thicker than water. Curiosity killed the cat. A jack of all trades is a master of none. Great minds think alike. Money is the root of all evil. My country, right or wrong. Starve a cold, feed a fever.
• 7 Stages of Revision Grief (Jordan Rosenfeld, Make a Scene)
• Sharp Points (Bill Walsh explains his position on such issues as "a historic" or "an historic")
• Speed reading vs. typography (Dick Margulis, words / myth / ampers & virgule, 5-29-06). See especially section on basic concepts for composing headlines and subheads, where to break, or not break, clauses and phrases, etc. For example, "If you have to break a phrase, keep modifiers (articles, adjectives, adverbs) with their targets."
• Spell Checkers , software for spell-checking medical, scientific and technical, or legal documents (Inductel, which also produces definitions dictionaries)
• Should you admit mistakes to authors?
--- Say you're sorry (John E. McIntyre, You Don't Say blog, April 2010). Skip the "If I offended anyone" bit.
---Pretty Apologies: For When You're Really Wrong (Carol Fisher Saller, The Subversive Copyeditor, 4-20-11).
• Solopreneur or “Company” (part iii) , part 3 of a series on whether to work solo or as part of a company, and what that means, on Rich Adin's blog An American Editor (thread: The Business of Editing). Here Adin talks about editors sharing work and roles on large projects, or sharing fees when one editor brings in the work that others help perform. See also part ii, in which Adin explains that company, in the sense he's using it, may simply mean "a cohesive group of editors who can work together when needed do so and present themselves to potential clients as having that capability." In part i Ruth Thaler-Carter guest blogs about why she prefers working alone.
• Someday I Will Copyedit The Great American Novel (Joanne Cohen, The Onion, 1-26-05)
• So You Think You Can Self-Publish an eBook? by Candice Adams, EditorMuse. See also her Proofreading Ebooks. Good info; note varied spelling of e-book, eBook, etc.
• So, You Want to Be an Editor (a gentle introduction to the profession, from the Editors' Association of Canada)
• Speed reading vs. typography (Dick Margulis, words / myth / ampers & virgule, 5-29-06). See especially section on basic concepts for composing headlines and subheads, where to break, or not break, clauses and phrases, etc. For example, "If you have to break a phrase, keep modifiers (articles, adjectives, adverbs) with their targets."
• Spell Checkers , software for spell-checking medical, scientific and technical, or legal documents (Inductel, which also produces definitions dictionaries)
• STET Editorially A Writers’ Journal on Culture & Technology
---STET Editorially joins Vox Media
---STET: The Editors' Network Facebook group for a Provo, Utah club for students studying Editing and Publishing at BYU
• Stet Newsletter (Independent Writers of Chicago)
• Summer Institute for Midcareer Copy Editors
• Subcontracting (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor 4-2-14)
• Tangled Web. Victor Navasky and Evan Lerner report on a Columbia Journalism Review Survey, which finds that magazines are allowing their Web sites to erode journalistic standards. See also the full CJR report: Magazines and Their Web Sites (click on opening page to get text).
• Technical Editing SIG Scholarships (Diane Feldman scholarships, Technical Editing SIG)
• 10 famous rejections editors lived to regret (YouTube, Writers' Revenge)
• 10 Copy Editor Traits That Guarantee You Success (BAnne Glover, Poynter, In Search of the Perfect Copy Editor, 8-25-02)
• 10 trusty digital tools journalists should try right now (Ren Laforme, NewsU, Poynter, 4-2-15)
• T-shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops, golf shirts, and other wearables for editors ("I edit, therefore I live." "It's NOT my book," etc.) Copyediting-L Gear for the CE-Lery
• Thinking About Money: How to calculate your effective hourly rate, or EHR (American Editor, 10-6-10)
• 33 Struggles Only Copy Editors Will Understand (Emmy Favilla and Megan Paolone, Buzzfeed, 10-16-14) 1. You are literally blinded by pain any time you see “is” or “be” lowercased in a title. And yeah, you don’t use “literally” figuratively.
• 3* Rookie Editing Goofs You Can Stop Making Right Now (Carol Fisher Saller, Editor's Corner, CMOS Shop Talk, 1-31-17)
• Three Steps to Protecting the Author's Voice (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 6-25-13)
• Thsrs (the shorter Thesaurus -- great for headline writing -- gives you synonyms for the word you enter, the same length or shorter)
• Time Tracker. A valuable "macro" in the EditTools repertoire (wordsnSync). Check out all the time-saving macros.
• Tips on Tact and Tone (Pat McNees on Editing That Makes Authors Want to Cooperate)
• Trump’s Typos Reveal His Lack of Fitness for the Presidency (John McWhorter, The Atlantic, 1-11-19) They suggest not just inadequate manners or polish, but inadequate thought.
• 25 Commandments for Journalists (former Guardian editor Tim Radford's manifesto for the simple scribe, Guardian, 1-19-11--some are about ethics, and some about style and substance)
• 25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English (So Bad, So Good --The best and worst of the Web)
• 25 tips for writing effectively for older readers (Sarah Carr, SfEP blog). See also Effective communication with older people (press release about the Society for Editors and Proofreaders developing a commercial package for organizations that interface with older people. See How to overcome barriers to effective communication with older people (digest of briefing and discussion 11-20-13) and see NUJ Guidelines on reporting age (PDF, National Union of Journalists, UK, 8-18-06 -- free download of 224kb PDF)
• 21 top tips to make the most of your freelance copy-editor or proofreader (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, UK))
• Twitter, who's on:
---A directory of Twitter handles for book trade people
---Twitter lists for editors (KOK Edit). Follow the tweeters on Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's lists of good Twitter feeds. By category: Health and medicine, news media, science resources, scientists, freelancing resources, and edit-Long-Islanders.
---Best editor twitter feeds (Galley Cat's list)
• Typography.
--- Copyeditor's Typographic Oath (a set of copyeditors' commandments, Erin Brenner, Copyediting). Do no harm. Respect the writer . Don't be a search-and-replace editor. Look it up. He who pays makes the rules. That is some of them! See also Should You Be a Dog-Whistle Copyeditor? (Brenner, Copyediting, 9-25-12) "A dog-whistle copyeditor takes the time to edit the copy to such a fine degree that few people will notice the differences."
• Unicode Standard, Unicode Character Code Charts (scripts), and Unicode Character Code Charts (punctuation, symbols, and notational systems)-- links to the formulas for Unicode characters in many languages
•Working with self-publishing authors. Part 1: an industry of opportunity (Sophie Playle, for Society for Editors and Proofreaders blog, UK, 1-23-15). Part 2: expectations and implementation "The number one thing to remember about self-publishing authors is that most of them do not know much about the editing industry. Their main job is to write, after all. They’re often aware that they need editorial help to self-publish professionally, but are not sure exactly what this entails.Many writers will think they just need a quick proofread to catch any typos when the reality is that most would benefit from a development edit and a copy-edit first. These terms are often unfamiliar to writers, and since there are so many editors offering slightly different variations of the same service (which is also often called something slightly different), a little confusion can only be expected....Take a look at a sample of the work – this is crucially important. Remember: there are no gatekeepers here, so the quality of work will vary greatly."
• Word and other software, making the most of it
• Writers Vs. Editors: A Battle for the Ages (Michael Kinsley, Time, 4-10-08)
• Writing Tics: Now You See Them, Now You Don't (The Subversive Copy Editor, 7-22-10, an interesting way of framing a common problem)
[Back to Top]
Indexing: why and how
“It is easy enough to make an index, as it is to make a broom of odds and ends, as rough as oat straw; but to make an index tied up tight, and that will sweep well into the corners, isn’t so easy.” ~ John Ruskin“A reference or teaching book is only as good as its index.” ~Julia Child
Getting started indexing: By the book
• Indexes: A Chapter from the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition: you buy just the indexing chapter)
• ***Indexing software (ASI's guide, which does not designate favorites--merely describes and explains its listings).
• Read Nancy Mulvany's Indexing Books (second edition)
• So You Want to Be an Indexer (American Society for Indexing, ASI)
• Louise Martin: Profile of an Indexer (Pacific Northwest Chapter of ASI)
• Editors, How Much Is an Index Worth to You? (how indexes are valued by bookstore buyers, educators and institutions, librarians, reviewers, your production staff, your typesetter, and why they should be done by professional indexers)
How to get started as an indexer (and what exactly is an index, anyway?)
Get started by specializing in a niche, a special area in which you are knowledgeable. Join at least one editorial or indexers' listserv as you'll want a place to ask peers questions about problems that come up. To get the work, be good at indexing.
A good index requires a human indexer. (I know, because I've had to fix indexes produced by software only. The indexer I hired for An American Biography provided no listing for mental illness or bipolar disorder although one whole chapter focused on the wife's struggle with manic depression.) Automated indexing tools produce a concordance rather than an index. An indexer searches for concepts as well as terms. But if you do a lot of indexing, consider investing in index formatting software: Cindex, Macrex, or SKY. You can get a trial/demo version at no cost--except for the cost of your time learning the program, but check your file size to be sure the demo can handle it.
• "An index is not an outline, nor is it a concordance. It's an intelligently compiled list of topics covered in the work, prepared with the reader's needs in mind." ~ Index Evaluation Checklist (American Society for Indexing)
"What exactly is an index anyway? A list of every name or term that comes up in a book? Not really. That would be more of a concordance. Essentially, an index provides an organized overview of the book’s contents. It is not just a search tool to “look something up.” It’s a meta-presentation of what’s in the book."~Indexes in ebooks (Kevin Callahan, ePUBSecrets)
• Index-L (helpful email list for indexers)
• Indexing Guidelines for Authors (Wiley Author Services) A useful overview.
• Frequently Asked Questions (American Society for Indexing)
• FAQs about indexes and indexers (UK Society of Indexers, so expect a British angle)
---Indexers have also found useful G. Norman Knight's book, Indexing, the Art of: A Guide to the Indexing of Books and Periodicals
---More indexing books listed at Books and Sites on Indexing (below)
---Indexes and indexing, All you need to know (blog post, Pat McNees)
---Author as Indexer: the Good, the Bad and the Possible (Madge Walls, All Sky Indexing) and
Good Indexes Sell Books. Scroll way down the far right column to see info Walls requires to give you an estimate. Very informative.
Where to get training
---Indexing Courses and Workshops (ASI's guide, and the place to look first).
---University of Berkeley Extension program: https://extension.berkeley.edu/
---The Society of Indexers (UK)
• Online discussion groups for indexers
• Indexing courses and workshops
Find an indexer
• Find an Indexer (American Society for Indexing)
• Indexer Locator (American Society for Indexing) Lists professional indexers, their areas of expertise, and full contact information. Find the indexer best suited for your project.
• Finding and Choosing an Indexer (Carol J. Roberts, Indexing Bonbons, 7-10-15)
Basic indexing resources:
• American Society for Indexing (ASI)
• Institute of Certified Indexers
• The Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation (ISC/SCI)
• Society of Indexers (UK)
• So You Want to Be an Indexer (ASI)
See ASI guide to Indexing Courses and Workshops.
• Making an Index (Authornet, Cambridge University Press)
• Guide to creating an index for McFarland (PDF)
• Index Evaluation Checklist (ASI)
• Online discussion groups for indexers (ASI’s full descriptions of many groups)
• ASI Publications
• ASI chapters and special interest groups (SIGs)
• Best Practices for Indexing (ASI) available to read or download free, here
Carol Saller on Indexing:
• Book Indexing, Part 1: Is a Computer the Right Person for the Job? (Carol Saller, 5-1-12). In short, no. She explains that "indexers harvest concepts as much as words."
Book Indexing, Part 2: Infinite Loops and Easter Eggs (Carol Saller, 5-9-12) The tricks indexers like to play in an index; how indexers have fun.
Book Indexing, Part 3: Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers (Carol Saller, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5-3-12)
• Ten Characteristics of Quality Indexes: Confessions of an Award-Winning Indexer by Margie Towery. Discount for members of ASI. Also from ASI/InfoToday: Indexing Tactics & Tidbits: An A to Z Guide by Janet Perlman, and Genealogy and Indexing ed. by Kathleen Spaltro.
• Guidelines for Alphabetical Arrangement of Letters and Sorting of Numerals and Other Symbols (PDF, National Information Standards Organization, or NISO)
.
Ælfwine Mischler on Indexing:
• Book Indexes — Part 1: Basic Vocabulary (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 5-21-18)
• Book Indexes — Part 2: No Magic Wands (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 6-18-18)
• Book Indexes — Part 3: The ABCs of Alphabetizing (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 7-16-18) She covers a word-by-word system; letter-by-letter system, preferred by most US publishers; how to handle entries with same first word; how to handle numbers and symbols at the beginning of entries. "While most of the actual alphabetizing is done by the software, indexers have to know many conventions regarding whether names are inverted; how particles in names are handled; how Saint, St., Ste. and Mc, Mac, Mc in surnames are alphabetized (styles vary on those); how to enter names of organizations, places, and geographical features."
See also Indexing Arabic Names: Some Family Terms (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 5-21-21) How to index a word that is sometimes mistaken for the definite article, and some family terms that turn up in Arabic names. "The word Āl or Al means “clan” or “dynasty.” It is usually capitalized when transliterated, although authors (and copyeditors) sometimes mistake it for the definite article and lowercase it. Āl is never suppressed in sorting or moved to the end of the name."
• Part 4: The Metatopic (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 9-17-18) Why an entry for "water" might not appear as a main entry in the index of an old book about water. One changed approach in indexing.
• Part 5: Names in Indexes (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 10-25-18) Does an index contain every name and event in a book? How is it different from a concordance? Should every instance of every person's name appear in the index? If not, how do you decide?
• Part 6: “See also” Cross-references (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 11-26-18)
• Part 7 — Lessons Learned in Using DEXembed for the First Time (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 12-24-18) Embedded indexes are more work for the indexers, so they cost more. Instead of using page numbers as locators, the indexer uses something else as locators; the program embeds the entries by inserting codes that look like this: { XE “main entry:subentry” }. The index is then generated from the field codes so the pages numbers are displayed. In an ebook, they may also be linked to the location in the text, giving the correct number for differing pagination in paperback and hardcover editions.
More help on embedded indexing here: My First DEXembed Word Embedded Index (Sue Klefstad, Sue the Indexer, 7-19-18) and here: Troubleshooting Those Horrible Microsoft Word Index Problems (Seth A. Maislin, Tripod, March 2011)
• Part 8 — More Lessons Learned in Using DEXembed for the First Time (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 2-11-19) "We do not all count alike."
• Multivolume Book Indexes (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 3-18-19) Preparing a combined index of two volumes is a lot more work than just merging the first two files into the third. "A combined index is more than the sum of its parts. Be aware of this if you are either of the parties negotiating for such an index."
• Resources for indexers (Society of Indexers, UK)
• Indexer Network (on LinkedIn)
• Sample Indexing Agreement (American Society for Indexing)
• Specifications agreement (Back Words Indexing's page of information needed by indexer)
• So You Want to Be an Indexer (ASI)
• Find an Indexer (ASI)
• Books available from ASI. ASI, through its publisher Information Today, Inc., now has 17 books available in print, 16 of which are also in ebook format. A free cumulated index (mashup) of the indexes to these publications is now available both online and as a PDF download. Locators are coded by title and print page number. The book codes link to the order page for the book. View the online version of the index here.
• ASI Publications Index Mashup (A-Z links)
• Embedded Index Information for Publishers (Digital Publications Indexing, ASI) An embedded index consists of a set of tags embedded into the document which can be used to generate the index (i.e., an alphabetical list of terms with page locators). A detailed explananation. See also Ebook index information for publishers
• Can't the Index Be Written by a Computer? (Back Words Indexing)
• ASI Excellence in Indexing Award (list of criteria gives you an idea of what to look for in an index)
• Editing an index (Jean Hollis Weber, Technical Editors' Eyrie)
• Indexes in ebooks (Steve Ingle of WordCo, ePUBSecrets, 7-23-25, part 1 of 3). Here's part 2.
• Indexing the Web (American Society for Indexing)
• Website indexing: extending the functions of HTML Indexer (Jon Jeremy and Glenda Browne)
• HTML/Prep: transforming indexes for the web
• Every nonfiction book needs an index: Here's why (Alan Rinzler, The Book Deal) Here’s the kicker: In most publishing contracts, the author pays for the index, because the index is considered part of the book’s content – and the author is responsible for providing all the content of a book under contract.
• Editors, How Much is an Index Worth to You? (how indexes are valued by bookstore buyers, educators and institutions, librarians, reviewers, your production staff, your typesetter, and why they should be done by professional indexers)
• Should Authors Index Their Own Books? (Martha Osgood, Back Words Indexing) See also What is an index and what is its purpose and an excellent collection of quotations about indexing.
• Ten Tips to Help You Create a Great Book Index (Index Busters)
• Hines Award honors members who have provided exceptional service to American Society for Indexing.
• Get Your Finger Off that Search Button: How Not to Index (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 8-12-129) Read the article before accidentally re-inventing the wrong way to do an index.
• Salman Rushdie's memoir would benefit from a good index (John Sutherland, The Guardian, 9-26-12). Indexing is as necessary to (nonfiction) books as oxygen is to lungs – even if you're Rushdie and want us to read every page.
• Author as Indexer: The Good, the Bad and the Possible (Madge Walls, All Sky Indexing)
• How to Contract with a Book Indexer (Dan Connolly, Word for Word Book Services, gives some idea of time needed and range of fees for various types of books)
• Indexer's Style Guide: Some Things to Think About (Cynthia Berman, BAEF)
• The definite article: acknowledging ‘The’ in index entries, Glenda Browne's article in The Indexer on the many ways "the" causes problems for those who try to put things into alphabetical order.
• Indexing Biographies (Hazel K. Bell, Society of Editors, UK -- sold thru Lulu)
• Indexing Legal Materials (Society of Indexers, UK -- sold thru Lulu)
• ASI training course (available to members of American Society for Indexing)
• Training in indexing distance-learning course (Society of Indexers, UK)
• The Indexer: The International Journal of Indexing . (You can read sample articles online by clicking on Centrepieces, which seem to be about indexing personal names in various ethnic naming traditions)
Organizations for indexers
• American Society for Indexing (formerly American Society of Indexers, ASI)
• Indexing Society of Canada (Société canadienne d'indexation). Resources include links to indexing discussion groups.
• Society of Indexers ( (UK)
• Types of indexing (Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, ANZSI). See also Concordance or index?
• Association of Freelance Editors Proofreaders and Indexers (AFEPI) (Ireland)
• Indexing societies, worldwide (Louise Harnby's helpful list)
• Index Cafe (Yahoo discussion group for indexer socializing)
• Indexer's Network (LinkedIn group for indexers)
• Indexers' humor (site hosted by Leverage Technologies, which sells Cindex indexing software)
• Index, America's Funniest, Back of Atlantic Monthly (Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 3-1-05)
• An Index for Thalia (PDF, Julian Barnes' index as a humorous extension to his book Letters from London 1990-1995, posted on The Indexer website)
• Amusing Index entries (on Futility Closet, An idler's miscellany of compendious amusements)
• The Games Played in Pale Fire's Index (anarchy is hyperbole, to be read only if you have read Nabokov's book)
Books and Sites on Indexing
***Indexing Books, by Nancy C. Mulvany
• Indexes: A Chapter from The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition
• Chicago Manual of Style (has a good chapter on indexing, and is an excellent reference tool for writers and editors)
• A Guide for the Freelance Indexer (April Michelle Davis, Lulu.com, 76 pages)
• Indexing from A to Z (1995) by Hans H. Wellisch (used books only)
• Indexing by Pat F. Booth
• American Society for Indexing (ASI) publications, for if you want specialized advice--e.g., on cookbook indexing, history textbooks, legal indexing, scholarly book indexing, and so on.
• The Art of Indexing, by Larry Bonura
• Handbook of Indexing Techniques: A Guide for Beginning Indexers by Linda K. Fetters (Author)
• Beyond Book Indexing, edited by Marilyn Rowland and Diane Brenner
• Indexing: A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide for Technical Writers, by Kurt Ament
• Indexing Names by Noeline Bridge. Good for books full of people's names, especially names from classical and medieval times and those belonging to particular ethnicities and nationalities, along with those peculiar to specific genres, especially biography, religion, and the performance and fine arts.
• Info Today's links to indexing resources
• An Indexer’s Guide to the Internet, by Lori Lathrop
• The Indexing Companion (Website Indexing), by Glenda Browne and Jon Jermey
• Website Indexes: visitors to content in two clicks, or website indexing with XRefHT32 freeware (James Lamb, Lulu.com)
• Indexing Specialties: Cookbooks (InfoToday.com)
Book Doctors: What They (and Consulting Editors) Do
Independent (freelance) consulting editors who help authors fix their books often call themselves "book doctors." Some are better than others and charge accordingly. Here are some stories about what to expect.
• Book Doctors: The Real Deal (Susan A. Schwartz on what to look for in an editor)
• The Doctor Will See You Now (interview with Lisa Rojany-Buccieri, who explains the difference between book doctors, editors, and ghostwriters and offers practical insights into what a book doctor can and cannot do)
• Common Rates for Editorial Services (Editorial Freelancers Association)
• Frequently Asked Questions about Editors (Tara K. Harper, who doesn't put much faith in book doctors)
• Independent Editors and Assessment Services (Writers Beware's excellent article and links, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America)
• A Professional Critique: What Should You Receive for Your Money? (Margot Finke)
• Nine Signs of a Scam Book Doctor (Jerry Gross, an old hand in the business, on Writers, Agents & Editors Network)
• What a Good Editor Will Do for You (Jerry Gross interviews Viking editor Beena Kamlani on what to expect from an editor in a publishing house, Writer's Digest, 2-11-08)
• Kinds of editors/editing and levels of edit
Style guides, style sheets, and style bibles
Authors and editors: Some useful editing symbols/words to facilitate your interactions:
TK -- "to come"
STET -- "revert to the uncorrected word or phrase" [there's been a change of mind]
CK -- "Check for accuracy."
CQ -- "This has been checked for accuracy"
• Basic Style Guides (Chicago and others)
• Discipline- and Situation-Specific Style Guides and Dictionaries
• Online Style Guides
• Diversity style and media guides (usage as to ability/disability, age, appearance, color, ethnicity/nationality, gender/sexuality, health, and bias)
• The Right and Wrong Words (Confusables, Mixed-Up Homonyms and Homophones, Heteronyms, Word Pairs, and Other Errors in Diction)
• Style, grammar, and word choice (Editing yourself and others)
• Style Sheets—The Setup and the Benefits (fiction editor Beth Hill, for The Editor's Blog, 7-12-11) "The style sheet is an aid for consistency...a reference document so that anyone working on [a specific] manuscript can see exactly how words should be spelled or capped or hyphenated or abbreviated. With fiction (and especially a series) you want what some fiction editors call a style bible, listing facts about the characters, locations, timeline, and so on.
• CMS and AP Style Guide Differences (Erin Brenner)
• Academic style sheet example (KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf)
---Medical style sheet example(KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf)
--- Fiction style sheet example (KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf)
• Thinking Fiction: Does Spelling Really Matter? (Carolyn Haley, American Editor, 2-19-21) "Consistency is the aspect that really counts in spelling. When there are multiple variations for a word, the editor’s task is to decide which one to use and stick with it. The purpose of consistency and correctness in any aspect of a book is to present a clean and professional product to the people destined to read it." Typos and irregularities distract readers from content, sometimes causing an editor to reject a book on the assumption that sloppy spelling means the author hasn't done a careful job in other ways also, or that getting the ms. into shape will cost too much in editing time.
• Tricks to Get Your House Style Used (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 7-23-18) How editor Carol Harrison created a house style sheet for Financial Reporting & Assurance Standards (FRAS) Canada—and got buy-in and a more useful guide.
• How & Why to Create a House Style (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 7-9-18)
• Foundations of House Style Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 7-16-18)
• How to Learn a Style Guide in 10 Days (Colleen Barry for ACES conference 2012, excellent for beginners or brushups)
• 50 Style Guide Tools, Articles, Books and Resources (Kezz Bracey, EnvatoTuts, 6-11-14)
• Capitalization Policy Worksheet (Erin Brenner's extremely practical worksheet for copyedits, adaptable for each client)
• Typemarking (copymarking), a sample, as shown by Carolyn Rude in Technical Editing. How to do it with pen on paper.
• Lyonizing Word: But Which Styles? (Jack Lyon, on An American Editor, 3-21-16) How (as editor) to mark a ms. for the various styles delegated to the parts of a book: Chapter number, Chapter title, Body text, Block quote, Poetry, Subheading, Subsubheading, Block quote, Caption, etc., so the designer knows how to design the book and doesn't make an epigraph into a poem, etc. Essential knowledge for an editor. Note his inclusion of Wiley and Springer templates, and Wiley's Applying Formatting Styles.
• Taming Styles in Microsoft Word (Jack Lyon, on An American Editor, 2-29-16) How to format a document using Word's powerful features for marking the various levels of a manuscript (e.g., headings, block quotations, poetry, citations. Possibly more than you want to know.
• Editing and revising fiction, excellent articles specific to fiction editing, including such links as The Style Sheets — Part I: General Style (Amy Schneider, on An American Editor, 1-19-15), Part II: Characters, Part III: Locations., and --Part IV: Timeline (4-13-15) "The timeline must be kept consistent with the fictional world of the story, and sometimes also with actual events in the real world." (Authors often have trouble maintaining a consistent timeline.)
• Trademarks and Irregulars, Part 1: Understanding and Protecting Trademarks (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 5-26-15) . See also Part 2: Protecting Trademarks (6-2-15) and Part 3: Regularizing Irregulars (6-9-15). One of Erin's main points: The rules for protecting one's own copyright are different from the rules the writer-editor must follow. We do NOT, for example, need to include the little TM sign. See also A Guide to Proper Trademark Use and more resources at International Trademark Association (INTA)..
• Generic and genericized trademarks, List of (Wikipedia). And there is a Trademark checklist (International Trademark Association). Trademark hotlines: tmhotline@inta.org or phone: (212) 768-9886
• Editing with style (The Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd), Australia)
• Balancing Competing Interests (by Erin Brenner, guest blog on An American Editor, 3-24-14). What to do when a client has several style guides--for example, a branding style guide, one for the annual report, and one more specific to a department for whom a "branding" style, for example, might not apply. (One keyword for this article: "office politics.")
• How an Editor's Style Sheet Can Help the Author Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit Blog, 6-8-12). She also provides three samples of style sheets (academic, medical, and fiction)
• Editing and Revising Fiction (in the fiction section of Writers and Editors)
• List of style guides (Wikipedia) . See also
• Basic Style Guides
• Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries
• Online style guides
• Grammar and style books for writers who wince at the idea of grammar and for popular reading
Organizations for Editors, Proofreaders, and Indexers
"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke."
--Arthur Plotnik, editor and author (b. 1937) (H/T Carolyn Haley)
• Publishing Organizations in North America (excellent full list from Books AtoZ)
• The Value of Joining Multiple Professional Associations and Subscribing to Multiple Professional E-mail Lists (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, EditorMom, KOK Edit blog, 4-28-11)
• American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA)
• American Cinema Editors (ACE)
• ACES: The Society for Editing, an international members' alliance of editors working in digital media, traditional print media, corporate communications, book publishing, academia, government, and more. Formerly, ACES stood for American Copy Editors Society (www.copydesk.org) and it was aimed at newspaper editors, but that market is shrinking, and ACES absorbed Copyediting, a publication that no longer exists (hence some dead links to Copyediting articles no longer online). See Tracking Changes (ACES quarterly journal), the ACES for Hire directory, ACES Facebook page, #ACESchat (a non-Twitter channel for useful articles for editors), ACES scholarships (including the Bill Walsh scholarship, $3,500 plus financial aid to attend the ACES national conference, and the Aubespin scholarship, with $2,500 to main winner and $1,500 each to four other winners, also with aid to attend the ACES conference),and more on the website. Enjoy Dropped Hyphens, Split Infinitives, and Other Thrilling Developments from the 2019 American Copy Editors Society Conference (Mary Norris, New Yorker, 4-2-19)
• American Medical Writers Association. AMWA has an excellent private Editing-Writing email list, particularly helpful for medical writer-editors; member directory and member access to job bank
• American Society for Indexing (formerly American Society of Indexers, ASI--advancing indexing, abstracting, and database building).
• American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE), which has local chapters
• American Society of Healthcare Publications Editors (ASHPE)
• American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), with its important National Magazine Awards
• American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which publishes The American Editor
• Archivists. Directory of Archival Organizations in the United States and Canada, a directory on the website of The Society of American Archivists, links to societies of medical archivists, religious archivists, regional history archivists, business archivists, and state organizations of archivists. See So You Want to Be an Archivist: An Overview of the Archives Profession.
• Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE)
• Ask a Book Editor (AABE) A private Facebook page on which editors share opinions, including opinions about best punctuation for a particular sentence or which phrasing for an awkward passage. New members welcome. See also AABE--Help Wanted.
• Associated Press Media Editors (APME, for editors of consumer magazines and business publications sold in U.S.)
• Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE)
• Association for Church Editors (ACE, for editors, designers and other church members involved in the production of church magazines in all denominations throughout the United Kingdom and abroad)
• Association for Documentary Editing (ADE)
• Association of Alternative News Media (AAN)
• Association of Art Editors (AAE)
• Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors (Capitol Beat, for reporters covering state and local governments)
• Association of Earth Science Editors (AESE). Member directory and job bank (members only)
• Association of Freelance Editors Proofreaders & Indexers (AFEPI) (Ireland)
• Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), improving public understanding of health and health care
• Association of Personal Historians (APH). Not an editors association per se, but personal historians do custom publishing for private clients and need editors, proofreaders, transcribers, indexers, and designers. APH folded in 2017 (after 20 great years--I miss it), but there are local chapters and listservs. Personal historians interview people to get their life story; those interviews need to be transcribed and shaped into narratives, as memoirs, tributes, ethical wills, etc. (Formats: print, audio, and video.)
• Bay Area Editors' Forum (BAEF) (searchable public member directory and EXCELLENT resources for editors on the website)
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS), founded in 1991 to evaluate the proficiency of manuscript editors in the life sciences and to award credentials similar to those obtainable in other professions. See how to become a board-certified editor (the ones that add ELS after their names). Members-only job listings, email list; publicly accessible directory of freelance BELS editors. See also schedule for BELS exams for certification.. See Denise Foster's infographic comparing various routes to certification: Becoming a certified editor.
• Bookbuilders of Boston(publishing professionals involved in book publishing and manufacturing throughout New England, with public searchable directory)
• Business + Professional Development for Editors (a sizeable Facebook group)
• Cambridge Academic Editors Network (CAEN) (searchable public member directory)
• Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), formerly the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP, UK) A community, training hub, and support network for editorial professionals in the UK.
• The Christian PEN Proofreaders and Editors Network
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a forum for editors and publishers of peer reviewed journals
• Copyediting (formerly Copy Editing, a publication and webinars) and Copyediting job board(formerly Copy Editor, free job board for which you can set up profile to get alerts when gigs are available). Copyediting Facebook page.
****• Copyediting-L (CE-L), a popular email discussion list for editors (and other defenders of the English language) who want to discuss anything related to editing: sticky style issues; philosophy of editing; newspaper, technical, and other specialized editing; reference books; client relations; Internet resources; electronic editing and software; freelance issues; and so on.) For CE-L subscribers only (2500 of them), to prevent spammers, co-owned by Katharine O'Moore-Klopf and Jane Lyle). Copyediting-L (aka CE-L) is the main list, where topics such as politics, religion, sex, and operating-system evangelism are forbidden. Copyediting-Off-list-L (aka CEL-O) is the "chat" list, where all topics are permitted. "Stalking Danglers Around the World" (with a freelancers directory, and frequent exchanges of macros that make copyediting easier, etc.). Copyediting-L Always Provides Lively Discussion writes Mark Allen, on the Copyediting blog. "Stalks" and "Stalking" and "Cel-mates" play on "C-El" (celery).
• Council of Science Editors (CSE) (formerly Council of Biology Editors. For members only: Science Editor, CSE's quarterly publication. See its Society and Reference Links and Benefits of membership.
• Drug Information Association (DIA), global forum for therapeutic innovation & regulatory science
• European Association of Science Editors (EASE)
• Editcetera (a self-governing association of freelance publishing professionals in San Francisco area)
• Editing and proofreading societies around the world (Louise Harnby's excellent annotated list)
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), for editors, writers, indexers, proofreaders, researchers, desktop publishers, translators, etc. New York City-oriented. Clients can find you through free online freelancer directory and freejob listing service. You can post questions on the private email list. EFA Facebook page
• Editors Canada has six regional branches. Blog: West Coast Editor (for Editors British Columbia) Early 2016, note: rebranded itself as Editors Canada; was Editors' Association of Canada (EAC). Particularly recommended: Professional Editorial Standards. (Downloadable PdF at http://www.editors.ca/files/public/PES-2009-FINAL.pdf.
• Editors' Association of Earth (EAE) (active, chatty Facebook page created by Toronto copyeditor Greg Ioannou, 10,000 members). and Editors' Backroom ( (a members-only Facebook page, where editors can compare tips, tools, techniques, knowledge, information, and experiences4000+ members) Stet happens!. See also How to find EAE Affiliated and Recommended Groups (YouTube)
• Editors Guild (formerly the Northwest Independent Editors Guild), which every other year hosts a Red Pencil conference just north of Seattle, "the largest regular editing conference on the West Coast."
• Editors who tweet (Erin Brenner's list)
• Electric Editors (Internet community for editors, proofreaders, indexers, translators and publishers, with excellent links to resources, such as Resources for translating and interpreting
• European Association of Science Editors (EASE), which has excellent links to further resources likely to be useful to editors
• European Medical Writers Association (EMWA)
• Fiction Editors of Earth (a closed Facebook group)
• Fraternity Communications Association (formerly the College Fraternity Editors Association)
• Freelance (discussion list for publishing industry freelancers, moderated by Chuck Brandstater, available as e-mail only or as archives)
• FreelanceWritersEditors (forum for published professional freelance editors, mostly, and writers, moderated by Ruth Thaler-Carter, a breakoff group from Freelance)
• Grammarly (delightful facebook page with slogans such as "We are going to learn to cut and paste kids. Commas matter.")
• Help Authoring Tools and Techniques listserv (HATT) (a Yahoo group, with frequent Yahoo ads)
• InDesign Talk (discussion listserv about the Adobe page layout product)
• Indexers' humor (site hosted by Leverage Technologies, which sells Cindex indexing software)
• Indexing Society of Canada (Société canadienne d'indexation). Resources include links to indexing discussion groups.
• Indian Copyeditors Forum (ICF) An informal Facebook group.
• Indigenous Editors Association formed as a mutual support network by Indigenous editors and publishing professionals in lands claimed by Canada (located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Stz’uminus, and šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam) Peoples).
• Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) (Australia)
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) (for professionals in corporate communications, marketing, and public relations)
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), publishes Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals. See the the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest to generate a disclosure statement for your manuscript.
• The International Publication Planning Association (TIPPA)
• International Society for Medical Publication Professional (pronounced IzMap--not-for-profit organization founded by medical publication professionals for medical publication professionals)
• International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), training and networking for editorial office staff in academic, scientific, medical, technical and professional publishing
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) (IRE serves those doing investigative journalism)
• Mediterranean Editors & Translators (MET) (English-language editors & translators for the Mediterranean area)
• Motion Pictures Editors Guild (MPEG) (an entertainment labor union representing picture, sound, music, assistant, animation, technical directors, librarian and apprentice motion picture editors)
• MPA, The Association of Magazine Media (formerly Magazine Publishers of America)
• The National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) (not a nonprofit organization, so far as I can tell)
• National Association of Science Writers (NASW)
• National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS)
• Northwest Editors Guild (Pacific Northwest) Thanks for your incredibly useful handouts!
• Organizations for corporate, government, and technical communicators
• Professional Editors' Group (PEG), professional copy-editors, proofreaders, and other practitioners in South Africa
• Professional Editors Network (PEN) (editors, writers, proofreaders, indexers, book layout specialists, and allied professionals in Twin Cities area)
• Publishing Professionals Network (PPN), formerly Bookbuilders West, with jobs bank and links to other publishing industry resources and organizations)
• ReligionWriters (free tools and tips for writing about religion with balance, accuracy and insight, a free resource of the Religion Newswriters Association, or RNA)
• San Diego Professional Editors Network (SD/PEN)
• Scholarly Editing Forum (SEDIT-L), discussion list for documentary editors (including members of Association for Documentary Editing). Click on "join or leave this list," to join.
• Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) (for publishers, printers, e-products developers, technical service providers, librarians, and editors in scholarly publishing)
• Society for Features Journalism (SFJ) (appears to new version of American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, or AASFE)
• Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature (SPELL, with members from many professions and walks of life)
• Society for Technical Communication (STC), which has a Technical Editing SIG (special interest group). For editors involved in producing instructional manuals, online help, multimedia, training resources, and other forms of technical communication.
• Society of American Archivists (SAA), whose many resources include Richard Pearce-Moses's Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology and Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research (by Laura Schmidt)
• Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc., Australia
• Society of English-language Professionals in the Netherlands (SENSE). Download its digital magazine, eSense, free.
• Society of Indexers ( (British and Irish)
• Society of Quality Assurance (SQA, providing quality in the regulated research community--scientific journal articles and reports)
• Society of Writers, Editors & Translators (SWET, Tokyo-based society of writers, editors, and other English-language publishing professionals in Japan). Publishers of Japan Style Sheet: The SWET Guide for Writers, Editors, and Translators, most useful perhaps for translators
• Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
• TECHWR-L (Internet-based group for technical communicators)
• Testy Copy Editors (Phillip Blanchard's discussion group for newspaper copy editors)
• Textbook Publishing Professionals (LinkedIn group)
• 26 (UK writers, editors, language specialists, designers and anyone with a love of language)
• Western New England Editorial Freelancers' Network
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), a global nonprofit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals).
Interviews, profiles, Q&As with editors
and obits
• Lives and Letters, an interview with Robert Gottlieb. This Salon.com interview with the legendary editor is ostensibly about writing but gives helpful insights into the editing process (and the writer-editor relationship) inside a good publishing house.
• Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb and the Art of the Edit (Pamela Paul, Opinion, NY Times, 1-5-23) Oh, the tortured life of the writer! Onscreen, it’s often a bore. But a new documentary, “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” shows that success here is possible. And unlike most films about writers, it goes one step further, tackling not only the writing process but also the more abstruse art of the edit.
'To make “The Power Broker” physically publishable, Gottlieb helped Caro cut roughly 350,000 words from the book. Later he intuited that Caro’s next project should be different from the book he was contracted to write; separately, the two Bobs both landed on Lyndon Johnson as its subject.'
• Words in Progress: Notes From a Retired Copy Chief (Benjamin Dreyer, Kirkus Reviews, 12-13-23) Thoughts of a production editor—a supervisor of copy editors and copyediting, proofreaders and proofreading—at Random House, some 30 years, as he retires. Full of interesting observations about how language changed over those decades: How we went from light bulb to light-bulb to lightbulb, from town house to townhouse; how we came to accept the singular they, as in “When you hire a copy editor to work on this manuscript, please ask them to…” (to avoid suggesting someone was "he" unless otherwise specified), and so on.
• Becoming an Editor FAQ (Crystal Shelley, Rabbit with a Red Pen)
How did you get into editing? How do I become an editor? How do I get work as an editor? How do I market myself? What should I charge? Should I join a professional editing organization? How do I meet other editors? See also Resources: Being an Editor and Running an Editing Business
• Miss Skippit (Andrew O’Hagan, London Review of Books, 2-18-21) A piece about a London editor named Mary-Kay Wilmers. 'It was J.D. Salinger, writing about William Shawn, who spoke of that rare thing, ‘born great artist-editors’, lovers of ‘the long shot’....What you want in the end is a spirit guide, someone who knows what you can do, and takes pains alongside you.
"Mary-Kay Wilmers taught a generation of us that the job was to have a point of view. Vagueness wasn’t a useful quality, and grand declarations are not the same as good writing. If the paper didn’t capture certain points of view, it was, in Mary-Kay’s opinion, because we were still looking for the writer."
• Interview with a Gatekeeper: Lee Boudreaux From rural Virginia to her own imprint at Little, Brown (Kerri Arsenault, Lit Hub, 1-14-16)
• Janet Burroway talks about Writing Fiction Q&A with Carol Saller, CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual of Style, 4-23-19) A good writer must be a good copyeditor. Editing the copy is what writing is.
• A Day in the Life of Virginia Hughes Informative responses from Virginia Hughes, the science editor at BuzzFeed News, where she manages five reporters focused on the darker side of science. (The Open Notebook: The story behind the best science stories, 4-23-19)
• The Cranky Wisdom of Peter Kaplan (Nathan Heller, The New Republic, 9-14-12). New York’s last romantic gets his own magazine. The former editor of the New York Observer is now editorial director of Fairchild Fashion Media.
• A former Indy editor on fighting the good fight (Bob Moser, Indy Week, 9-26-12) See also Why I started the Independent and why I am selling it (Steve Schewel, Indy Week, 9-26-12)
• Editors interviews (The Editor's POV). A series of interviews with developmental editors (Jennifer Hager, Amy Smith Bell, Karalynn Ott, Diane Mettler, Marta Tanrikulu, Beth Stokes, Nancy Wick, Julie Van Pelt).
• Style Sheet: A Conversation with My Copyeditor (Edan Lepucki's interview with his copyeditor, Susan Bradanini Betz, The Millions, 2-7-14)
• Editors' role model: Robert Loomis, on his retirement from Random House (read these for great tales from publishing, for a glimpse at pre-corporate publishing, and for hints on editing well): Nurturer of Authors Is Closing the Book (Julie Bosman, NY Times, 5-8-11). Profile of Random House editor Robert Loomis (retiring after 54 years). One of the last of the gentlemen editors with power.
• Great Book Editors Are Not an Endangered Species (Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, 5-24-11)
• Bob Loomis Talks Cerf And Turf Ahead Of His Retirement (Dan Duray, New York Observer, 5-31-11)
• Robert Loomis, editor of Styron, Angelou, retires (Hillel Italie, AP, on ABC, 5-6-11)
• Editor Interviews (Editing Hacks) Interviews with Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, A. Victoria Mixon, Sherry Noik, Camille Gooderham Campbell. (But there's a "buy this domain" sign on some pages, so these might disappear.)
Q&As with editors
• Ask a Book Editor (AABE) Private Facebook Group. You'll be asked three questions if you ask to join. If a question is marked with #spag, this means it has been designated a question on spelling, punctuation and grammar and therefore should only be answered by professional editors. Editors, please start or append your answer with an (E), as responses to SPAG questions that don't appear to come from an editor will be deleted. Editors talk of AmE (US English), BrE (British English), CanE and AusE etc. If you use those abbreviations, they will be able to tailor advice more specifically to your particular needs.
Authors Guild Q&As with Editors
• Q&A with an Editor - Leah Schnelbach (7-12-18) She edits literary and genre fiction. ""We were tired of reading interviews where male authors only recommended other male authors, and where white male editors only published people who reflected their own life experience back to them. So from the first meeting we had, we all agreed that we wanted to publish people who could show us different corners of life."
• Q&A with an Editor: Mark Doten of Soho Press (6-21-18)
• Q and A with an Editor: Yuka Igarashi of Soft Skull Press (1-18-18) I want Soft Skull to keep publishing books no one else will, and to find the next Eileen Myles and Maggie Nelson, and to be a home for cross-disciplinary conversation and new perspectives. I also I want it to keep representing what it represented to me—a real community and a refuge from the mainstream “top-down” model of cultural consumption."
• Q & A with an Editor: Justin Taylor of The Literary Review (10-5-17) "Read journals before you submit to them to discern their taste, not to look for trends. By the time you're reading the piece, it's years old. The writer, the editor, the journal, have all moved on to the next thing. The last thing any journal wants is to look like itself from two years ago."
Poets & Writers Q&As with Editors
• Q&A: David Treuer of Pantheon (Laura Da', March 2022)
• Q&A: Anitra Budd of Coffee House Press ( Priscilla Wu, Feb. 2022)
• Q&A: Abdurraqib Edits for Tin House (Julian Randall, Nov.-Dec. 2021)
• Q&A: House Celebrates Broadside Lotus (India Gonzalez, Nov.-Dec. 2020)
• Q&A: Akbar Edits Poetry of the Nation (Devon Walker-Figueroa, Jan.-Feb. 2021)
• Q&A: Meghan O’Rourke to Edit the Yale Review (Dana Isokawa, May-June 2019)
• Q&A: The New Editor of the Paris Review (Dana Isokawa, Nov.-Dec. 2018)
• Q&A: MacDowell’s Cheryl A. Young Set to Retire (Dana Isokawa, March/April 2019)
• Q&A: Mary Gannon Leads CLMP (Cat Richardson, Jan.-Feb. 2019)
• Q&A: Jennifer Baker Seeks Multiplicity of Voices (Namrata Poddar, Sept.-Oct. 2018) Atria Books will release Everyday People: The Color of Life, an anthology of short stories by emerging and established writers of color and indigenous people.
• Q&A: John Kulka Curates Library of America (Adrienne Raphel, May-June 2018)
• Q&A: Jamia Wilson Leads the Feminist Press (Jannifer Baker, Nov.-Dec. 2017)
• Q&A: The Editor Behind the Book Review (Jen Gregorio, interview with Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, Nov./Dec. 2023)
• Q&A: Phillips Edits Princeton Poets (Julia Mallory, Rowan Ricardo Phillips named editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, Sept/Oct 2023)
• Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Editor Jonathan Karp by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Nov/Dec 2009)
• A Q&A With Jonathan Galassi by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (July/Aug 2009)
• A Q&A With Four Young Editors by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (interviewing Richard Nash, Lee Boudreaux, Alexis Gargagliano, and Eric Chinski, March/April 2009)
• A Q&A With Editor Chuck Adams by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Nov/Dec 2008)
• A Q&A With Editor Janet Silver by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (July/Aug 2008)
• A Q&A With Editor Pat Strachan by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (March/April 2008)
ACES Interviews with an Editor
• Interview with an Editor series (Aces) Check out a gazillion profiles.
• Interview with an editor: Melissa Fanella (Aces, 2-2-22) Freelance & lead editor for TextGoods.
• Interview with an editor: Heather Pendley (Aces, 2-2-22)
• Interview with an editor: Jenny Llakmani (Aces, 1-26-22)15-year editor for Rotary International
• Interview with an Editor: Renée Otmar (long-time copyeditor)
• Interview with an Editor: Drusilla Moorhouse, Buzzfeed News (ACES, 2-5-2020)
• Jay Wang (Washington Post) (11-27-19)
• Mike Pope, Google (1-29-2020).
• Interview with an Editor: Jonathon Owen (ACES, 12-18-19) @ArrantPedantry
• Interview with an Editor: Erin Brenner (ACES, 12-11-19)
More to come, presumably.
The art of editing
"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
"Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make clear." ~ Joseph Joubert (1754–1824)
The Paris Review series:
---Robert Gottlieb, The Art of Editing No. 1 (Paris Review interview by Larissa MacFarquhar, Fall 1994). She interviews both Gottlieb and many of the fine authors he has edited--especially interesting about the editing process. “Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader.”
---Gordon Lish, The Art of Editing No. 2 (interviewed by Christian Lorentzen, Winter 2015)
---Maxine Groffsky, The Art of Editing No. 3 (interviewed by Jeff Seroy, Fall 2017)
---Lewis Lapham, The Art of Editing No. 4 (interviewed by Jim Holt, Summer 2019)
• Veteran Editor Robert Gottlieb on Working With Words (Chris Knutsen, Gottlieb's long-time assistant, Wall Street Journal, 9-13-16) In his new memoir, Avid Reader, former New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb distills lessons from a lifetime of reading and writing. He considers editing a "service job” and says that ego should never get the better of the process. “There’s this pernicious phrase that editors use in publishing: ‘My book.’ But it’s not your book. It’s the author’s.” Editing, he says, is about “surrendering” to the text. Whatever a book needs is discoverable in its pages, and woe to the editor who turns elsewhere for inspiration."
• Gottlieb Explores Editing and Writing Biography. “The editor’s relationship to a book should be an invisible one.” "It means helping the author fulfill his or her intentions, not imposing your own ideas. Of course editors may have their own notions about a subject, but they’re there to supplement, not contradict. What can help a biographer, I think, is the editor’s curiosity about the subject, leading to questions that may prompt useful paths for the author to explore. It’s all too easy when writing on a subject about which you’re obsessive to forget that the reader may need more grounding —that you have to gently set the stage."
• The Robert Gottlieb Guide to Editing, My Personal Notes (Matt Gartland highlights the main points of the excellent Paris Review Art of Editing interview-- see previous entry.)
• Omission (John McPhee, New Yorker, 9-14-15) Choosing what to leave out. About writer-editor relations (in his life) and about writing as a chiseling away of what isn't needed.
• There’s No One Path to Becoming an Editor (Carolyn Wilke, The Open Notebook, 10-13-2020) Several editors share how they got started--on purpose and through trial-and-error--and the ways in which they've grown in their chosen roles. "Looking holistically at an article at the outset can also help you with another tricky part of editing: identifying what isn't on the page. What are the gaps in the story? Whose voices are missing?"
• The matrix of editor, reporter and story (Brian Foisy, Nieman Storyboard, Power of Narrative Conference 2022) Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a longtime magazine journalist and best-selling author, and Illena Silverman, deputy editor for features at The New York Times Magazine, have partnered on stories for 20 years now. At the conference they discussed what an editor brings to a story, the puzzle of narrative structure and the importance of a good story pitch, effectively how they work together to create award-winning journalism. Denizet-Lewis has been most successful with story pitches that have already identified characters and “really have a sense of the narrative.” What does Silverman look for in a pitch? “I just want a lot of depth. When you’re working with great writers, what they can do is bring people to life, the way that novelists can bring people to life. … I like all the details and the emotional nuances of how someone is experiencing something.”
• Alice Mayhew: Muse of the Beltway Book (Laura Secor, NY Times, 6-27-04) "Mayhew herself is a diminutive woman with a flat, raspy voice and an animated face. If she doesn't agree with what she's hearing -- which is often, colleagues will tell you -- she's quick to say so and pulls no punches. But her intelligence is not just the piercing, discomforting kind; it's also the sort that gives rise to roving curiosity and eclectic enthusiasms. Her authors speak of her with a mixture of trepidation, respect and affection. They describe her as rigorous, tough-minded, attentive and engaged. And they add that conversation over lunch with her sometimes turns to her excitement over the shaping of another author's book -- not out of lack of interest in the business at hand, but from an overflow of interest in everything she's working on....
"Some who worked with her said 'her greatest talents lay in conceptualization and structure....She is particularly adept at unearthing submerged themes,” the Times article concluded, “developing swift transitions, unsentimentally pruning away digressions, even when — especially when — they are hundreds of pages long. Mayhew’s faith in chronological organization is said to be nearly religious.'
See also Alice Mayhew, Who Edited a Who’s Who of Writers, Dies at 87 ( Anita Gates, NY Times, 4-2-20) At Simon & Schuster, best sellers were her stock in trade. She popularized the nonfiction political page turner, starting with “All the President’s Men.”
• How Nan Talese Blazed Her Pioneering Path through the Publishing Boys’ Club (Evgenia Peretz, Vanity Fair, 3-29-17)
• "Figure out where the story begins. No boring prologues. No info-dumping. No literary throat-clearing." Agent-author Andy Ross.
• Random House Copy Chief: Stand Tall, Wordsmiths! (But Choose Your Battles) Terry Gross interviews Random House copy chief Benjamin Dreyer on Fresh Air (2-5-19) The author of Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style talks about being a stickler for grammar and punctuation, the collaboration between copy editor and author, reordering the parts of a sentence to make it stronger, the passive voice, gender-neutral pronouns.
• The argument for making changes silently, not tracking them (Adrienne, Right Angels and Polo Bears)
• A Thing Meant to Be: The Work of a Book Editor (Rebecca Saletan, Poets&Writers, 4-11-18) "...it’s the dialogue about shape that I most remember. A draft of a story in which a kind of sonic boom goes off at the beginning demands an answering boom at the end. Or: Rather than trying to launch six complicated characters at the outset, how about introducing them one by one, like a juggler putting balls into the air?"
• How American editors are different from British editors (Lynne Murphy, Aces: The Society for Editing, 4-28-18) "Given the many differences between American and British English, the way in which American and British editors edit is no doubt different as well. One difference? American editors edit in favor of rules, while British editors edit in favor of voice. American editors have a written set of rules, while British editors do not." American editors caught more things that needed fixing in her book The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English than British editors did.
• Slang for the Ages (Kory Stamper, Opinion, NY Times, 10-3-14) "English is fluid and enduring: not a mountain, but an ocean. A word may drift down through time from one current of English (say, the language of World War II soldiers) to another (the slang of computer programmers). Slang words are quicksilver flashes of cool in the great stream."
• Measuring Readability: A Secret Skill for Copyeditors (Samantha Enslen, Copyediting, 10-20-16) Flesch-Kincaid (and other readability meters) look at something copyeditors don’t: average word length and average sentence length.
• Closing the Literary Circle: Marc Berley on Editing the Work of Gordon Lish (Marc Berley, LitHub, 4-29-24) "There were no pauses in the six-hour class. No breaks for coffee or smoke. Everyone was all in."
"Lish would interrupt such a reading only occasionally, and only to take apart stellar sentences word by word to show the ways the writer was succeeding. Lish’s ability to analyze the language of fiction was at a level none of us had ever encountered."
• The Accidental Life: An Editor's Notes on Writing and Writers by Terry McDonell, about which see Boozing with George Plimpton, Golfing with Hunter S. Thompson: The Life and Times of Terry McDonell (Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 8-2-16) "The Accidental Life is about what he has done, which is to say pretty much everything one could have hoped to in the magazine world of late 20th-century America. He edited and befriended most of the alpha males of a muscular brand of journalism that flowed from the American West to midtown Manhattan.... In this time of smaller and smaller newsrooms, his tales of media-world excesses are amusing, a dispatch from a distant planet....McDonell acknowledges mistakes, as well as the shortcomings of the magazine industry."
• The value of a light touch and other lessons from the Comma Queen (Matthew Crowley, Aces, 5-12-15). A review with content. "The point of having something read by an editor, she argues, is making sure the writing doesn’t stick out like a tag on a shirt, unless it’s supposed to."
• Online Tutorials on Proofing and Copy Editing (mostly for beginning editors, or editors who need a little training)
• 5 essentials to bridging the gap between experienced editors and inexperienced writers (Tom Mangan, Verb Nerd Industries, 2-2-13)
• Poise, Tenacy, and Clancy: An Interview with Deborah Grosvenor (Michael Neff, Algonkian Writer Conferences) When Tom Clancy's first novel was submitted to the Naval Institute Press, it needed a lot of work, but editor (now agent) Grosvenor moved quickly to help Clancy improve the novel, hoping to snap it up before the major trade publishers snapped him up. About editing as acquisition, as shaping the book, and as capitalizing on good news to market a book.
• Editing Fiction. Links to excellent pieces by Carolyn Haley and others on editing fiction on Rich Adin's 'An American Editor' blog
• Editor in the spotlight (William Skidelsky, Guardian blog, 1-23-07) " In the internet age, this kind of public feedback [Comments] has largely replaced the old-fashioned, private art of editing. Is that a bad thing?"
Admitting mistakes to authors. Should you?
• Say you're sorry (John E. McIntyre, You Don't Say blog, April 2010). Skip the "If I offended anyone" bit.
• Pretty Apologies: For When You're Really Wrong (Carol Fisher Saller, The Subversive Copyeditor, 4-20-11).
About Editing (Richard Nordquist, About.com)
• Harold Ross on Editing. "Editing is the same as quarreling with writers--same thing exactly"
• Lillian Ross on Helpful Editors. "Avoid the following kind of editor: one who does not like writers"
• The Editor of the Breakfast Table, by Charles J. Shields “The worst thing you can have a reader say is, ‘So what?’”
• An Editor's Five Rules of Thumb Gardner Botsford on Writing and Editing
• Wolcott Gibbs's Theory and Practice of Editing
• James Thurber on Writing and Editing
• More Editors and editing (Nordquist's About Education, About Grammar columns)
How to approach an editing project
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 1: The Basics (Rich Adin, An American Editor, or AAE, 2-20-17) The smart editor creates the wheel once and reuses it instead of recreating the wheel with each new project. (Arabic numerals used here instead of the Roman Adin uses)
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 2 (Rich Adin, 2-27-17) The online stylesheet. Cleaning up the manuscript.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 3 (Rich Adin, 3-6-17) Tagging the ms. (applying typecodes or applying styles..the Style Inserter). "The idea is to do as much work as possible quickly and with a minimum of effort."
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 4 (Rich Adin, 3-13-17). "EditTools’ Bookmarks are much more powerful and usable than the standard Word bookmarks." You can find the WordsNSync EditTools Bookmarks here. In which he introduces and explains Never Spell Word. "Never Spell Word (NSW) lets me create project- or client-specific datasets.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 5. Create the project- or client-specific Never Spell Word dataset and then run the Never Spell macro.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 6 Use wildcards to fix reference formatting problems, run the Journals macro to correct incorrect journal names, and editing the reference list.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 7 Tackle duplicate references using the Find Duplicate References macro.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 8Use macros for reference renumbering and checking the order of reference numbers; and using Toggle Word and EditTools Macros and Hotkeys(keyboard shortcuts) for actual editing.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap, Part 9 Editing with the Enhanced Search, Count, and Replace (SCR) macro.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap 10 How to use, insert, and edit comments/queries during editing.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap 11. Editing comments and queries.
• The AAE Copyediting Roadmap 12 Argues for purchasing the macros he finds essential for copyediting.
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Fact-checking and verification for editors
"Despite the common sense idea that books are the longer and more permanent version of magazine articles, there is an informal division of church and state between the worlds of book publishing and magazine journalism. The latter is subjected to rigorous fact checking, while the former is not."~ Emma Copley Eisenberg
• Book Publishing's Fact-Checking Failure, as Illustrated by the Sally Kohn Controversy (Constance Grady, Vox, 4-20-18) What is the proper procedure when fact checking and using “on the record” conversations? Book publishing has no system in place for fact-checking. What is the proper procedure when fact checking and using “on the record” conversations? In most book publishing workflows, fact checking is not anywhere in the process, it is simply based on the author’s notes. When accused of using a false quote in her book The Opposite of Hate, author Sally Kohn said “Let’s be clear: I’m not inventing a new standard of book-writing here. It’s false to say that the book wasn’t fact-checked. And it’s false to say that the quotes weren’t checked. They were checked against the notes.”
• AI Fact-Checking Tools (Journalist's Toolbox) Wonderful tools, and lots of them.
• Fact-Checking, Part 1, Fact Checking Photos and Videos (Mike Reilly YouTube video, Journalist's Toolbox training,14 minutes).
• Quick-and-Dirty Fact-Checking Tools to Help You Get it Right SPJ Journalist's Toolbox Tool of the Month, Quill Magazine, 2021)
• Tools That Fight Disinformation Online (Rand) Links to Adblock Plus, Bad News, Bot Sentinel, Botometer, BotSlayer, Captain Fact, Certified Content Coalition, Checkology, ClaimBuster, Climate Feedback, CrashCourse Media Literacy Videos, CrossCheck, Digital Polarization Initiative, Dirt Protocol, Disinformation Index, Domain Whitelist, Duke Videofactchecking Tool, Emergent.Info, etc. etc. Great links.
• Fact Checking Is the Core of Nonfiction Writing. Why Do So Many Publishers Refuse to Do It? (Emma Copley Eisenberg, Esquire, 8-26-2020) In "almost all book contracts, it is the writer’s legal responsibility, not the publisher’s, to deliver a factually accurate text....There are some reasons for this, including that authors of books are more typically considered experts on their material, while a journalist writing a single article on a topic may not be held to that same standard. Further, magazines typically own the copyright to all pieces they publish, while a book’s copyright remains with the author. All of this contributes to the sense that the magazine is responsible for the accuracy of the words published in their pages, while for a book, it’s the author." (Authors MUST read this.)
• Fact-Checking Tips for All Types of Editing ( Gerri Berendzen, ACES, 4-29-2020) Whether you’re editing a news story or a textbook or a press release or a church bulletin, the underpinnings of fact-checking are the same — basic verification skills.
• How to Spot Fake News (Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson, FactCheck.org, 11-18-16)
• Key fact-checking sites (Key search links, Writers and Editors)
• Verification sites (Writers and Editors)
• The Fact Checkers Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right by Sarah Harrison Smith
• Verification Handbook: A Definitive Guide to Verifying Digital Content for Emergency Coverage (free to read online)
• Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting (free PDF) A guide to online search and research techniques for using user-generated content (UGC) and open source informaiton in investigations. Licensed under Creative Commons.
• The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking by Brooke Borel
• How to Determine If a Controversial Statement Is Scientifically True (Alan Henry, Lifehacker, 6-20-11)
• How ‘half true’ happens (Justin Peters, Columbia Journalism Review, 8-30-12) Our correspondent sits in as PolitiFact editors rate Nikki Haley's claim
• How to check out hoaxes, rumors, urban legends, chain letters, and scams
• Checking out conspiracy theories
• The global boom in political fact checking (Glenn Kessler, WaPo, 6-13-14)
• How to fact check (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 6-20-16)
• Get Your Facts Right! (Andy Bechtel, Copyediting, 9-15-16)
• Survey Finds Decreasing Attention on the Facts (Copyediting, 6-27-14)
• 6 Tips to Fact-Checking as a Copyeditor (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 4-14-17) Tips gleaned from Brooke Borel's session on "How to Fact Check" at 2017 ACES Conference. Borel is author of The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking
Editors: How to work with a writer/author
“You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you.Everyone can learn from the editorial comments in Jane Friedman's series of guest posts:First Page Critiques
Author Queries
•Author Queries (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 11-14-12) That is, editors' queries to authors.
•Queries: Skilled Negotiation Required (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-5-13)
•The Insert Query Macro (WordsNSync)
•Sample Queries for Topics You’re Clueless About (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 8-6-18) "Frame queries in terms of reader’s needs, not your failing or the writer’s" and other good advice.
•Correct Facts without Insult (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 4-25-16) How not to query.
• Google Books Ngram Viewer (showing preference between two usages over time, in this case "of someone's ability" or "for someone's ability" as in "ability of someone to" or "ability for someone to") H/T Ken Weinberg on Copyediting-L.
• Queries: Skilled Negotiation Required (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-5-13)
• The Insert Query Macro (WordsNSync)
Your relationship with the author
Effective Editing (PDF, transcript of a training exercise for the Fish & Wildlife Service). Instructor Michelle Baker (Corporate Writing Pro) makes excellent points:
--- In a substantive edit "you are looking at the strength of the argument, the organization of the document, and the correctness and completeness of the data." A copy edit is the real, detailed-oriented examination of tone, style, and grammar: "you look at the mechanics, the punctuation, and the wording." Make clear (to yourself and the author) which you are doing.
---"When you’re sitting alone in your office with the manuscript, your spotlight should be on the reader."
---Start with the praise. Structure your praise to the writer as "You" comments so the praise clearly goes to the writer: "You did a great job tackling a really complicated issue."
---Criticism goes to the document: “Section three gave me some trouble. I was confused when I read section three.” “Paragraph five didn’t seem to flow.”
---"If you’ve reviewed a document and you found 25 mistakes, go back through those 25 and try to group them into categories. None of us can process 25 errors."
---Carol Fisher Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor, who has three cardinal rules for editing: "be careful, be transparent, and be flexible."
• The Two Basic Rules of Editing (and the Rookie Mistake) (Allegra Huston on Jane Friedman's blog, 5-21-19) Big-picture editing is a series of judgment calls. But how should those judgment calls be conveyed to the writer? Two rules stand the test of time: (1) Praise. (2) Ask questions. By the author of How to Work with a Writer: The Stuff Nobody Teaches You (It is a book every publishing house should press into the hands of their young editors as they set out on learning a skill that involves such subtlety, empathy, strength and understanding. It will swiftly become an indispensable handbook for editors everywhere." -- Alexandra Pringle, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomsbury Publishing)
• Editors: Tact and Tone: Editing that Makes Authors Want to Cooperate (Pat McNees)
• The writer-editor relationship
• I did a Mixergy interview so bad they didn't even release it // On making sense of our stories (Rob Fitz) Share this with authors whose life story is wandering all over the place. It's about spending the time to understand your own story, to find the thread that connects it all. To assign some sort of coherent meaning to what otherwise appeared to be grab-bag of fuckups and misfortunes.
• Attention Grammar Pedants, the English Language Isn’t Logical (Lynne Murphy, Literary Hub, 4-12-18) Or, Why Hangover Is One Word
• Author Correspondence Checklist (Denise Foster, Fostered Creativity, 2-23-18) 10 things to include in your communications with authors.
• Transmittal Notes (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 6-14-16) What to say in the covering note when you submit your editing work.
Author's voice, finding and keeping
• Three Steps to Protecting the Author's Voice (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 6-25-13)
• How to Preserve Voice (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 5-11-15) "Voice is that quality of writing that makes you recognize the author. It is word choice, rhythm, order of thought, tense, a tendency toward open or closed punctuation. It’s the author’s way of putting words together..."
• Voice in Writing: Developing a Unique Writing Voice (Cris Freese, Writer's Digest, 9-12-13) "... voice and style are two entirely different things."
• 10 Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice (Jeff Goins
• Finding Your Blog’s Unique Voice (Jeff Goins, on ProBlogger, 5-22-11)
Editing Checklists
• One Editor's Editing Process (Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, ELS, Indian Copyeditors Forum, 4-21-16) A different kind of checklist-- the overall process, from an award-winning editor. See also her invaluable page on Editing Tools
• Jacqui Banaszynski’s Literary Forensics: A Diagnostic Tool to Improve Writing (Christina Selby, The Open Notebook, 5-15-18) Enables writers to look at their stories like readers; color-codes the speed bumps, excessive descriptions, etc., allows writers to retain control of their voice. Download print version here.
• Industry Standards Checklist for a Professionally Published Book (Independent Book Publishers Association)
• Editing checklists What to do especially on memoirs, biographies, and personal histories during pre-editing, substantive editing, line editing, copyediting, photo and caption editing, permissions editing, format editing, production editing, and index editing ((Pat McNees, on Writers and Editors blog)
• How to make documents readable in eight steps (Carl Steiren, 8-15-11), drawing on Jim Taylor's seminar on 8-step editing.
• Editing Primer: Editing Your Own Work (Lillie Amman, PDF)
• Checklist for editing captions (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 6-25-14)
• Checklist for editing tables (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 8-14-17)
• Checklist for Editing Figures: Diagrams (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 8-21-17)
• Typographic Checklist (designer Greg Devitt)
• Barbara Dawson Smith's Self-Editing Checklist
• Jeffrey Chapman's Self-Editing checklist
• Jean Weber's sample editing checklist
• Lori Handeland's fiction self-editing checklist
• Editing Fiction by Lee Masterson and Tina Morgan (Fiction Factor)
• Editing processes, including editing and proofreading marks
• Editing checklists (when to do what, broadly and in some detail)
• Common Typographical Errors (the basics, Aeonix Publishing Group)
Automated grammar-checkers and editing software (supplements to human editing)
• Grammarly (automated proofreader and grammar coach
• PerfectIt (0nline consistency checker, Beta)
• Tansa (online proofreading system)
• StyleGuard (AP)
• AP Lingofy (flags errors in spelling, AP style and usage)
• Title Capitalization (automatically capitalizes titles you plug in). In a short test for us, it produced one error: "by-Laws."
Editing academic authors
• Writing for review: Prepping pundits to painlessly publish peer-reviewed papers, Part 1 (Geoffrey Hart, An American Editor, 4-7-21)
• Do Book Editors Do Much Editing? (Rachel Toor, Scholars Talk Writing, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4-30-18) An excellent overview of what editors in academic publishing do and what they like to see in the authors they sign.
• Academic Editing Basics (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 12-5-16) Part of a series on editing academic works, which include articles for academic journals, theses, and monographs.
• Overleaf Overview for Academic Editors (Wes Cowley, Words by Wes A video that may be helpful to people who've been asked to work in Overleaf or who edit LaTeX manuscripts. Volume is low, but you can read the transcript. If
• Academic Editing, Beyond Language (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 12-19-16)
• Editing is at the Heart of Scholarly Publishing (Angela Cochran, Karin Wulf, The Scholarly Kitchen, 4-24-19) Scholars: appreciate all the work the editors do. [But hey, editors: that "is" in the title should be capitalized.]
• Getting Work in Academic Editing (AM, Copyediting, 1-9-17)
• How to Hire & Work With an Academic Copyeditor (Wendy Laura Belcher). In which we learn about "correlation editing," which involves "checking related parts of the manuscript against each other...an extremely important step in academic copyediting and a frequently overlooked one.... Correlation editing includes checking cross-references to pages, tables or charts, maps, captions, endnotes, subheads, as well as checking all citations in the text with those in the references, and all titles and authors with those in the table of contents."
• Editing the Academic Voice (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 1-23-17)
• Scholars Talk Writing (Rachel Toors excellent series for the Chronicle of Higher Educaiton.
Editing Arabic translations to English
Romanized Arabic in English Texts — Part 1: Sources of Variations (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 11-20-17) Mischler discusses discusses various reasons for various Latinized spellings of the same Arabic names and terms: Several Arabic phonemes don’t exist in English, the spelling of phonemes varies across languages, the short vowels are not written in Arabic, and a few Arabic letters are pronounced differently in different dialects.
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts — Part 2: Other Challenges for Editors (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 12-18-17)
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts — Part 3: Spelling the Definite Article (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 1-15-18) The Arabic definite article is usually romanized as al-, but the vowel is sometimes written as e (especially common in Egyptian names) or u. Although it is such a small word — only two letters, alif lam — it often presents problems for writers and editors of English texts. Mischler talks here about whether or when to show assimilation of the Arabic article with the following letter, merging the article, or eliding the vowel.
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts -- Part 4: Omitting, Capitalizing, and Alphabetizing the Definite Article (2-19-18) Dropping the article in names, capitalizing "al" or not, alphabetizing (ignoring the definite article in index: Nahhas, Mustafa al-).
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts — Part 5: Inserting Symbols and Creating Shortcuts (Ælfwine Mischler, 3-26-18)
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts — Part 6: Using AutoCorrect and FRedit for Special Characters (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 4-2-18)
---Romanized Arabic in English Texts--Part 7: Style Guides for Islamic Texts (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 4-16-18)
• Indexing Arabic Names: Some Family Terms (Ælfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 5-21-21) How to index a word that is sometimes mistaken for the definite article, and some family terms that turn up in Arabic names. "The word Āl or Al means “clan” or “dynasty.” It is usually capitalized when transliterated, although authors (and copyeditors) sometimes mistake it for the definite article and lowercase it. Āl is never suppressed in sorting or moved to the end of the name."
• Editing Classical Arabic Texts: It’s Not Just Making Buggy Whips (Library of Arabic Literature, Arablit.org, 7-6-15) This will lead you to more on the subject. Part 5 and Part 6 show how to insert special characters in Word.
"I submit as a law of editorial physics that the author's desire to include a fact in her narrative is directly proportional to the effort she expended to find it out, not to its relevance."
~ Peter Ginna, When journalists become authors: a few cautionary tips
Tools for fact-checking
• Fact-checking sites (a complete rundown, under Great search links (also useful when fact-checking)
• Where to check out hoaxes, urban legends, email scams, and the like (Snopes.com, for example)
• Fact finding and news resources (Writers and Editors)
• Fake news from a few viewpoints
• Dealing with True and Fake Facts (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 10-7-16) How far is an editor expected to go in verifying facts? What (types of) facts do you check?
BOOKS on fact-checking:
• The Fact Checker's Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right by Sarah Harrison Smith
• The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking by Brooke Borel
The art of translation
• Robert Fitzgerald, The Art of Translation No. 1 (Paris Review) Interviewed by Edwin Frank and Andrew McCord
• Robert Fagles, The Art of Translation No. 2 (Paris Review, Summer 1999) Interviewed by Patricia Storace
• William Weaver, The Art of Translation No. 3 (Paris Review, Spring 2002) Interviewed by Willard Spiegelman
• Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Art of Translation No. 4(Paris Review, Summer 2015) Interviewed by Susannah Hunnewell
• Peter Cole, The Art of Translation No. 5 (Paris Review, Winter 1984) Interviewed by Joshua Cohen
• Michael Hofmann, The Art of Translation No. 6 (Paris Review, Fall 2019) Interviewed by Robyn Creswell.
• Margaret Jull Costa, The Art of Translation No. 7 (Paris Review, Summer 2020) Interviewed by Katrina Dodson.
• Translation: How and when to translate news and news graphics (Ashley Wu, Knight Lab, 6-13-16) “While many people will argue until they’re blue in the face that translating is not enough, the absence of news is not better.”
• Trash Talk: On Translating Garbage (Lina Mounzer, Paris Review, 7-8-19) "I find myself consistently in a moral quandary: is my responsibility to the translation or to language itself? This is not an altogether altruistic concern, because beneath it there is the fear that the reader might decide I am the terrible translator and not the author who is a terrible writer."
• The Art Of Translation (Rick Kleffel, All Things Considered, NPR, 11-22-08) Three English translations of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables offer slightly different takes on one character. A good translation needs to be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience.
• The Book That Taught Me What Translation Was (Jhumpa Lahiri, New Yorker, 11-6-21) In its attention to substitution, Domenico Starnone’s “Trust” embodies the joy of moving words from one language to another. An essay drawn from the afterword for Starnone's Trust, which Lahiri translated.
• World Kid Lit Exploring translated children's and YA literature. See also World Kid Lit Month Kicks Off with Virtual Celebration (Pamela Brill, Publishers Weekly, 9-17-2020)
• Building Bridges: The Art of Children's Book Translation (Emma Kantor, PW, 9-17-2020)
• Reyna Grande on Translating Her Own Book Into Spanish (Reyna Grande, Lit Hub, 10-29-19) How an Immigrant Can Lose Touch With Her Mother Tongue. "My editor was afraid I was going to insert mistakes, but I realized that I didn’t want a perfect translation. What I wanted most of all was a book that sounded like me."
• ALTA Guides (Download free PDFs from The American Literary Translators Association) These brochures address specific areas of interest for literary translators at all stages of their careers: The Making of a Literary Translator; Breaking Into Print; Proposal for a Book-Length Translation; Promoting Your Literary Translation; Guide for first-time ALTA Conference attendees; The Literary Translator and the Internet.
• “Translators, Rates, Money, and Unions” (Transcript of Three Percent Podcast no. 91, 4-2-15) Czech translator and PEN Translation Committee cochair Alex Zucker sits down with Three Percent to discuss the business side of international literature in English. They break down pay rates for translators, the funding of small presses, and ways to keep literary translation alive and thriving.
• At the National Book Foundation’s Translation Panel: ‘The Most Diverse Reading Experience’ (Porter Anderson, Publishing Perspectives, 7-12-18) Given a chance to speak to an audience of consumers, translation specialists brought together by the National Book Foundation, spoke about publishing, selling and marketing literature in translation. “Shaking away those distinctions and just saying, ‘Hey, this is a good mystery and this is a good love story,’ and getting those books into people’s hands without ramming it down their throats that these are books in translation?—is okay.”
• Women in Translation (Tumbler) Who We Talk About When We Talk About Translation: Women's Voices
• National Book Awards Add Category Honoring Works In Translation (Colin Dwyer, The Two-Way, NPR, 1-31-18)
• The Globalization of the National Book Awards (Alexandra Alter, NY Times, 1-31-18) 'Starting this year, the National Book Foundation will recognize works in translation, opening up a distinctly American literary award to writers working in other languages. The new category marks a radical departure for awards, which began in 1950 “to celebrate the best of American literature." ...The prize will be given jointly to authors and translators, and will be limited to fiction and nonfiction works by living authors that are published in the United States."
• The Art of Translation (Vladimir Nabokov, New Republic, 8-4-1941) On the sins of translation and the great Russian short story.
• The subtle art of translating foreign fiction (Rachel Cooke, The Guardian, 7-24-16) From Scandinavian crime to Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knausagaard, it’s boom time for foreign fiction in the UK. But the right translation is crucial, says Rachel Cooke, while some of the best translators tell us their secrets.
• The Art of Translation (Sam Tanenhaus, Reading Room, NY Times, 10-29-07)
• The art of translating a book (Maria João Trindade, The Open Mic, 6-24-16) On the process itself.
• The Difficult Art of Translation (Library of Congress, June 2008) Poet Laureate Charles Simic's final talk as poet laureate, in the Montpelier Room at the Library of Congress on May 8, 2008).
• Nicanor Parra, the Alpha-Male Poet (David Ungar, Paris Review, 1-29-18) David Unger remembers a collaboration with Parra that seemed doomed from the start.
• Associations for translators and interpreters, national (U.S.) and international
• Sites for and about translators and interpreters
How much to charge
and how to calculate your rate
as an editor, proofreader, or other publishing professional
"Cost. Quality. Speed. Pick any two."
Whatever you charge, but especially if you charge by the page, be sure to define what a “page" is. The standard page is 250 words or 1,800 characters (not how much you can cram on one sheet of paper)
What an editor charges depends very much on what the local market will bear, but a proofreader will generally charge less than a copyeditor, who will typically charge less than a substantive editor, who will generally charge less than a writer. Book publishers tend to pay on the low side. Technical and marketing copy command higher rates than other copy, for different reasons (the technical writer must be able to make the meaning clear without changing it; the editor of marketing copy must aim for the best "selling" copy, which requires a different kind of flair). Experience and expertise count for a lot, so an editor with a law degree, for example, can expect to be paid more for more editing legal documents. Good judgment, common sense, and a deep and wide enough knowledge either to spot errors or to know when to check things out are important skills in an editor. Tact in editing will help you keep clients returning with more work.
• Common editorial rates (Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), with "typical pace, per page")--scroll down for estimates for various types of editing projects. On the low side for established editors (on the high side for beginners), but provides a sense of relative rate differences between types of work. Based on the industry standard of 250 words per manuscript page. For overview see Code of Fair Practice (EFA).
• Business of Editing: The Quest for Rate Charts (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 4-6-15). "There is nothing more sure than that today someone will ask 'What should I charge [or pay]?' and someone will reply 'Take a look at the EFA rate chart.' I think the publication of this chart is a great disservice to editorial freelancers."
• Freelance Editing Rates (Copyediting)
• Copyediting Jobs: How to Estimate Hours and Pricing (Carol Saller on Jane Friedman's blog, 8-21-19) There’s no end to the fussing you can do, but there’s a limit to what someone will pay you to do it. Chicago Manual of Style contributing editor Carol Saller explains how to determine what your time is worth.
• The Editor-in-Chief of 'Insider' Makes $600,000 (With a $600,000 Bonus) (Tarpley Hitt, Gawker, 3-15-22) A spreadsheet leaked to Gawker listed the salaries of its entire editorial staff.
• Insider is launching a series that demystifies people's salaries, and we need your help ( Chris Weller, Insider, 1-25-22) The goal: to create even more transparency as taboos around pay break down. How: seeking anonymous submissions from people who wish to share their salary history.
• Employees across industries and salary levels reveal how much they've made over their careers (Chris Weller, Insider, 3-30-22)
Social media editor, $70,000 a year.
Marketing director, $125,000 a year
Administrative assistant, $16.50 an hour, etc.
• The Cost Of Editing (E. Prybylski, Thirteen Cents More, 6-3-24) Many authors putting together a book unreasonably expect editing to cost much less than it does--not appreciating the skill good editing requires and how essential good editing is for a professional writing product.
• A Continuing Frustration — The “Going Rate” (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 11-27-17) "...it is time for editors to wise up to the fact that there is no such thing as a “going rate” — there is only what rate someone else is earning/charging and usually that rate is an arbitrary one, essentially grabbed from air and not supported by a solid informational foundation. With a new year arriving soon, it is time to become more of a businessperson and focus more on the business aspects of being independent editors."
• Sticking to Your “Rate Principles” … Essential, but Not Always Easy (Elaine R. Firestone, An American Editor, 2-20-19)
• Folio's Five-Year Editorial Salary (infographic for 2008-2012, for top three editorial management levels, at consumer magazines, business-to-business magazines, and association magazines)
• Medievalist or Futurist? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 9-18-13). An excellent essay on the shift away from the (good old) "medievalist" days when editing was done mostly locally, mostly on paper, and editing was viewed more as a craft than a business, the primary concern being the quality of the work. The "Medievalist says editing is a business, but really means it is a craft and she is an artisan, not a business person," writes Adin. By contrast, the "Futurist's" view of editing is developing at a time when it is not unusual for the editor to be hired by a third-party, the packager who has won the contract to provide editorial and production services, and who has to use a hybrid system: offshore for the production component, onshore for the editorial component." With contracts won by low bids, the editor ends up with lower pay than ever and has to master efficiencies of editing. As the trend toward outsourcing continues, editors have to think more like businesses. Adin's conclusion: "We need to remember and enforce with our clients that of the three key editing virtues — low price, fast speed, high quality — they can have any two, but not all three. We need to remember ourselves that, on any given project, we can only provide two of the three."
• Quoting for the customer – ballpark prices and the editorial freelancer: Part 1 (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour, 7-5-16) She's testing an instant fee quotation service to see if it leads to more clients--and to avoid spending time with clients who won't be able to afford her; she quotes others advising to stop wasting time on estimates. "Because I ask the customer to text me with a short description, a deadline and a word count, and because my ballpark spreadsheet and the formulae therein reflect these variances, I am able to respond quickly with estimates that I have confidence in." She discusses the variances that can slow a proofreading project down. In Part 2 she examines valid concerns: the time it takes to give advice, the fact that you might be shutting the door to negotiations and the chance to prove your value and explain your process. She also talks about the types of proofreading projects it might work for. With a ballpark estimate, "you made no effort to tell the client, through testimonials, through photographs, through stories, about your firm. How it operates. What makes it different. How delighted past customers have been with your work. How you have many repeat clients who will never work with another contractor as long as you are in business." ’Two pieces worth reading, for proofreaders (whose work is more straightforward than an editor's).
• Ballpark Quoting for Copyediting (Rich Adin, On Ethics, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 6-8-16). Adin, whose projects are long and complex, argues that Louise Harnby's approach to ballpark quoting might be applicable to some types of proofreading but not at all to editing, where you need to see the kind of material you'll be working with before you estimate a fee.
• On Ethics: The Ethics of Ballpark Quoting — A Rebuttal (Louise Harnby, An American Editor, 6-20-16) Clearly,, there is disagreement on this topic, but Louise's post is persuasive to me--for proofreading in particular.
• Business of Editing: What to Charge (Part I) (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-513). "Effective hourly rate, or EHR, explained." See also Part II, why to define a ms. page, why to charge by page or project rather than hour; Part III (tracking the EHR); Part IV (further explanation of the EHR); and Part V (why bother?)
• Keys to a Project Quote (I) (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 9-16-15) on the required Effective Hourly Rate (rEHR), the churn rate, and calculating words to a page. And Keys to a Project Quote (II) (9-21-15 -- how the style guide used can slow you down, if the client's schedule matches your rEHR and time available, calculating the time required, and never going below your rEHR (required time to edit a particular ms.).
• How Many Pages an Hour Do You Edit? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 4-13-16) That rate is meaningless without knowing if for a particular project it's developmental editing or copyediting, how many passes you will do, whether it includes coding or styling or fact-checking, whether references are included (and do you format or verify them) , what constitutes a "page," what kind of ms it is, how well written it is, what the client expects, how well you edit, and so on.
• The Standard Editing Workday & Workweek (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 3-16-16) Adin defines his standard workday and workweek, and everything that exceeds that calls for additional compensation. Yours may differ, but read about his and calculate accordingly. Clients can be "made aware that there needs to be a balance between schedule, fee, and quality."
• Salary Calculator (Robert Half, The Creative Group, "Moolah Palooza"). (Through which in Dec. 2014 I learned that the salary range for an experienced copyeditor for Bethesda, MD, is $71,280 - $98,340.)
• 8 Reasons Why Editors Are Underpaid (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, Part I, 4-20-16). With the rest of the reasons in Part II, 4-27-16).
• Going, Going, Gone (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 6-3-15) "...ease of entry into the profession ... has led to a significant increase in the number of minimally qualified editors who are willing to work for ever lower amounts....How do we determine in advance that editor A will catch all misspellings but not all cliches whereas editor B may catch fewer misspellings but has the ability to turn uninspired prose into memorable prose consistently?" The people who are hiring editors aren't necessarily able to evaluate quality -- or don't care.
• The Business of Editing: Best Price “Bids (An American Editor blog, 10-10-12). Invaluable tips for when you are one of many submitting a bid. Questions to ask, factors to consider, when not to bid, and why and when not to lower your bid.
• Academic Copyediting Rates: or, What to Expect When Hiring a Copyeditor (Wendy Belcher, Academic Copyediting, 10-30-11)
• Business of Editing: Lower Your Rate? (Rich Adin, American Editor, 7-1-13). See also Adin's Discounting Rates.
• Freelance Editors, Stop Discounting Your Rates (Erin Brenner, Right Touch Editing, 3-21-19) Don't discount a project because it’s not exactly one thing or another. No two projects are the same, and many projects do not align perfectly with the type of editing that’s being asked for. determine what level of editing the project mostly or best fits, and then charge that rate.
• Being Cheap Isn’t Always the Best Choice (Rich Adin, The Digital Reader, 6-11-12)
• Thinking About Money: What Freelancers Need to Understand -- How to calculate your workday effective hourly rate (EHR) (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 10-6-10) Also from Rich Adin's Business of Editing, a series on how much to charge:
--- What Freelancers Need to Understand (American Editor, 10-6-10, an early piece on the "effective hourly rate," or EHR)
---What to charge (part I)
---Part II: Is that enough?,
---Part iii: Tracking the EHR
---What to Charge, Part IV (how to calculate the actual hourly rate, 8-14-13)
---What to Charge, Part V: Why Bother? "Tracking one’s effective hourly rate (EHR) is a way to determine the health of one’s business. It is also an alert system to tell us if and when we need to make adjustments in how we operate our business."
--- To Post or Not to Post Your Fee Schedule?
• Six-Figure Freelancer: How to Find, Price, and Manage Corporate Writing Assignments (Paul Lima, Kindle edition) Focuses on writing for corporate markets (including businesses, associations, government agencies, non-profits and other organizations).
• How to Charge: By the Project, by the Hour, or by the Word or Page? (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 1-24-11)
• How Much Should I Charge? (Writers and Editors, Pricing Strategies, How to Set Rates and Fees, and Other Survival Basics---trends and rates for many types of work, in various fields)
• The Business of Editing: Light, Medium, or Heavy? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 9-24-12)
• Guidelines for setting fees (EFA)
• Rate Survey (Bay Area Editors' Forum, 2005)
• Average Salaries for Writers and Editors (PoeWar 8-29-14)
• What can a writer or editor expect? Proofreader? Designer? Ghostwriter? Copywriter? Resume writer? (on setting fees for various types of creative work, Writers & Editors, Freelancing)
An important factor in estimating a fee for a project is your productivity rate (how long it will take you to edit something, typically in pages per hour). These may be helpful:
• Productivity Rates in Editing (Adrienne Montgomerie, Catchthesun.net)
• Kinds of editors/editing and levels of edit (Writers and Editors blog)
• Benchmarks for Estimating Editing Speed by David W. McClintock (originally published in Corrigo: Newsletter of the STC's Technical Editing SIG (June 2002), pp. 1, 3.
On the subject of money and jobs--and foreign competition:
• Fury rises at Disney over use of foreign workers (Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld, 4-29-15) A restructuring and H-1B use affect the Magic Kingdom’s IT operations. This is a follow-up to this blog post: Remarkable Congressional Briefing on H-1B (Norman Matloff, "computer science professor at the University of California at Davis and a longtime critic of the H-1B program," Upon Closer Inspection blog, 4-14-15). Lobbyists admit (but not to the press) that H-1B displaces some Americans from STEM jobs.
Errors and error rates in editing
• Why did the editor miss errors in your book? (Lisa Poisso, Fiction Editor, 3-11-16) Why "errors" crop up even in professionally edited material.
• The funny, the weird and the serious: 33 media corrections from 2018 (Alexios Mantzarlis, Poynter, 12-18-18) He said, "I've been to their homes where they're sitting shiva," not "where they sit and shiver."
• Error Rates in Editing (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 8-7-13)
• Error Rates in Editing: What’s Your Save Percentage? (podcast, Adrienne Montgomerie) Editors catch roughly 95% of errors, which is why you want "fresh eyes" -- a different person doing the proofreading.
• Relationships & the Unwritten Rules (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 7-22-13) The author-editor relationship is a partnership and the editor’s responsibilities are limited by the parameters imposed, ultimately, by the author.
• There’s a mistake in my copy! (Anonymous, Copyediting)
A .950 save percentage is about the best any individual editor could ever hope for. Perfection is not the realm of humans.
• When Lives Depend on the Words (Anonymous, Copyediting, 8-11-14) The best “save percentage” we can expect from any editor is 95%. Ways to reduce your risk: accept it, assume it, assign it. (Read the explanation.)
• How many errors trigger a reprint? (Copyediting). And somewhat fuller podcast version (Adrienne Montgomerie)
• When It’s All Your Fault: How to Own Up to a Mistake and Break Bad News to a Client (Molly McCowan, Copyediting, 1-17-17) Step 1: Develop a solution before talking with them.
• CBS Should Have Been More Ready to Fix Its Mistake (Anonymous, Copyediting, 11-13-13) When the veracity of Dylan Davies's claims came to light, CBS News didn’t immediately pledge to take another look. And critics say 60 Minutes needs to do a better job explaining how it could have gotten it so wrong.
• Editor Sins, an anonymous confession Tumblr (Copyediting, 11-13-13)
• Editors Canada has six regional branches. Blog: West Coast Editor (for Editors British Columbia) Early 2016, note: rebranded itself as Editors Canada; was Editors' Association of Canada (EAC). Particularly recommended: Professional Editorial Standards. (Downloadable PdF at http://www.editors.ca/files/public/PES-2009-FINAL.pdf.
• Editors' Association of Earth (EAE) (active, chatty Facebook page created by Toronto copyeditor Greg Ioannou, 10,000 members). and Editors' Backroom ( (a members-only Facebook page, where editors can compare tips, tools, techniques, knowledge, information, and experiences4000+ members) Stet happens!. See also How to find EAE Affiliated and Recommended Groups (YouTube)
• Editors Guild (formerly the Northwest Independent Editors Guild), which every other year hosts a Red Pencil conference just north of Seattle, "the largest regular editing conference on the West Coast."
• Editors who tweet (Erin Brenner's list)
• Electric Editors (Internet community for editors, proofreaders, indexers, translators and publishers, with excellent links to resources, such as Resources for translating and interpreting
• European Association of Science Editors (EASE), which has excellent links to further resources likely to be useful to editors
• European Medical Writers Association (EMWA)
• Fiction Editors of Earth (a closed Facebook group)
• Fraternity Communications Association (formerly the College Fraternity Editors Association)
• Freelance (discussion list for publishing industry freelancers, moderated by Chuck Brandstater, available as e-mail only or as archives)
• FreelanceWritersEditors (forum for published professional freelance editors, mostly, and writers, moderated by Ruth Thaler-Carter, a breakoff group from Freelance)
• Grammarly (delightful facebook page with slogans such as "We are going to learn to cut and paste kids. Commas matter.")
• Help Authoring Tools and Techniques listserv (HATT) (a Yahoo group, with frequent Yahoo ads)
• InDesign Talk (discussion listserv about the Adobe page layout product)
• Indexers' humor (site hosted by Leverage Technologies, which sells Cindex indexing software)
• Indexing Society of Canada (Société canadienne d'indexation). Resources include links to indexing discussion groups.
• Indian Copyeditors Forum (ICF) An informal Facebook group.
• Indigenous Editors Association formed as a mutual support network by Indigenous editors and publishing professionals in lands claimed by Canada (located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Stz’uminus, and šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam) Peoples).
• Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) (Australia)
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) (for professionals in corporate communications, marketing, and public relations)
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), publishes Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals. See the the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest to generate a disclosure statement for your manuscript.
• The International Publication Planning Association (TIPPA)
• International Society for Medical Publication Professional (pronounced IzMap--not-for-profit organization founded by medical publication professionals for medical publication professionals)
• International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), training and networking for editorial office staff in academic, scientific, medical, technical and professional publishing
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) (IRE serves those doing investigative journalism)
• Mediterranean Editors & Translators (MET) (English-language editors & translators for the Mediterranean area)
• Motion Pictures Editors Guild (MPEG) (an entertainment labor union representing picture, sound, music, assistant, animation, technical directors, librarian and apprentice motion picture editors)
• MPA, The Association of Magazine Media (formerly Magazine Publishers of America)
• The National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) (not a nonprofit organization, so far as I can tell)
• National Association of Science Writers (NASW)
• National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS)
• Organizations for corporate, government, and technical communicators
• Professional Editors' Group (PEG), professional copy-editors, proofreaders, and other practitioners in South Africa
• Professional Editors Network (PEN) (editors, writers, proofreaders, indexers, book layout specialists, and allied professionals in Twin Cities area)
• Publishing Professionals Network (PPN), formerly Bookbuilders West, with jobs bank and links to other publishing industry resources and organizations)
• ReligionWriters (free tools and tips for writing about religion with balance, accuracy and insight, a free resource of the Religion Newswriters Association, or RNA)
• San Diego Professional Editors Network (SD/PEN)
• Scholarly Editing Forum (SEDIT-L), discussion list for documentary editors (including members of Association for Documentary Editing). Click on "join or leave this list," to join.
• Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) (for publishers, printers, e-products developers, technical service providers, librarians, and editors in scholarly publishing)
• Society for Features Journalism (SFJ) (appears to new version of American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, or AASFE)
• Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature (SPELL, with members from many professions and walks of life)
• Society for Technical Communication (STC), which has a Technical Editing SIG (special interest group). For editors involved in producing instructional manuals, online help, multimedia, training resources, and other forms of technical communication.
• Society of American Archivists (SAA), whose many resources include Richard Pearce-Moses's Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology and Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research (by Laura Schmidt)
• Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc., Australia
• Society of English-language Professionals in the Netherlands (SENSE). Download its digital magazine, eSense, free.
• Society of Indexers ( (British and Irish)
• Society of Quality Assurance (SQA, providing quality in the regulated research community--scientific journal articles and reports)
• Society of Writers, Editors & Translators (SWET, Tokyo-based society of writers, editors, and other English-language publishing professionals in Japan). Publishers of Japan Style Sheet: The SWET Guide for Writers, Editors, and Translators, most useful perhaps for translators
• Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
• TECHWR-L (Internet-based group for technical communicators)
• Testy Copy Editors (Phillip Blanchard's discussion group for newspaper copy editors)
• Textbook Publishing Professionals (LinkedIn group)
• 26 (UK writers, editors, language specialists, designers and anyone with a love of language)
• Western New England Editorial Freelancers' Network
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), a global nonprofit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals).
For and about translators and interpreters
See also
Translation, Grants and awards for
Translation rights for books
Translation, The art of
Translators and interpreters, associations for
Interpreters translate spoken language, from one language to another (which may include sign language). Translators do the same with written material.
What is TESOL? Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. It's a way of avoiding the terms "second language" and "foreign language," as in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) or Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). (Noted on an editors' listserv)
• A Model Contract for Literary Translations (PEN America)
• Literary Translation Model Contract (Authors Guild)
• Negotiating Literary Translation Contracts: Tips from the Authors Guild (Webinar featuring Umair Kazi, Julia Sanches, and Alex Zucker, discussing how to use the model contract to negotiate higher fees and royalties, ensure proper credit, retain your rights for sublicenses, and more. Members can click through to the Authors Guild's model contract.
• Negotiating Contracts: A Translator’s Checklist (PEN) Translators from the PEN America Translation Committee, the Translators Association (UK), and the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada present a checklist to help you use their model contracts to get the best terms you can get.
• So, you want to be a literary translator? (New Books in German) Alyson Coombes answers some questions that aspiring literary translators often pose.
• New Authors Guild Survey Examines State of Literary Translators’ Working Conditions (AG press release, 11-16-23) "Nearly 300 people responded to the survey. (The number of literary translators in the United States is likely much higher; ALTA currently counts almost 900 members.)" Efforts have been made to improve translator rights and visibility, but most literary translators aren't going to make a lot of money.
• How Literary Translation Can Shift the Tides of Power (Jen Wei Ting, Electric Literature, 11-12-19) "Translation holds a particular and peculiar power. It is how we come to understand the world outside our own; that is, the world that exists outside of our own language. ... But as Western imperialism swept over much of Asia and the Chinese tide receded, translation took on a new urgency. Translation was the primary means for the subjugated to understand a new, Western-defined and often disturbing modernity: a means for the powerless to understand those in power."
• Translation FAQs (PEN America)
• The New Handbook for Literary Translators (PEN, on SoundCloud) A panel discusses the second edition of "The Handbook for the Literary Translators," prepared by the translation committee of the PEN American center. Panelists discuss the current status of literary translation, working conditions of translators and their rights in the publishing industry. Panelists include Rika Lesser, Leon Friedman, Edith Grossman, and Keith Goldsmith. The link to the handbook itself eludes me at the moment, but listen to this discussion (2017).
• Translation rights for books
• London Book Fair 2023: Some Advice for Literary Translators (Samantha Schnee, PW, 4-20-23) Though working conditions have improved, today’s translator is almost certain to perform multiple roles far beyond the old-fashioned job of rendering a work into another language. These include scouting, agenting, publicizing, and even setting up events.
• Man vs Machine Translation Contest ( Richard Brooks, The Language Blog, K International, 2-18-17) Man versus machine, the translation industry’s version of the famous contest between John Henry and the steam-powered hammer. One was faster and one did a better job. Guess who won? See Human translators rout AI in much-hyped translation event (Korea Times, 2-21-17) Human professionals produce more accurate translations but "AI-based programs will surely overwhelm their human counterparts in speed."
• Bread Loaf Translators Conference (June, Ripton, Vermont) Designed for both emerging and established translators, this conference features translation workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as lectures, craft classes, meetings with editors and agents, and readings by faculty and guests.
• For and about translators and translations
• Translators: What Are Their Rights & How Are They Paid? (Molly Ashby, 2 Seas Agency) One of their former interns, a French-to-English translator, takes a closer look at translators’ rights in Europe and the way they are paid in four different language territories. "It may surprise you to hear that translators have exactly the same rights over their work as authors. The Berne Convention, signed by 164 countries, defines translations as 'original works' to be protected as such. Translators are authors of their translations just like other writers, which means they are entitled to copyright and royalties. But these rights do not always make it into the literary translator's contracts and payment, which vary hugely."
• Machine Translation: The Ultimate Guide (Alicja Brady, The Language Blog, K International, 2-17-21) Machine translation, MT, is the part of computational linguistics that uses software to translate text or speech from one language to another. Its in a constant state of change and can be confusing, full of jargon and people trying to sell you their solution. Here's a guide to it.
• How to Use Machine Translation (Gemma Brackenbury, The Language Blog, K International, 1-19-21) 5 tips on how to use machine translation (MT).
• Conversations with translators: Sarah Ardizzone (Ann Morgan, A Year of Reading the World, 9-10-21)
• PEN translation prizes and grants .
• Dispute Erupts Over Translation Rights to New Nobel Laureate (Raphael Minder, NY Times, 12-9-2020) For 14 years, one publisher released Louise Glück’s poetry in Spanish. Then she won the Nobel Prize, and her agent made a change.
• White translator removed from Amanda Gorman poem, amid controversy in Europe (Miriam Berger, WaPo, 3-11-21) A Catalan translator has been removed from a job translating the poem by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman that she presented at President Biden’s inauguration because, as a White man, he did not fit the “profile,” AFP reported. CNN and other pubs also jumped on this story.
• On Translationese (Masatsugu Ono, Paris Review, 6-23-2020) Critics have stamped the works of both Haruki Murakami and Kenzaburo Oe with the label “translationese.” What does this mean?
• 2017 Authors Guild Survey of Literary Translators’ Working Conditions: A Summary (2017, download PDF, summary of survey results). See also A Glimpse into the World of U.S. Literary Translators (Authors Guild, 12-15-17) "The survey, conducted in collaboration with the American Literary Translators Association, the American Translators Association’s Literary Division, and the PEN America Translation Committee, collected information from 205 translators on payment, royalties, copyright, and various other aspects of the literary translation profession." In Oct. 2019 "The Authors Guild is delighted to announce the formation of a Translators Group within the Authors Guild, headed by Council member and translator Julia Sanches. The goal of the Translators Group will be to support the work of the Authors Guild, with a focus on translators' rights and visibility." Sign up here.
• ProZ.com (a membership-based website, community, and forum for freelance translators)
• PEN/Heim Translation Fund (PEN America)
• PEN Translates (English PEN) PEN Translates was launched in 2012, with support from Arts Council England, to encourage UK publishers to acquire more books from other languages. "The award helps UK publishers to meet the costs of translating new works into English – whilst ensuring translators are acknowledged and paid properly for their work. PEN Translates will fund up to 75% of translation costs for selected projects. When a publisher’s annual turnover is less than £500,000 we will consider supporting up to 100% of translation costs. PEN Translates is open to works from all languages, and it is not essential for publishers to have acquired the rights at the time of application. The submitted project may be a work of fiction (including children's literature), non-fiction, poetry, prose or plays (for print edition), but not a magazine."
• Journals Seeking Work in Translation (PEN America)
• Life Cycle of a Book in Translation (Publishing Trendsetter) Excellent downloadable infographic.
• How to Review Translations (Word Without Borders, a number of posts by critics and translators)
• Collected wisdom: how to write a good reader’s report (Emma Rault, Translators, New Books in German, 4-20-21) "Reader’s reports play an important role in the publication of translations. Editors use them to find out more about new books that they can’t read in the source language. For translators, writing reader’s reports is a good way to build relationships with publishers and—hopefully—make a case for brilliant new books that deserve to find a wide readership. For New Books in German, Emma Rault talked to some industry veterans about their expectations, preferences and pet peeves."
• Translators Aloud (YouTube Channel) A place for translators to read their own work; a positive space for sharing great literature, read aloud by the translators themselves.’ (H/T: For Translators, New Books in German
• Recommended Readings on Translation (PEN America
• eVoice, The Interpreters Division Blog (Interpreters Division of the American Translators Association)
• Translation of poetry and literature (Poets & Writers)
• Grants and awards for translation (Writers and Editors)
• Awards for translation (Poets & Writers)
• ALTA Awards (American Literary Translators Association)
• The Savvy Newcomer. American Translators Association's blog, with tips and resources for newbies to translation and interpreting. Excellent links to resources.
• ATA Computerized Exam Online Resource List (American Translators Association)
• Translation Certification Study Resources (Gaucha Translations)
• The Tool Box Journal (monthly journal for people in the translation industry who want to get more out of their computers)
• For non-linguists, the process of buying translation and interpreting services can often be difficult to negotiate. This section on the Institute of Translation & Interpreting website aims to help you find your way. See especially Step 3: How much will it cost?
• What is a certified translation? (American Translators Association)
• What is certified translation and when do you need to use it? (Ofer Tirosh, Tomedes, 1-25-17) See also How to Become a Certified Translator the USA, the UK and Australia.
• Can a Translation Be a Masterpiece, Too? (Tim Parks, NY Review of Books, 1-21-19)
• Style Guide for Spanish Writing (Helen Eby)
• Recursos
• Cuatro Mosqueteras (a group of Spanish copy editors and writers with standards for Spanish, formed after the November 2015 American Translators Association conference, writes Helen Eby)
• Selection from 'The Odyssey' (the first English-language translation published by a woman, translator Emily Wilson, in Paris Review)
• Association des Traducteurs Littéraires de France (Literary Translators Association of France)
• The art of translation (a separate section)
• Useful links for language service providers
• Translating the Classics: An Interview with Lydia Davis (Ilan Stavans and Regina Galasso, Words without Borders, Dispatches blog, 6-22-16)
• Ann Goldstein: A Star Italian Translator (Jennifer Maloney, WSJ, 1-20-16) A New Yorker editor, who translated works by Elena Ferrante, Jhumpa Lahiri and Primo Levi, has become a rare celebrity among translators.
• How to choose an English editor, translator or similar service provider (Mediterranean Editors & Translators)
• In Translation: An Interview with Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky (David Auerbach, Words Without Borders), about their book In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means
• On Being Translated Back to Myself (Boris Fishman, NY Times, 1-13-17) "To have one’s novel translated — on one hand, an honor. On the other — you might as well be trying to have sex using another person’s body."
• Interpreters and Translators Among Most In-Demand & High-Paying Jobs of 2014 (Melissa Castellanos, Latin Post 1-10-14).
• Working as a Translator or Interpreter (Diana Middleton, Wall Street Journal, 12-8-09)
• ALTAlk, blog of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)
• ATA Style Guide for Translation Exams (Into-English Grading Standards) (PDF)
• Translation: Getting It Right (a client education booklet about buying translation services, from the American Translators Association)
• "Trust me. I'm certified." (PDF, Limited English Proficiency, LEP.gov, a federal interagency website). What does it mean to be certified? "Certification documentation should indicate: the certifying or assessment body (e.g., NCSC, ATA, NAJIT, ILR), any subject area expertise (e.g., medical, conference, or court/legal), the proficiency level (e.g., master, novice, or a number score indicating proficiency), and the specific language combination(s) assessed by translation testing
and the direction of translation permitted (e.g., Spanish to English, English to Spanish.")
• Interpreting: Getting it Right (ATA's client education booklet about buying interpreting services)
• Translation: Buying a non-commodity (ATA) How translation standards can help buyers & sellers
• Translation and interpreting services agreements (ATA)
• Translation Workflow (Paula Gordon, dba Plan B blog 9-21-14)
• Due diligence links (Paula Gordon, Plan B) "Resources for freelancers vetting potential clients. Do this before you accept the job!" A very helpful page. See also her Top Ten Translation & Language-Related Links. There's much more on her website. Look around.
• Me Translate Funny One Day (Jascha Hoffman, NY Times Sunday Book Review, 10-19-12, on the challenges of translating humor)
• Google Translate (for a quick and machine-like interpretation, if nothing else is available). But see this: Online Translators: Google Translate vs. Babelfish (Learn.org). Compares a genuine translation with two "online" translators, which totally garble the meaning of a literary passage.
• How to Use Google Translate for Business and International Relations
Associations for Translators and Interpreters, National (U.S.) and InternationalSee alsoTranslation, Grants and awards for Translation rights for books Translation, The art of Translators and interpreters, for and about than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty.” — Edith Hamilton • American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) • Aquarius.net (online marketplace for translation and localization projects--for translators, interpreters, subtitlers, multilingual copywriters, localization engineers, and multilingual DPT specialists) • American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA) • American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA) (to further the study of translation studies) • American Translators Association (ATA) "The Voice of Interpreters and Translators." Blog: The Savvy Newcomer (for newbies to translation and interpreting). Info on ATA certification. • Translation Certification Study Resources (Gaucha Translations) • ATA Computerized Exam Online Resource List (including resources permitted for use during exam) • Association of Audio-Visual Translators (avtranslators.org) (subtitlers, dubbers, and adaptors), with Nordic member organizations • British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) • Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council (CTTIC), formerly Society of Translators and Interpreters of Canada (STIC). See paragraph on What is a terminologist? • Certified Medical Interpreters. See Certified Medical Interpreter Candidate Handbook. • Critical Link International (nonprofit advancing community interpreting in the social, legal and health care sector • Emerging Literary Translators’ Network in America (ELTNA, support for beginning and early-career literary translators) • European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) (organized to support the exchange of information and to promote professional standards in the training and practice of screen translation) • European Council of Literary Translators' Associations (CEATL, or Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires -- supports information exchange, best practices, and good translation) • European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association (EULITA) • European Society for Translation Studies • Federal Court Interpreters facilitates access to interpreters for court through National Court Interpreter Database (NCID) Gateway • International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS) (a worldwide forum designed to enable scholars from different regional and disciplinary backgrounds to debate issues pertinent to translation and other forms of intercultural communication. • International Association of Conference Translators (AITC: Asociación Internacional de Traductores de Conferencias, Association internationale des traducteurs de conférence). Founded in 1962 to "standardize the working conditions and terms of employment of short-term language staff employed by international organizations, particularly those belonging to the United Nations system." • International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI), based in Argentina • International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA) • Japan Association of Translators (JAT) • Language Alliance Remote Translator Interpreter Jobs, +1-303-470-9555 • Language Services, U.S. Department of State (where to go to become or find a contract interpreter or translator for the State Department) • Mediterranean Editors & Translators (MET), a forum for translators and editors who work mainly into or with English • National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) (promotes quality services in the field of legal interpreting and translating). See Training Programs for Court and Legal Interpreters and Translators, including American Sign Language resources. See also NAJIT definitions of the roles of Translators, Interpreters, Transcriber-Translators and Terminologists). • National Capital Area Translators Association (NCATA) • National Center for State Courts (NCSC), provides state certification for professional court interpreters • National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers (NCIEC) (Still up, but its federal funding ended in 2016). NCIEC's funding for the Deaf Interpreter Institute has also run out. • National Council on Interpreting in Health Care • PEN AMERICA directory of translators. A listing of PEN Members working as translators in more than 25 different languages. • Proz (online community and workplace for language professionals--over 300,000 professional translators and translation companies) • Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) (advancing the profession of interpretation) • Translators and Interpreters Guild (TTIG) (a union seeking better compensation and respect for translators and interpreters) • TranslatorsBase (post a project and get free quotes from translators) • TranslatorsCafé.com (where linguists and their clients meet--translators and translator agencies) • World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) Following is a site that looks like it might be useful, but I don't know if it's legitimate (let me know, if you know: Is this a helpful way to find translators or for translators to find work?): TranslationDirectory • Translators Without Borders (nonprofit offering language and translation support for humanitarian and development agencies and other nonprofit organizations) There are also a number of local organizations and organizations of court interpreters and recorders--and, of course, many organizations in other parts of the world. • UK Translators (Society of Authors)
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Macro tools and editing software
for editors and proofreaders
Editor's Toolkit Plus, Lyonizing Word, Macro Cookbook, FileCleaner, PerfectIt, TextSTAT, etc.
Macros are simple programs that allow you, with one or two keystrokes, to automate tedious search-and-replace tasks and other mind-numbing copyediting chores. They let the computer do the boring tasks while you focus on the content. Free trials are available for most of these tools. (Be aware that any reference list prepared with ChatGPT/Artificial Intelligence may contain false entries. But AI is different from these macros, which automate tasks but do not make things up.)
• Artificial Intelligence: What the Future Holds for Multilingual Authors and Editing Professionals
(Felix Sebastian and Rachel Baron, Science Editor, Council of Science Editors, 4-1-24) Over the 6-month period between two surveys, the percentage of respondents who had used AI-based tools for writing research manuscripts at least once increased substantially from 29% to 41%, with the corresponding percentage for editing research manuscripts increasing from 32% to 43%. These statistics are supported by respondents’ open-ended comments, with one stating, “In my research field, I’ve found that AI is helpful for English grammar, choosing appropriate words, sentence expression, etc.”
Some authors find that while AI can produce near-perfect text in terms of grammar and spelling, it can actually increase the overall workload because of the additional need for fact checking and verification.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents urged disclosure for writing, while only half considered disclosures necessary for editing. Clearly, authors see writing and editing as distinct contributions to the publishing process, probably because writing is more closely associated with “original ideas” than editing.
Authors appear to see the use of AI as akin to that of other software and tools used in research and publishing:
“AI tools are just tools, similar to word processors and Google Scholar that authors are using extensively.”
“It is here to stay. We need to embrace and find ways for it to be universally accepted in both the teaching and research fields. It is a very powerful tool but only that!”
• Macros: What are they and how do you use them? (Amy Schneider, Aces, 7-31-18) "Macros save you time and energy by automatically performing repetitive tasks, leaving your brain free to do actual substantive editing. Rather than reinventing the wheel every time, you can record the steps for a task. Next time, just use the keyboard shortcut you set, or click a button, and the macro runs for you."
---20-Minute Macro Course
---Introduction to macros for editors (YouTube, 14 minutes long). Paul Beverley shows us what macros are and how you use them.
---Paul Beverley's complete macro list, with programming copy.
---The Only Thing We Have to Fear: Wildcard Macros (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 5-15-13) Adin explains the principles of macros, for if you want to create them yourself using Microsoft Word. Listed below are some already created macros or sets of macros.
---Creating AutoCorrect entries: a description of the thought process, and many examples (Geoffrey Hart, An American Editor, 2-21-22) A high-level overview of how automatic text works, by the author of Write Faster With Your Word Processor and Effective Onscreen Editing: new tools for an old profession.
• My first macro (Part 1) (YouTube video, Macros for Editors, 2-12-17) How to load up your first couple of macros. And Part 2 on how to run macros (YouTube Video, 2-12-17)
• Troubleshooting Word Macros (PCMag Staff, 8-13-08) Simple fixes for misbehaving macros.
• PerfectIt (www.intelligentediting.com) (proofreading software for professionals). Read about PerfectIt's features and compare standard and pro editions . Helps you get through some tedious chores quickly, including consistency checks for hyphens, cap and number style, and use of abbreviations. Read Adrienne Montgomerie's review: PerfectIt 3: Quality Software for the Experienced Editor. ("That it finds single instances of inconsistency separated by 300 pages (e.g., breast-feeding and breastfeeding) has always had me singing its praises. Its ability to check for punctuation style stuns me.")
• PerfectIt Now Offers Long-awaited Mac Version — 11 Questions Editors are Asking about PerfectIt Cloud (Daniel Heuman, An American Editor, 7-2-18)
• Getting More from PerfectIt: Style Sheets (Daniel Heuman, An AmericanEditor, 4-14-14)
• How to edit for consistency and style with PerfectIt (The Editing Podcast, 7-15-19) Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby talk shop with Daniel Heuman, founder of Intelligent Editing and developer of PerfectIt – consistency-checking and style-enforcing software for editors and writer.
• Computer Tools for Editors (Paul Beverley, UK) Free book (600+ pages), which you can download: http://www.archivepub.co.uk/book.html. It contains over 450 macros that will help with a range of different tasks around writing and editing using Microsoft Word. (With FREDIT, for example, you can fix accents in Spanish.) You can also download a list of all the macros by clicking on link for the Word file under Beginners start here.
Free book: 'Macros for Editors' http://www.archivepub.co.uk/TheBook
Free instructional videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6J6ZPMJQ0T5eMIcX3tKh2g
• How to Add a Macro to Word (C.K. MacLeod, Tech Tools for Writers) See her Most popular writing tech posts for 2015
• EditTools (www.wordsnsync.com). Rich Adin's piece about EditTools versions 5.9 and 6 discusses a tool that allows you to temporarily remove all the formatting, work with the file, then reinstate the formatting in minutes.
• Editor's Toolkit Plus--The Editorium (tips, macros, add-ins, and utilities for editors editing online using Microsoft Word).
• Editing Tools (Tech Tools for Writers)
---How to Use Editing Tools (C.K. MacLeod and Carla Douglas, 6-17-15)
---Consistency Checker
---Hemingway, a proofreading tool.
---PerfectIt Pro
---Editors ToolKit Plus Editorium, for Word. Includes Editor's ToolKit, FileCleaner, QuarkConverter, and NoteStripper, all in one integrated program.
---How to Make Word Behave Like Scrivener Scrivener’s Binder or Word’s Navigation Pane for rearranging sections of text
---Using Split Screen for Editing (C.K. McLeod)
---Retrieving a Backup File in Scrivener (C.K.McLeod)
• Using proofreading macros: Highlighting confusables with CompareWordList (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour, 1-24-16) Be sure to read the comments, with additional tips.
• Editor’s Toolkit Ultimate (significant discount--$78--on the three macro programs: Editor's Toolkit Plus from The Editorium, PerfectIt from Intelligent Editing, and EditTools)
• Lyonizing Word: Formatting with Macros (Jack Lyons, on An American Editor, 11-12-14)
• We Can Do This the Easy Way, or We Can Do This the Hard Way ( Jack Lyon, Lyonizing Word, on An American Editor, 5-27-15)
• Lyonizing Word: Secrets of the Ribbon (Jack Lyon, on An American Editor, 10-19-15). The "ribbon" is that little thing at the top of Word that says File Edit View Insert Format Tools Table Window Help. If you don't know how they all work, you may also not know about the Split Button, which he explains in Lyonizing Word: Using Two-Part Buttons (An American Editor, 10-10-16)
• How to Back Up and Restore Your Macros (Copyediting, 1-29-14)
• But Wait—There’s More! (Jack Lyon, Lyonizing Word, on An American Editor, 9-30-15). Replacing basic text, using "sounds like (English," using "Find all word forms (English)," ignoring suffixes and prefixes, ignoring punctuation characters and other options.
• Removing Spaces at the End of Table Cells (Jack Lyons, Lyonizing Word, on An American Editor, 5-5-14)
• Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns in Footnotes and Endnotes (Jack Lyons, Lyonizing Word, on An American Editor 3-31-14)
• Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to the Tools of the Trade by Hilary Powers, download for $10.25, or order the book for slightly more. Here's Richard Mateosian's review.
See examples of macros in action on videos about HyphenAlyse and ProperNounAlyse and FullNameAlyse:.
• Tips, tricks, shortcuts and "macros" for working with Microsoft Word (Writers and Editors)
• Jack Lyons' Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. An introduction to finding, understanding, and modifying macros in Microsoft Word. (Read Amazon reviews for what it is and what it isn't.)
• TextSTAT (Simple Text Analysis Tool, Concordance software for Windows, GNU/Linux and MacOS). Here's Louise Harnby's plain-English description of this free and handy tool, which she uses to create simple alphabetized word lists that make evident inconsistencies in spelling--e.g., Caille and Caillé, Frans and Franz. You then have to find and fix errors the eye alone doesn't always catch.
• Revisiting an old favourite: TextSTAT, word lists, and the proofreader (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour, 9-29-14)
• FileCleaner for Microsoft Word cleans up common problems in electronic manuscripts, including multiple spaces, multiple returns, unnecessary tabs, improperly typed ellipses, ells used as ones, and so on. It turns double hyphens into em dashes, and hyphens between numerals into en dashes. It can also remove directly applied font formatting (such as Times 12 point) while retaining styles (such as Heading 1) and character formatting (such as italic and bold), quickly cleaning up those messy documents imported from other word processors or OCR programs.
• Macros for Writers and Editors (free download, Paul Beverley, Archive Publications, UK). See his blog posts, Macro Chat on Louise Harnby's site.
Paul Beverley's videos explaining Macros (via YouTube)
• ApSIC Xbench (a quality assurance tool for translations)
• Increase Productivity with Multiple Views (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 4-12-16) To have text visible separately from, say, references, simply open another view in Word, Excel, and other popular software. Use a split screen, or open a second window.
Macros and software for references, citations, footnotes and endnotes
BibMe, EndNote, Mendeley, NoteStripper, QuickSite, ReferenceChecker, Zotero
Reference management systems automatically renumber references when they are moved around but endnotes need to be finalized before importing from Word to InDesign.
• How I Automated Reference Editing with Google Scholar, Zotero, and Citation Style Language (Santhosh Matthew Paul, FeatherTouch Editing for academic editing) A good set of explanations.
"Although I use Zotero, Mendeley has the same functionality. Try out both and choose one."
"If you have an example bibliographic entry, you can search the CSL style repository for the style that matches the entry most closely. To do this, click the 'Search by example' tab in the Visual Editor title bar, and modify the style in the left pane to match your desired style. You can see the corresponding changes in the top pane as you make changes in the left pane.
Also recommended:
---Webinar on the Citation Style Language CSL (English)
---Citation Style Language Documentation (official CSL documentation)
---Visual CSL Editor: A guide to modifying and creating citation styles in Mendeley and Zotero (March 2022)
• Comparison of reference management software (Wikipedia page, tables comparing various reference management software, some free, some not)
• Overview of citation software (MIT Libraries). Review of EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. Copyediting also recommends checking out Bibme and EasyBib. See also Reference Checker (Good Citations). However, in November 2018 a reader writes: "I recommend CitationGenerator.com instead of Easybib, Bibme, or Citation Machine, because they were all bought up by Chegg Inc. and are heavily plastered with ads. CitationGenerator.com, on the other hand, is ad-free, doesn't require registration, and was recommended in the October issue of Chicago Educational.
• Cite Work Can Be Profitable (Richard Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 5-6-15) Charging per page of footnotes and using macros may increase your hourly earnings.
• Journals, References, & Dollars (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 3-2-15) "...there are tasks that scream for efficiency. Wildcard macros are one method and work very well for the tasks for which they are suited. A second method, which deals with references, is the EditTools Journals macro." See also Creating Multiple Journals Datasets Simultaneously (1-27-16)
• Citation and Reference Styles (various resources on footnotes, endnotes, documentation--including bibliography services such as BibMe, ReferenceChecker, NoteStripper, and QuickSite). (ReferenceChecker is no longer being sold.)
• ReciteBeta (Reference checking made easy. Checks that your in text citations match the reference list at the end of your work, checks that authors and dates in the main text match up with references at end, checks for a growing list of stylistic errors in referencing.
• Comparison of reference management software (Wikipedia)
• Edifix. Correct, link, and format your bibliography with one click--the online subscription-based bibliographic reference solution for publishers, service providers, editors, and authors. See What is Edifix? and What editorial styles are available in Edifix? (with example references). You can use it to color-highlight and automatically character/paragraph-style lots of repetitive features.
• Reference Checker checks numerical (Vancouver) and name+date-style (Harvard and APA) references in Word files. Finds all name-date or numbered citations in a document and checks them against the references. When finished, it displays a list of matches and mismatches.
• Reference Citation Checking https://youtu.be/GI7QdNXaGRI(Paul Beverley demo, YouTube) Macros for Writers and Editors (free download, Paul Beverley, Archive Publications, UK).
• Lyonizing Word: Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns in Footnotes and Endnotes (Jack Lyon, on An American Editor 3-31-14)
If you find *one* macro that saves you time, that will help you face your
terror, and teach you that they are not difficult, as some people would have
you believe, says Jack. The truth is, you only need to be able to load one single macro, because loading the second macro is exactly the same process! And this process is explained in:
---My First Macro - Part 1 (YouTube, 6:04) How to load up your first couple of macros
---My First Macro - Part 2 (YouTube, 5:45) How to run macros
---Reference citation checking (YouTube, 7:45) Checking the citations of both Vancouver and Harvard references.
• Reference editing solutions for copy-editors (SfEP blog, Inera pitch for online reference editing tool Edifix, to UK editors)
• The Business of Editing: Keeping Reference Callouts in Number Order (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-12-15)
• Edifix (correct, link, and format your bibliography with one click. Make the Most of Edifix: Tips for Maximizing Your Subscription.
• Footnotes or endnotes? Advantages and disadvantages of each, one page on a useful site, which explains many aspects of Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper.
Author's alterations and document version control
• Own Your Document: Maintaining Version Control (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-16-13)
• Helping Clients with Version Control (AElfwine Mischler, An American Editor, 8-24-18) A helpful system using Ed1, Ed2, etc., with variations to indicate a file version is from editor or from client.
• How to Limit Author's Alterations (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 5-30-16)
• File Management 101 (Copyediting, 12-5-11)
• How To: Organize by Function to Reduce File Management Headaches (Paul Lagasse, Copyediting, 1-8-16)
• What’s in a Name? Finding Your Electronic Files Quickly (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 11-27-12)
• Tech Tip: How to Avoid an Invalid File Name (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Copyediting, 4-30-15) Characters to avoid in file names.
• Version control for video editing work (StackOverflow). One tip may be helpful for documents: Put one person in charge of admin.
• The Do-Over Edit (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 5-2-16)
Using track changes as you edit (in Word)
To begin: Open the document that you want to revise.
On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, click the Track Changes button. The Track Changes button becomes highlighted.
Make the changes that you want by inserting, deleting, moving, or formatting text or graphics. You can tell it not to show track changes as you edit -- which allows you to make changes more easily, as you can see the final look -- and then turn track changes on later.
If you forget to turn Track Changes on, you can simply compare the original document with the edited document in Compare Documents, in Word.
• How does Track Changes in Microsoft Word work? (Shauna Kelly)
• Track Changes and Comments (5-minute YouTube video explaining editing marks to an author) Send this to authors and collaborators unfamiliar with this helpful Word function.
• Tracking Changes in Word (Office 15-Minute Webinars)How to turn it on and off, what all those copyediting marks mean, and how to accept or reject changes--in Word 2010, Word 2013, and collaborating with Office Web apps.
• Word 2016 Tutorial: A Comprehensive Guide to Word for Anyone
• How to use Track Changes more efficiently (TechRepublic) Explanation in text with graphics -- good for when you want to study the options slowly.
• Track changes while you edit (Microsoft explanation -- in text, not video)
• How to Use Track Changes (Brooke Warner, YouTube video, Word 2011 version) How to turn Track Changes on, how to overlay your changes onto your editor's marks, how to accept and reject changes, and best practices for saving new versions of your existing files.
• How to track changes in Microsoft Word without going insane (JD Sartan, PC World, 2-4-15)
• The argument for making changes silently, not tracking them by Adrienne (scieditor), Catch the Sun, 6-5-14)
• Deciphering a Redlined Manuscript (Carol Saller, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1-16-12)
• How to never forget you’ve switched off Track Changes! (Louise Harnby)
The business of editing
"Cost. Quality. Speed.
Pick any two."
"Underpromise. Overdeliver."
• What it takes to be a freelance editor (Allison Williams on Jane Friedman's blog, 9-23-21) Curiosity, constant education, ruthless support, speed.
• Against Editors (Hamilton Nolan, Gawker, 8-18-14) The traditional career track for someone employed in journalism, writes Nolan: first, you are a writer, then you become an editor, higher on the pecking order and paid much more. What's wrong with that: Those roles call for two different skill sets, and writers, who often deserve more, should earn more. "The grand traditional print media system—still seen today in top-tier magazines and newspapers—in which each writer's story is monkeyed with by a succession of ever more senior editors is, on the whole, a waste of time and resources." (H/T Simon Owens)
• Are editors actually vital? (Simon Owens on his Media Newsletter, 3-29-21) The Substack revolution in newsletters "carves out a sizable media niche where traditional editors are pretty much non-existent. Are editors as vital to the production of journalism as they no-doubt consider themselves to be, or are they pesky middle managers who stand between a writer and their audience?"
• Thinking Fiction: Protecting an Editor’s Rights — If Any (Carolyn Haley, An American Editor, 5-24-19) Can or should an editor claim copyright to the edited version of a manuscript to ensure getting paid? "In my opinion, attempting to conflate copyright with payment is irrational and unprofessional, regardless of whether a given case is winnable in a court of law....claiming a copyright for something that isn’t mine is needlessly aggressive....with indie authors or amenable companies...I have found that a signed agreement delivered with a 50 percent deposit demonstrates a client’s intention to pay. They go into the deal knowing that I will sit on the finished edit until they pay the balance, and if they don’t pay, they lose the work and have to start all over again."
This contrasts with the position taken in this piece by Rich Adin (who explains in a comment after Carolyn Haley's piece, that he claims copyright only on the edits): The Editor's Interest: Copyright or Not (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-30-17, updated from original, published 3-1-11). On claiming copyright for an edit, relinquished only on full payment for services rendered. "A question that sometimes arises, usually when an editor has difficulty getting paid for his or her work, is: What can the editor do to collect payment? I’ve been a long-time advocate of the position that the editor has a copyright interest in the edited version of the manuscript, a card that the editor should play in payment disputes." Addendum, 8-30-17: "If you have a contract with a client that specifically states that you retain a copyright interest until paid in full, that clause is enforceable under contract law — it is no longer a copyright question."
• Author Queries (Rich Adin, 11-14-12)
• Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers: A Guide for New Starters (eBook, Louise Harnby, for UK market but relevant in U.S., too -- for freelancers, self-publishers, and editorial business owners). Here's Copyediting's review .
• Consistency (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, 5-28-12)
• Difficult Clients (Rich Adin, 2-20-13)
• Editing Tools: MultiFile F&R and Search, Count, Replace (Rich Adin, 2-13-13)
• The Ethics of Billing (Rich Adin, 4-1-13)
• Expectations (Rich Adin, 4-8-13)
• Financial advice for editors taking the freelance leap (Jake Poinier, ACES, 5-31-19) "Taking the freelance leap means selling yourself, but it’s far more important to ferret out what your clients and prospective clients need. What’s their ROI going to be if they work with you."
• Grow Your Editing Business with Referrals, Part 1: Why Referrals? (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 10-16-15); Part 2: How to Choose Referring Clients (10-23-15); Part 3: How to Ask for Referrals (10-29-15); and Should You Pay for Referrals? (8-12-16)
• Losing Money the Paper Way (Rich Adin, 2-27-13--online editing vs. paper-based editing)
• Losing the Chance (Rich Adin, 5-20-13)
• “Net 15” or “Net 30”? — Don’t Get Your Hopes Up (Elaine R. Firestone, An American Editor, 10-30-17) Ask what the client's accounts payable schedule is so you can submit your work and invoices in time to get paid at the earliest possible date. "That said, you should always try to have a financial cushion to draw from if the need arises, such as the case here with late payers, or if you lose a customer (or your health)."
• Not all freelance project estimates are created equal (Jake Poinier, ACES, 1-8-18) "Successful pricing isn't just about the money, it's also a matter of persuasion. Using an estimated range can give you an advantage on the front-end negotiation as well as your back-end profitability."
• The Nuts and Bolts of Becoming an Independent Editor (Stuart Horwitz on Jane Friedman's blog, 2-28-23) You need three things to be a great independent editor: talent, effort, and experience. No formalized career path or comprehensive resource clearly lays out how to get into this business or how to thrive once you’re here. At present, independent editing is really an apprenticeship industry. Check out their Independent Editor Podcast, in this case, "No prices ever, on your website, for any reason.
• One Price Doesn’t Fit All (12-17-12)
• Preparing for Disaster (Rich Adin, 5-6-13, on hardware and software that keep you going.
• Protecting Your Editing Business (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 7-20-18) You’ve worked hard to build your editing business. Don’t give it away to anyone who asks.
• The Quest for Rate Charts (4-6-15)
• Recordkeeping I Rich Adin, 3-12-14). Keeping track of work on a project, so you know whether it's better for you to charge by the hour or by the page, for example.
• Recordkeeping II. Keeping track of time etc. helps you figure out which work is more rewarding (does copyediting pay better than proofreading, for example?) and which aspects of editing consume the most time, unnecessarily. For the latter he developed the Journals macro (to make it easier to correct journal titles in references) and the Wildcard Find and Replace macro (part of EditTools). See whole section on Macros -- ways to speed up editing.
• Sample invoice (EFA)
• Schedules and Client Expectations (Rich Adin, 4-30-12)
• Sample invoice (EFA)
• Subcontracting (Rich Adin, The 4-2-14)
• Taking on Too Much (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 4-29-13)
• Thinking About Invoices (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing: 1-23-13 and 7-12-17) Present yourself (via your invoice) as a business and you'll get a different reception.
• What Do Editors Forget Most Often? (Rich Adin, 3-4-13)
Contracts for editorial services
(and/or rules of engagement)
• The Paper It's Written On: Defining your relationship with an editing client by Karin Cather and Dick Margulis. This brief popular guide spells out what clauses to consider in your contract or letter of agreement with an editing client.
• Copyediting-L A listserv for copy editors and other defenders of the English language who want to discuss anything related to editing: sticky style issues; philosophy of editing; newspaper, technical, and other specialized editing; reference books; client relations; Internet resources; electronic editing and software; freelance issues; and so on.
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Establish the Rules of Engagement Before Beginning a Project (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, guest blog for An American Editor, 10-30-13)
• 12 Principles of Negotiation (Editorial Freelancers Association)
• Agreement template for editing services (Editors Canada)
• The Business of Editing: Noncompetition Agreements (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 1-29-14) As he says, Noncompetition clauses can be deadly for an editor, who does not know where the next gigs are coming from. Read up on why not and when not to sign them. And remember, they are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction that governs the agreement, and those vary radically! Never sign an agreement governed by India.
• On the Basics: Questions to Ask for the Ideal Client–Freelancer “Marriage” (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, on An American Editor blog, 2-23-15). Questions to ask before editing a project, so editor and client have the same expectations.
• Business Tools (KOK edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, Copyeditors' Knowledge Base. an extremely useful website-- samples of freelance agreements, estimates, and much more)
• Sample letter of agreement between an editorial freelancer and a client (Editorial Freelancers Association, 2007)
• Contracts: A Slippery Slope (The Business of Editing, An American Editor, 5-7-12). Rich Adin's sage advice -- read it before signing that U.S. contract just because you need the work.
• Freelancing Basics: Dealing with Job Creep and Interruptions (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, STC's Notebook, 9-19-13) Protect yourself from project creep before it happens by bulleting out project details, or checking them carefully in your agreement, and including language in your agreement or contract along the lines of “Anything beyond this scope of work will incur additional fees.”
• Editors and Contracts: Editor Beware! (Rich Adin, 12-5-11, on a contract from India, and why editors should really weigh all the issues before signing).
• How to Contract with a Book Indexer (Dan Connolly, Word for Word Book Services, gives some idea of time needed and range of fees for various types of books)
• Many indexers and other subcontractors prefer an "assignment of rights" clause in an agreement rather than a "work for hire" clause: To ensure getting paid, they specify that they assign all rights to the client only when the work has been paid for.
• How to Contract with a Book Indexer or "Hi, Can You Do an Index for Me in Three Days?" (Word for Word Book Services)
• Liability Insurance — Nyet (Rich Adin, Business of Editing, An American Editor, 5-22-13). When a client insists that a freelance editor have errors and omissions insurance, what does the editor do? Explain why it makes no sense for editors.
• KOK Edit (samples of freelance agreements, estimates, and much more, from a popular copyeditor--check out her Library)
Blogs, newsletters, Facebook groups, and sites
by, for, and about editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, and translators
• About Editing and Writing (a blog by Jack Limpert--editor of The Washingtonian for more than 40 years -- about how editors and writers do their work--in particular magazine editors). Samples: Anybody Here Have a Really Good B.S. Detector? and How Editors Talk to Editors Is Not How Editors Talk to Writers (4-22-2013) and When Writers Talk About What They Want From Editors (1-28-18)
• After Deadline: Newsroom Notes on Usage and Style (New York Times) Example: The Stranger in the Lead (Philip Corbett, 7-30-13)
•**** An American Editor (Rich Adin's excellent blog--look especially at the old entries). Now owned and managed by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, but the old entries are still there.
• An Eye for Editing (Camille DeSalme's copyediting blog)
• Apostrophe Abuse
• Arnold Zwicky's Blog (mostly about language)
• Arrant Pedantry by Jonathon Owen (in this case, 12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Grammar Mistakes Makes)
• Ask a Book Editor (AABE) (Facebook group). Look when you have lots of time, as you may be sucked down a query rabbit hole! See also AABE - Help Wanted (a jobs board)
• BBC The Editors
• the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks
• Blogslot (Bill Walsh's blog, for The Slot)
• CMOS Shop Talk (Chicago Manual of Style)
• Columbia Journalism Review (CJR)
• Copyediting (for professional copy editors, but anyone can read it)
• Copyediting-L A listserv for copy editors and other defenders of the English language who want to discuss anything related to editing: sticky style issues; philosophy of editing; newspaper, technical, and other specialized editing; reference books; client relations; Internet resources; electronic editing and software; freelance issues; and so on.
• ****The Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (KOK Edit, Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's website, is an invaluable resource for copyeditors). See also her blog, EditorMom , on editing, medical editing, and the business of freelancing.
• Daily Writing Tips
• Dameditors
• DC Blog (David Crystal, a linguist in Wales)
• Developmental Editing (Scott Norton's blog, now on hiatus but old posts, full of advice, are there)
• Dr. Freelance (Jake Poinier)
• Editing Fiction. Links to excellent pieces by Carolyn Haley and others on editing fiction on An American Editor. Particularly enlightening: The Subjectivity of Editing Fiction, in several parts. Scroll down for that.
• Editing Mechanics (Hazel Harris, Wordstitch)
• Editor & Publisher, Shoptalk and Critical Thinking columns (which read like blogs to me)
• Editor Mom (the enormously helpful Katharine O'Moore-Klopf)
• The Editor's Blog (fiction editor Beth Hill). See especially Style Sheets—The Setup and the Benefits
The Editor's Desk (old posts from Andy Bechtel's old blog columns, before it was moved to this new location. You'll find interesting entries in both archives.
• The Editor's POV (a forum for freelance editors of fiction and creative nonfiction)
• EditorsReads (a review of books and resources for editors)
• EditorsWeblog.org (practical issues and real solutions for working editors, Bertrand Pecquerie, director, World Editors Forum)
• The Editors' Weekly (official blog of Editors Canada)
• English, Jack (Second thoughts on English and how she's taught)
• Evil Editor (why you don't get published -- see his before-and-after examples)
• eVoice, The Interpreters Division Blog (Interpreters Division of the American Translators Association)
• 5E (Winter 2012). Here's another issue (Fall 2012). Five freelance editors band together: Jane Rosenman, Patricia Mulcahy, Joan Hilty, Marjorie Braman, Judy Sterlight. Here's a story about them (Elisabeth Watson, Publishing Trendsetter, 2-12).
• The Freelancery
• Fritinancy (Nancy Friedman on names, brands, writing, and the language of commerce)
• Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips (Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl). See for example Grammer Manners (how to correct other people's grammar)
• Grammarphobia
• Headsup (thorts and comments about editing and the deskly arts )
• International Freelancers Academy (helpful podcasts)
• Iva Cheung
• How I Got Started, a new and to-be-regular feature of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (sfep) blog (UK)
• The Inky Fool: On Words, Phrases, Grammar, Rhetoric and Prose (by Mark Forsythe, author of The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase
• Joe Wikert's Digital Content Strategies
• Johnson (Economist blog on language)
• KateProof (Kate Rosengarten's blog)
• Language Corner (CJR)
• Language Log (various authors). Old entries (2003-2008) here
• Libro Editing
• Lingua Franca (Chronicle of Higher Education, Language and writing in academe.)
• Literal-Minded (linguistic commentary from a guy who takes things too literally--see, for example, Open Conditionals with the Past Perfect )
• Logophilius (Andy Hollandbeck, The Lover of Words)
• Louise Hornby's Resource Library for Authors and Editors
There are two sections to choose from: writing and editing solutions and editorial business tools.
• The Lower Case (Columbia Journalism Review). Often Headlines editors probably wish they could take back (4-23-18)
• Macmillan Dictionary blog
• Marcus Trower Editorial (copy editing for fiction authors, especially crime fiction). He has an interesting series on Be Your Own Copy Editor (self-editing advice from the front line of fiction editing)
• Mel Edits (Melanie Padgett Powers, journalist and editor, with a focus on health care issues)
• Mighty Red Pen
• Minorities in Publishing A podcast discussing diversity (or lack thereof) in the book publishing industry with other professionals working in-house as well as authors and those in the literary scene.
• Motivated Grammar (Gabe Doyle argues for well-motivated grammar rules)
• Mr. Verb (Language changes. Deal with it. Revel in it.
• Oxford Word blog (Oxford Dictionaries). See, for example, Into or in to
• Proofreaders' Parlour (British proofreader Louise Harnby's blog; she has her own good blogroll)
• Publishers Lunch
• Publishers Weekly's free email newsletters (including PW Daily Newsletter, Children's Bookshelf, Tip Sheet, School and Library Spotlight, The Fanatic, Global Rights Report, Must Reads, The BookLife/PW Select Report, Religion BookLine, PW Preview for Librarians, and finally Promotions, Announcements and Offers)
• The Savvy Newcomer. Tips and resources for translators and interpreters.
• The Scholarly Kitchen (with occasional pieces of interest to the publishing community--e.g., The Flatscreen Install — Moving Collaboration from Print to Digital by Kent Anderson, 2-13-15)
• The Scientist's English (Shearson Editorial)
• Sentence First (Stan Carey, An Irishman's blog about the English language)
• separated by a common language (Observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the UK, M Lynne Murphy)
• Sesquiotica
• The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors (Bill Walsh)
• Stickleback Corner (private Facebook group, where editors share typos and other errors they find in their day-to-day work, as well as pet peeves and 'stickler’-type material (or, depending on your punctuation system, "stickler"-type material).
• Strong Language (swearing)
• Stroppy Editor
• The Subversive Copy Editor (advice for copy editors from Carol Fisher Saller, senior manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A, and author of The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) . Read this review (The Savvy Newcomer, tips for translators and interpreters).
• Technical Editors' Eyrie (Jean Weber's excellent posts)
• This Crazy Industry (blog about the glamorous publishing industry: books, editing, writing, style, language, long hours, poor salaries (or no salaries), grant money, authors, and very few cocktail parties). See especially these entries: Becoming an Editor (3-26-05) and What We Do (6-28-11)
• Throw Grammar from the Train (Jan Freeman's blog about language--former "The Word" columnist for the Boston Globe)
• Wishydig (language, linguistics and words--see blogroll for more blogs on the same)
• WordPlay (helping writers become authors)
• Words/Myth/Ampers & Virgule (word curmudgeon Dick Margulis)
• Words of the Year (American Dialect Society, ADS)
• Writers and Editors (Pat McNees's blog). For example: Kinds of editors and levels of edit--what every writer should know and Insurance for freelance writers and editors.
• You Don't Say (John E. McIntyre's blog language, usage, journalism and arbitrarily chosen subjects)
• 50 Best Blogs By and For Editors (OnlineUniversities.com 2-1-11)
**Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (superb links from KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf), on several themes, including The Basics, Business Tools, and Editing Tools.
Relationship issues -- getting along
• My Life with All Those Damn Editors (Tom Shales, guest-posting on Jack Limpert's blog About Writing and Editing, 4-23-13). See also All That Information; All That B.S.
• The Relationship Between Editors and Freelance Writers (Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, on Content Marketing, 4-17-08)
• Edits -- it's just you and me, and we both disagree... (Behler's blog, an entry on how to make author-editor disagreements constructive)
• No Egos Here: Working with Another Copyeditor (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 4-16-13)
Should you admit mistakes to authors?
• Say you're sorry (John E. McIntyre, You Don't Say blog, April 2010). Skip the "If I offended anyone" bit.
• Pretty Apologies: For When You're Really Wrong (Carol Fisher Saller, The Subversive Copyeditor, 4-20-11).
Solopreneur or “Company” (part iii) , part 3 of a series on whether to work solo or as part of a company, and what that means, on Rich Adin's blog An American Editor (thread: The Business of Editing). Here Adin talks about editors sharing work and roles on large projects, or sharing fees when one editor brings in the work that others help perform. See also part ii, in which Adin explains that company, in the sense he's using it, may simply mean "a cohesive group of editors who can work together when needed do so and present themselves to potential clients as having that capability." In part i Ruth Thaler-Carter guest blogs about why she prefers working alone.
Someday I Will Copyedit The Great American Novel (Joanne Cohen, The Onion, 1-26-05)
So You Think You Can Self-Publish an eBook? by Candice Adams, EditorMuse. See also her Proofreading Ebooks. Good info; note varied spelling of e-book, eBook, etc.
So, You Want to Be an Editor (a gentle introduction to the profession, from the Editors' Association of Canada)
Speed reading vs. typography (Dick Margulis, words / myth / ampers & virgule, 5-29-06). See especially section on basic concepts for composing headlines and subheads, where to break, or not break, clauses and phrases, etc. For example, "If you have to break a phrase, keep modifiers (articles, adjectives, adverbs) with their targets."
Spell Checkers , software for spell-checking medical, scientific and technical, or legal documents (Inductel, which also produces definitions dictionaries)
Metadata, explained
Metadata is the information we need to share a book with readers, libraries, and bookstores.
• Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers (PDF, Amy Brand, Frank Daly, Barbara Meyers, Niso Press)
• Best Metadata Practices (Ingram)
• An Entirely Too Brief History of Library Metadata and a Peek at the Future, Too (PDF, American Library Association) Worth reading for the footnotes alone!
• What Is Book Metadata, And How Can It Improve Your Sales? (Standout Books)
• What Is Book Metadata And Why It Is Important (Derek Haines, Just Publishing Advice, 12-29-2020)
• A Self-Publisher’s Guide to Metadata for Books (Carla King, MediaShift, 10-12-10) "Good book metadata is good book marketing."
• Publishers Take Seat at Metadata Table with Giant Chair (Jennifer Zaino, Semantic Web, 3-1-10).
• Metadata is the new most important thing to know about (Mike Shatzkin, IdeaLogical, 6-8-10)
Tips and tools for proofreaders
When you give caption copy to graphic designers, they will often type in the caption (especially in connection with a graphic) rather than cut and paste from the copy you give them. Many of the typos in final versions will be in re-typed captions, headings, and labels. So proofread the final against original copy.
Dave Barry sings "Proofreading Woman" ("She never says 'between you and I.'" and "I think that's Amy Tan saying 'I'm not attracted to men who split their infinitives' ").
• Proofreaders' Marks (Chicago Manual of Style). Operational signs tell printer to do something; typographical signs indicate type or font; punctuation marks are the ones authors should learn from.)
• Mark My Words: Instruction and Practice in Proofreading by Peggy Smith (exercises and answer keys help readers learn skills step by step)
• Proofreaders' Marks (Chicago Manual of Style).
• Key Mark-Up Techniques for Proofreading PDFs (Adrienne Montgomerie, Right Angels and Polo Bears, 6-5-13). Learned of this and some other entries via EAE Backroom on Facebook
• Free Downloadable PDF Proofreading Stamps (Louise Harnby)
• 6 tips for ergonomic PDF proofreading (Louise Harnby, Proofreader, 3-30-12)
• Roundup: PDF Proofreading Stamps (quick-access links)
• Proofreading Tools Every Proofreader and Editor Should Use (Catherine, Turner Proofreading) Brief writeups about usefulness of Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Adobe Acrobat, PerfectIt, TextExpander, MyBib, Grammarly, Capitalize My Title, ProWritingAid, Macros.
• Working with Offset Printers (the late book designer Robin Brooks)
• New to proofreading? (Kateproof, Kate Haigh's proofreading blog). See also The ethics of proofreading for students, part of a series on editorial freelancing in the student market
• So what does a proof-reader/copy-editor/transcriber/copy-writer actually do? (A day in the month of Liz Broomfield, Libro Editing Services, 2-9-11)
• How to Proofread your eBook Like a Pro (Corina Koch MacLeod, Beyond Paper Editing, 1-15-13). See also Part 2 (1-22-13)
• Editing in a Digital Environment (Adrienne Montgomerie and Rachel Stuckey, ACES 2015). DIGITAL = PROCESS and PRODUCT. Links to excellent instructions on
---What to do with an edited Word file
---Basic PDF Mark-Up for Copy Editors and Proofreaders
• Proofreading for Publishers Outside Your Country of Origin—Is There a Market? (Louise Harnby on An American Editor blog, 8-11-14)
• Page Proofs and the Domino Effect (Louise Harnby, The Proofreader's Corner, on An American Editor, 5-26-14).
• Master Proofread (Susanna J. Sturgis, Write Through It, 3-1-16) In the old days, when compositors had to rekey a whole ms., the proofreader marked a correction "pe" if the compositor didn't follow the ms. correctly; "ea" if the author, editor, and copyeditor missed something; and "aa" if the author made changes in proof. And the author could run up a big bill, changing things this late in the game.
• How to proofread e-books on a Kindle (Corina Koch MacLeod, Beyond Paper Editing, 2-12-13)
• Proofreading eBooks *Candice Adams Roma, EditorMuse, 8-3-10)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses(Louise Harnby)
• Go Ahead, Proof It! by K.D. Sullivan. Practical proofing tips, in 1996)
• Proofreading Case Studies (Proofreader Louise Harnby's helpful site includes case studies that illustrate the importance of professional training for getting proofing gigs in British publishing world)
• Is Freelance Proofreading the Job for You? (Kate Rosengarten, KateProof, 8-1-12)
• Proofreading Secrets (PDF, Elizabeth Macfie handout, Editors' Association of Canada conference 2010)
• Proofreading Stamps, free downloadable PDF (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour, UK). Here she shows how they work.
• The Proofreaders Parlour (Louise Harnby's excellent blog, in the UK). See also Editor & proofreader blogs (Louise Harnby's excellent links)
• Ten ideas to help you find work as a proofreader (sfep blog)
• Thoughts on proofreading and the art of leaving well enough alone (Louise Harnby, 4-6-14)
• FAQs: Using copy-editors and proofreaders (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, sfep). Includes What do proofreaders do? What do proofreaders not do? Could I be a proofreader?
• Show Me the Style Sheet! (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Corner, An American Editor, 6-16-14)
• Proofreading Practice: A book of exercises with model answers and commentary (by Diane Aherne, geared to British Standards Institution marks for editing and proofreading).
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs (Louise Harnby, 1-14-14).
And Part II – Working directly in Word (Louise Harnby, 1-27-14)
• Using StyleWriter4 Professional as a Proofreading Tool (Louise Harnby, on An American Editor, 6-24-15) "Running StyleWriter4 Professional on a Word document quickly and cleanly generates lists of words that I can use to spot potential problems I want to check, prior to reading the text line by line with my eyes.
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Tips and tools for editors
• There’s No One Path to Becoming an Editor (Carolyn Wilke, The Open Notebook, 10-13-2020) Several editors share how they got started--on purpose and through trial-and-error--and the ways in which they've grown in their chosen roles.
**Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (superb links from KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf), on several themes, including The Basics, Business Tools, and Editing Tools.
• Lynne Murphy: How American editors are different from British editors (Alexandra Martinez, ACES, 4-28-18) Lynne Murphy is the author of The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
• Brevity offers mini-games to help you become a more powerful writer. Each game will give you a lousy writing sample. Your job is to make it as concise as you can before the timer runs out. If your response is shorter than our benchmark, you win!
• Tutorials and Tools for Doing PDF Markup (KOK Edit blog: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf)
• So, You Want to Be an Editor — Why? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 5-18-15)
• Resources for New Freelance Editors (Editorial Freelancers Association) Useful links.
• What are style guides and why do I need them? (Lillie Ammann)
• The Art of Being Invisible (Brian Langan, Storyline Editing, 3-5-18) Editors’ successes are often measured by their invisibility. They get little recognition. And they share with authors the pain of negative reviews.
• Advice for Editors. Tim McGuire on "What I wish I had done differently as an editor." (ASU Cronkite, 9-11-13)
• Band of Editors: The Value of Small Groups (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 8-3-18)
• The Value of Retreating Editors (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 1-19-18)
• Why Editors Should Attend Conferences of Editors (Laura Poole, Copyediting, 3-15-16)
• Why Freelance Editors Should Attend Their Clients’ Conferences (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-18-16)
• ACES Archives Articles from ACES, the society for editing, going back several years. Many useful explanations, tips, resources).
For example, The importance of checking facts when editing fiction (Christine Ma, ACES, 2-12-18)
• alt.usage.english FAQ (an archive of questions and answers from the newsgroup) It may take a while to figure out how to find things here!
• An evolving model for editing (Deborah Howell, Ombudsman, Washington Post, 8-31-08) (on the changing role of the editor as newspaper staffs are cut)
• The Book He Wasn't Supposed to Write (Thomas E. Ricks, The Atlantic, 8-22-17) Author Thomas Ricks writes in the Atlantic about how longtime editor Scott Moyers persuaded him to completely rewrite his recent book on Churchill and Orwell -- and Moyers was completely right. 'What I had sent him was exactly the book he had told me not to write. He had warned me, he reminded me, against writing an extended book review that leaned on the weak reed of themes rather than stood on a strong foundation of narrative....I dug a new foundation, lining it with solid chronology. I wrote a second note to myself at the top of the manuscript: “If it is not chronological, why not?” ...Near the end of our lunch, Scott offered one more wise observation about the writing process: “The first draft is for the writer. The second draft is for the editor. The last draft is for the reader.”'
• How to Sort Lists in Word (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 8-1-16)
• The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading (Mark Nichol, Daily Writing Tips, 4-2-11)
• The Proofreader’s Corner: What Do New Starters Need to Know? Thinking Internationally (Louise Harnby, on American Editor, 3-17-14).
• What Not to Do as a Newcomer to Freelance Editing (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, An American Editor, 1-17-18)
• Beyond the proofreader’s remit? (Liz Jones, SfEP blog) What do you do when the ms. you get needs far more than proofreading?
• Starting Out (Louise Harnby's archive of practical advice for beginners, on her excellent blog, The Proofreader's Parlour, UK). See also Proofreaders-to-be: Loving Books Isn’t Enough
• Rates, Data Tracking, and Digital Efficiencies, Part I and Part II. (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Corner, An American Editor, 10-20,22-14). Taking advantage of digital efficiencies helps compensate for rates that are too low.
• Captions. When graphic designers are given caption copy, they will often type in the caption (especially in connection with a graphic) rather than cut and paste from the copy you give them. Many of the typos in final versions will be in re-typed captions, headings, and labels. So proofread the final against original copy.
• Chinese Romanization Guidelines, Pinyin Conversion Project (Library of Congress, 11-3-98) Wonder when and why Peking became Beijing? The Pinyin system of transliteration from Chinese to English replaced the old Wade-Giles system in 1998. See Pinyin (Wikipedia) and Pinyin Rules: Initials, Finals, and Tones (Learn Chinese, YellowBridge) and Chinese PronunciationWiki (AllSet Learning) (H/T to Copyediting-L)
• Choosing a freelance editor: What you need to know (Alan Rinzler, The Book Deal, 7-2-09)
• Choosing an Editor (Cambridge Academic Editors Network)
• Citation and Reference Styles (links to resources on footnotes, endnotes, documentation)
• Code of Fair Practice (PDF, Editorial Freelancers Association)
• CONSORT statement. Guidelines in the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement are used worldwide to improve the transparent reporting of randomized, controlled trials, enabling readers to understand a trial's design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, and to assess the validity of its results. It emphasizes that this can only be achieved through complete transparency from authors.
• Cookbook misprint costs Australians dear (BBC News 4-17-10)
• Copyediting has been purchased and absorbed by ACES (the society for editing), which publishes some great grammar quizzes, among other things.
• Copyediting Tutorials (Editing Hacks, a Wordpress blog)
• Copyediting. Exploring Craft — A master class in copyediting from the author of Dreyer’s English (video, Benjamin Dreyer, Random House executive managing editor and copy chief and author of the New York Times bestseller Dreyer’s English, offers a rousing behind-the-editor’s desk viewpoint on helping authors sharpen their writing and elevating their use of language. He explains that copyediting is reading on a sentence-by-sentence level--the basic mechanical stuff, spelling, subject-verb agreement, checking "facts in plain sight," etc. And among other things you should not address clients with a school-marmy tone.
• Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (KOK Edit, Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's website, excellent, well-organized, useful links -- an invaluable resource for copyeditors). See also her blog, EditorMom , on editing, medical editing, and the business of freelancing.
• The Copy Editor's Lament amusing verse by George Martin (on Tim Porter's site)
• Copy Editor's Lament (YouTube, The Layoff Song, by political editor Christopher Ave
• Corrections site (Poynter's Regret the Error, seems to end in 2015)
• Cut This Story (Michael Kinsley, The Atlantic, Jan 2010) Newspaper articles are too long.
---Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries
---Online style guides
---Online dictionaries and dictionary-style references
---British vs. American (and Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand)
spelling, vocabulary, and style
• Becoming an Editor (Jennie, 3-16-05), from the blog This Crazy Industry, a weblog about the glamorous publishing industry: books, editing, writing, style, language, long hours, poor salaries (or no salaries), grant money, authors, and very few cocktail parties. Really solid advice about the skills and training you need to be an editor.
• 'Be Wrong as Fast as You Can' (Hugo Lindgren, editor of NY Times Magazine, in the magazine, 1-4-13). Fascinating essay on how, in figuring out he was great on idea-making but not on follow-through, Lindgren came to accept as natural his role as an editor instead of as the writer-creator he dreamed of being.) Here's the wonderful Charlie Rose interview with John Lasseter (12-2-11, Lasseter being director and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studies), in which Lasseter attributes the "Be Wrong" quotation to Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, Wall-E, Finding Nemo).
• How to become a developmental editor by Scott Norton, from his book Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (excerpt posted on Scrib'd)
• Benchmarks for Estimating Editing Speed by David W. McClintock (originally published in Corrigo: Newsletter of the STC's Technical Editing SIG (June 2002), pp. 1, 3.
• Bib Me (a free online site for searching for bibliographic information, creating a custom bibliography, and downloading it in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian format), dependent on Amazon's database (which might limit scholarly uses)
• Black day for the blue pencil. Once they were key figures in literary publishing, respected by writers who acknowledged their contribution to shaping books. But, argues Blake Morrison in The Guardian, editors are now an endangered species (8-5-05)
• Bob Miller: The Coming Editorial Crisis. HarperCollins chief Bob Miller tells Media Bistro about economic variables shaping publishing industry and prospects of "more work for fewer people" ahead, with YouTube video of his comments.
• Bradley Manning or Chelsea Manning? He or she? "Rules are useless unless you use them," Copyediting's explanation how to handle a change in whether a person considers self a man or a woman.
• Dear Writer: Reasons to Love and Fear Your Copyeditor (Sally Fisher Saller, the Subversive Copy Editor, in Prime Number)
• The Decline & Fall of Editorial Quality (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 3-8-17) Editors used to seek "work for university presses because editors were more concerned about the artisanal aspects of editing than about the financial aspects. That outlook changed as commercial publishers consolidated and began lowering/stagnating their fees and university presses tried to maintain the fee disparity....an increasing number of error-riddled books are being published by both university and commercial presses. We are also beginning to see editors who have calculated and know their required effective hourly rate, and because they know their required rate, are turning down editing projects that do not offer sufficient compensation to meet that rate. Unfortunately, we are also seeing a parallel trend: the number of persons calling themselves editors is increasing and these “editors” advertise their willingness to work for a rate that is far too low to sustain life."
• Defining an Editing Project (Erin Brenner, Copyediting Tip of the Week, 3-7-12). Companion piece to Setting Editing Expectations (Brenner, 4-3-12)
• Dependency Calculator (Evaluating the complexity of a project--including such factors as how well I can depend on your getting back to me quickly with answers)
• Dictionaries and dictionary-style references (online--both general and specialized)
• Different Approaches for Different Folks: The Mechanics of Editing (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 10-4-10)
• Digital Imaging Guidelines (guidelines prepared by the UPDIG Coalition, to establish photographic standards and practices for photographers, designers, printers, and image distributors). The guidelines cover Digital Asset Management, Color Profiling, Metadata, and Photography Workflow.
• Discipline- and situation-specific style guides and dictionaries (medical, legal, computer, Guardian, cookbook, etc.)
• Document comparison tools
--- Document and File Comparison Tools (Noupe)
---Compare two versions of a PDF file (Acrobat Pro)
---Draftable Online Compare (compare an older and a newer document; see the changes side by side). Accepts Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files.
---Copyscape (compare transcriptions, articles, web pages, etc.--paste one version in window one and another in window two)
---DiffChecker to compare text differences between two text files
---How Does Your Document Comparison Software Measure Up? (Law Technology Today, 3-8-17) A pitch for compareDocs.
• Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle (Elmore Leonard, NY Times, 7-16-01)
•Edifying Editing by R. Preston McAfee (PDF file). Among the qualities of a good editor of a refereed journal, writes McAfee, co-editor of the American Economic Review:
---Having a vision on which to base decisions about what is published
---"Obsessive organization, processing work unrelentingly until it is done" -- a "clear the inbox" mentality.
---Having no personal agenda (no bias)
---Having thick skin (as authors will complain about your decisions)
---Being a super referee (respond quickly with thoughtful reports)-- a good quality in someone wanting to become top editor. He also writes about common reasons papers are rejected.
• Editing for the Web (Thom Lieb)
• Editing lives: Marisa Wikramanayake (this guest post on PublishEd Adelaide, 5-20-13, suggests how editorial workers can stay calm. "My point is that how much self-belief you have is not determined by whether you’re an extrovert or introvert – you determine it for yourself, and I think that self-belief gets you through a lot of the fear, worry and stress that come with being an editor right here and now."
• Editing Multi-Contributor Collections (Dimitra Chronopoulos, Copyediting, 4-22-15) “The one thing you can make consistent between contributions is hyphenation.”
Editors Only: The Newsletter of Editorial Achievement (discussing the changing nature of content delivery), sister pub to STRAT: The Newsletter of Print and Online Magazine Publishing Strategy
• Editorial skills, defined (EAC). Definitions covered: Developmental/project editing; substantive or structural editing; stylistic editing; rewriting; copy editing; picture research; fact checking/reference checking; indexing; mark-up/coding (designer-written specs for typesetter or word processor); mock-up (rough paste-up); production editing. (The Editors' Association of Canada/Association canadienne des réviseurs)
• The Editorium Jack Lyon's supermarket for macros -- programs that speed up editing processes: BookMaker, DEXter, DEXembed, Editor's ToolKit, FileCleaner, InDesignConverter, IndexDeconstructor, IndexLinker, ListFixer, LyXConverter, MegaReplacer, MultiMacro, NoteStripper, Puller, RazzmaTag, QuarkConverter, ScrIndex, WordCounter.
Editors' role model: Robert Loomis, on his retirement from Random House (read these for great tales from publishing, for a glimpse at pre-corporate publishing, and for hints on editing well):
• Nurturer of Authors Is Closing the Book (Julie Bosman, NY Times, 5-8-11). Profile of Random House editor Robert Loomis (retiring after 54 years). One of the last of the gentlemen editors with power.
• Great Book Editors Are Not an Endangered Species (Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, 5-24-11)
• Bob Loomis Talks Cerf And Turf Ahead Of His Retirement (Dan Duray, New York Observer, 5-31-11)
• Robert Loomis, editor of Styron, Angelou, retires (Hillel Italie, AP, on ABC, 5-6-11)
EditTeach.org (resources for copy editing students and teachers)
• Effective Onscreen Editing: new tools for an old profession by Geoff Hart
• 18 strategies for brainstorming a title, an excellent guide to developing great titles, from Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton, posted on Scrib'd
• Electronic Editing: With Your Computer, Not Just On It (Hilary Powers, as reported by Dawn Adams, BAEF, 3-16-04)
• An English major in a science world: Peter J. Olson on STM copyediting (CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual, 7-8-14)
• Erin Brenner and Laura Poole talk about getting a start in copyediting (CMOS Shop Talk, Chicago Manual, 1-11-17)
• Excellent forum discussions (these summaries are excellent articles on various aspects of editing, Bay Area Editors Forum, or BAEF)
• Evaluating a Manuscript (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-29-12)
• Evolution of the English Alphabet (Matt Baker's useful and interesting chart). On the same page, Evolution of the Latin Alphabet. If you have the wall space, you might want to buy his much larger chart, a wall poster: Writing Systems of the World
• The Fallacy Files (wonderful analysis of various logical fallacies)
• False Titles and Faulty Fixes (Philip B. Corbett, False Titles, After Deadline, NY Times, 11-20-12) Is it "the publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr." or "Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher"?
• Female Editors-in-Chief Make $15,000 Less Than Men (Alexander Abad-Santos), Stat of the Day, The Atlantic Wire, 9-26-12)
• Fiction, editing and revising. Editing and Revising Fiction (in the fiction section of Writers and Editors)
• Finding an editor (Pat McNees, Writers and Editors blog)
• Five critical mistakes to look for when editing proposals (Joseph Priest, Aces, 11-9-18) One of them: "Proposals are chock-full of bulleted lists. So one error that easily makes the top of the list of things to look for is a lack of parallel structure in these lists."
• Five good reasons to hire an editor (Editors' Association of Canada)
• Five Ways to Succeed as a Book Copy Editor (Cindy Howle, ACES, 1-28-2020)
• Footnotes. See many helpful resources under Citations and References (guides to various documentation styles, Writers and Editors)
• Freelance copyeditors, directory of (listing maintained by the Copyediting-L listserv.
• Freelance editorial agreement, standard (a template provided by the Editors' Association of Canada)
• Freelancing as a fiction editor
---Fiction Freelancing: Part I – Proofreading for Trade Publishers (Louise Harnby, 5-29-12). " One of the dangers of proofreading fiction is getting so wrapped up in the story that you end up reading the book rather than proofreading it." And you won't be paid as much as if you were proofing technical material.
---Fiction Freelancing: Part II – Editing Fiction for Independent Authors (rather than for publishers, a different kettle of fish) (Ben Corrigan, on Louise Harnby's site, 3-6-12)
---Fiction Freelancing: Part III – Editing Adult Material (Louise Bolotin, on Louise Harnby's site, 5-6-12))
---Fiction Freelancing: Part IV – Editing Genre Fiction (Louise Harnby interviews Marcus Fowler, 11-2-13).
• Association for Documentary Editing (ADE)
• Association of Alternative News Media (AAN)
• Association of Art Editors (AAE)
• Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors (Capitol Beat, for reporters covering state and local governments)
• Association of Earth Science Editors (AESE). Member directory and job bank (members only)
• Association of Freelance Editors Proofreaders & Indexers (AFEPI) (Ireland)
• Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), improving public understanding of health and health care
• Association of Personal Historians (APH). Not an editors association per se, but personal historians do custom publishing for private clients and need editors, proofreaders, transcribers, indexers, and designers. APH folded in 2017 (after 20 great years--I miss it), but there are local chapters and listservs. Personal historians interview people to get their life story; those interviews need to be transcribed and shaped into narratives, as memoirs, tributes, ethical wills, etc. (Formats: print, audio, and video.)
• Bay Area Editors' Forum (BAEF) (searchable public member directory and EXCELLENT resources for editors on the website)
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS), founded in 1991 to evaluate the proficiency of manuscript editors in the life sciences and to award credentials similar to those obtainable in other professions. See how to become a board-certified editor (the ones that add ELS after their names). Members-only job listings, email list; publicly accessible directory of freelance BELS editors. See also schedule for BELS exams for certification.. See Denise Foster's infographic comparing various routes to certification: Becoming a certified editor.
• Bookbuilders of Boston(publishing professionals involved in book publishing and manufacturing throughout New England, with public searchable directory)
• Business + Professional Development for Editors (a sizeable Facebook group)
• Cambridge Academic Editors Network (CAEN) (searchable public member directory)
• Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), formerly the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP, UK) A community, training hub, and support network for editorial professionals in the UK.
• The Christian PEN Proofreaders and Editors Network
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a forum for editors and publishers of peer reviewed journals
• Copyediting (formerly Copy Editing, a publication and webinars) and Copyediting job board(formerly Copy Editor, free job board for which you can set up profile to get alerts when gigs are available). Copyediting Facebook page.
****• Copyediting-L (CE-L), a popular email discussion list for editors (and other defenders of the English language) who want to discuss anything related to editing: sticky style issues; philosophy of editing; newspaper, technical, and other specialized editing; reference books; client relations; Internet resources; electronic editing and software; freelance issues; and so on.) For CE-L subscribers only (2500 of them), to prevent spammers, co-owned by Katharine O'Moore-Klopf and Jane Lyle). Copyediting-L (aka CE-L) is the main list, where topics such as politics, religion, sex, and operating-system evangelism are forbidden. Copyediting-Off-list-L (aka CEL-O) is the "chat" list, where all topics are permitted. "Stalking Danglers Around the World" (with a freelancers directory, and frequent exchanges of macros that make copyediting easier, etc.). Copyediting-L Always Provides Lively Discussion writes Mark Allen, on the Copyediting blog. "Stalks" and "Stalking" and "Cel-mates" play on "C-El" (celery).
• Council of Science Editors (CSE) (formerly Council of Biology Editors. For members only: Science Editor, CSE's quarterly publication. See its Society and Reference Links and Benefits of membership.
• Drug Information Association (DIA), global forum for therapeutic innovation & regulatory science
• European Association of Science Editors (EASE)
• Editcetera (a self-governing association of freelance publishing professionals in San Francisco area)
• Editing and proofreading societies around the world (Louise Harnby's excellent annotated list)
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), for editors, writers, indexers, proofreaders, researchers, desktop publishers, translators, etc. New York City-oriented. Clients can find you through free online freelancer directory and freejob listing service. You can post questions on the private email list. EFA Facebook page
GalleyCat (Dianne Dilworth, Media Bistro, 12-16-16). Media Bistro closed the book on GalleyCat.
Getting Started as a Freelance Copyeditor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 9-23-11)
Google Docs (one way of writing in the cloud):
• Why Google Docs is a writer’s best friend: writing on the go, instant back-ups, advanced organization & tons of space (Hillary DePiano)
• Writing a book using Google Docs (Steven Daviss on how he and two co-authors collaborated on Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work
• Don't Lose Your Google Docs Data (Tony Bradley, PCWorld, 5-25-11, writing about what happens if Google crashes and my data disappears?)
• Microsoft Office vs.Google Docs: A Web Apps Showdown (Ian Paul, PCWorld 7-13-09)
• Publish Google Docs To WordPress To Twitter & Facebook ETC
• Google Docs tour and demo
Grammar Freaks Really Are Strange (Dennis Baron, The Web of Language, reposted on Cultural Weekly)
• How I Became a Full-Time Freelance Editor — Should you make the change? (Andrew Kim, Wordvice Workshop, 8-28-20) Most editors and writers dream of becoming a freelancer. How Kimmade the leap in the time of COVID-19.
• How to Be a Great Science Editor at a Student Publication (Claire L. Jarvis, The Open Notebook, 3-5-19) "Some of the challenges student editors face are unlike those outside academia because they and their writers must balance their reporting with classes, coursework, and lab experiments. Some student writers may never have written about science for a general audience before. And some journalism majors may have taken few university science courses. For all these reasons, editors at student publications—typically also student volunteers—are key to student reporters’ success."
• How to Become an Editor, Plus Where to Look for Editing Jobs (Dana Sitar, The Write Life, 2-28-21) Editing is often a natural progression for writers within an organization, and it’s a way for freelancers to broaden their work prospects.
• How to Edit and Proofread Your Way Around the World (Brendan Brown, GlobalEnglishEditing, 2-13-15)
• How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 1-4-17). Similarly, How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, The Editors' Weekly/ L’Hebdomadaire des réviseurs, official blog of Editors Canada, 5-3-16)
• How to Find Medical Editing Freelance Work (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KLK Edit Blog, 9-12-11)
• How to Make a Figures Manuscript (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 6-6-16) "When a product contains illustrations, graphs, and other visuals, a separate file containing them and their related instructions is sent with the manuscript. This separate Figures Manuscript can then be shuttled along to the art and production departments to do their magic." Among practical tips: "Editors need to remember that they are communicating with a visual person, not a word person. The artists will follow the sample more closely than the written description."
• Humor among peer reviewers. César Sánchez, in his blog Twisted Bacteria, quotes from the annual December issue of Environmental Microbiology, which features humorous quotes made by peer reviewers while assessing manuscripts submitted to the journal.
• “I Do Not Have to Put Up With Editors Making Demands on Me” Anne Rice, quoted by Jack Limpert on his blog About Editing and Writing, 5-17-18) "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me."
• I edit, therefore I live (tee shirts and other wearables from CE-L)
• Impostor Syndrome(when you aren't sure you're the real thing)
---Defeat Impostor Syndrome with a Win Jar (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 2-5-16)
---10 Actions That Combat Imposter Syndrome (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 5-7-18)
---Imposter vs. impostor (Grammarist). See also adapter/adaptor and adviser/advisor.
---How to Recover When Editing Goes Wrong (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 3-27-17)
• In defense of fact checking (Laura Miller, Salon.com 2-8-12). A controversial writer, John D’Agata, and his fact checker, Jim Fingal, battle in a new book. Too bad neither gets close to the truth.
• Indigenous writers and editors (Iva Cheung, report on a panel at Editors Canada 2017). See also what she writes about
---Indigenous editorial issues (Greg Younging)
---Reclaiming Indigenous languages (Nicki Benson, Editors BC Meeting)
---Dialogue on editing Indigenous writing (Editors Canada 2016)
• In Search of the Perfect Copy Editor 10 Copy Editor Traits That Guarantee You Success (Anne Glover, then Assistant Managing Editor/Copy Desk, St. Petersburg Times, later at Poynter, 8-25-02)
• Interviews with six editors (Editing Hacks)
• Language Log (educate yourself -- read a few months' worth)
• Lessons of a legacy--five editors on John Carroll (Poynter, 8-2-05) The five editors: Tim Kelly, Bill Marimow ("John is an A-plus headline writer. In describing a Maryland boot camp for juvenile offenders, John wrote the memorable headline in a very tight layout: “From ‘Yo’ to ‘Sir’ "), Marty Kaiser ("I learned from John that it’s important to be decisive and tough when being tough and being decisive are required."), David Holwerk, Wendell (Sonny) Rawls.
• Let us now praise editors< (Gary Kamiya, Salon, 7-24-07) They may be invisible and their art unsung. But in the age of blogging, editors are needed more than ever.
• Levels of edit and kinds of editors: What every writer and editor should know (Pat McNees, blog post)
• Levels of edit discussion on Corrido (STC Technical Editing Sig)
--- My Top 3 Editor Roles (Yoel Strimling, Corrido, STC, 4-8-17)
--- Clarity for Editing< Justin Baker, Corrido, STC, 4-1-07) Discusses peer reviewing, proofreading, and UX (User Experience) editing
---Frequently Asked Questions: What Kind of Editing Do They Need, and How Much? (Christina Vasilevski, Corrido, STC, 2-3-16)
--- The Value of Levels of Edit [in Technical Editing} (Yoel Strimling, a summary article of the last watercooler chat of the year 2010, Corrido, STC, 2-1-11) Two questions were under discussion: (1) Are “the levels of edit” actually being used by technical editors in their jobs, and if so, how? and (2) Are the levels of edit a valuable tool that is helping (or can help) technical editors meet editing customers’ needs and achieve deadline, quality, cost, and other objectives for technical documentation? Or is the main value theoretical, rather than practical? 'One of the opinions expressed in the chat was that sometimes, editors deal only with quick, easy fixes at the lowest level (level 1), because speed is the crucial element when you pick that level. There was also another perspective that in tech documents, "tech" is more important than the grammar.'
Line editing
• The Wonderful Thing About Line Edits (Peter Selgin on Jane Friedman's blog, 12-18-19) A good before-and-after example. "The great thing about line edits: unlike many gifts, they can be accepted or rejected as one sees fit."
• What Is the Difference Between Copyediting and Line Editing? (NY Book Editors, "A line edit addresses the creative content, writing style, and language use at the sentence and paragraph level...a line edit focuses on the way you use language to communicate your story to the reader. Is your language clear, fluid, and pleasurable to read? Does it convey a sense of atmosphere, emotion, and tone? Do the words you’ve chosen convey a precise meaning, or are you using broad generalizations and clichés?...By contrast, the goal of a copyedit is to address flaws on a very technical level – to make sure the writing that appears on the page is in accordance with industry standards. This is like an incredibly high-end proofread....At a publishing house, a copyeditor is usually the last person who touches the text of a manuscript before it goes into production."
• What Is Line Editing and What Should Line Editors Do? (Jami Gold, 3-22-18, who writes fiction about the paranormal) With content/developmental editing (you fix story and character-level issues); with line editing (you fix scene and paragraph-level issues); with copy editing (you fix sentence, word, and grammar-level issues). "While developmental editing is about the story and characters and copy editing is about grammar rules and sentence-level issues, line editing skills are all about our writing—as a whole: voice, style, techniques....For most writers, if we can afford to pay only one professional editor, we should get a professional line edit." Read up here on how to pick a line editor.
• Is Line Editing a Lost Art? (Nick Ripatrazone, Lit Hub, 2-6-19) 'Line editors are often mistaken for copyeditors. Copyeditors tend to polish and perfect work at a later stage, but the confusion is telling. George Witte, editor-in-chief at St. Martin's Press, has said "many copyeditors do the work that line editors should have done."...Line editors tighten sentences when tension and clarity is missing, but they also give sentences breath when constrained. Beyond removing clichés, they excise a writer's pet words and mannered constructions. Line editors help sentences build into paragraphs, and paragraphs flow into pages....[Line editor different from acquisition editor:] The mode of acquisition is one of decision: this book works, it will sell. For Delany, that mode is similar to a writing workshop style of criticism, which will "list toward the generalized and effect-oriented, rather than toward the specific and causally sensitive."
"What Delany suggests—and what seems true for Erskine, Gottlieb, and other line-editors who stay the course—is a single, critical, editor-as-reader, who evolves and grows with the writer. Instead of thinking about line editing as a forgotten art, one callously consumed by the book business, we should consider it a privilege—a gift—enjoyed by some writers, but not most.... Line editor as teacher and guide feels like a useful metaphor—and one that I've experienced myself."
• Match Your Book Content with the Right Editor (Barbara McNichol, 3-2-10) From the publisher's viewpoint.
• Medical editing
---Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ, invaluable resources for health care writers and editors also)
---How to Become a Medical Editor (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, The Editors' Weekly/ L’Hebdomadaire des réviseurs, official blog of Editors Canada, 5-3-16)
---How to Find Medical Editing Freelance Work (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KLK Edit Blog, 9-12-11)
---New Medical Writer Toolkit (American Medical Writers Association)
• Moonlighting: A guide for the part time freelancer (Editorial Freelancers Association, EFA)
• New York Times Will Offer Employee Buyouts and Eliminate Public Editor Role (Daniel Victor, NY Times, 5-31-17) “Our goal is to significantly shift the balance of editors to reporters at The Times, giving us more on-the-ground journalists developing original work than ever before,” they said in the memo. Mr. Baquet and Mr. Kahn said that the savings generated by the reduction in editing layers would be used to hire as many as 100 more journalists.... The offer comes as The Times continues its shift from a legacy print operation to a more digitally focused newsroom....Mr. Sulzberger, in a newsroom memo, said the public editor’s role had become outdated. “Our followers on social media and our readers across the internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be,” he wrote. “Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.”
---'New York Times' Executive Editor On The New Terrain Of Covering Trump (Dave Davies, Fresh Air, NPR, 12-8-16) "I don't find covering his tweets confounding. I actually don't, even though many of them are inaccurate, as we said. I mean, I think that's, like, basic blocking and tackling journalism. The president says something, you fact-check it, you report it and you say whether or not it's accurate." ... "I authorized and pushed us to use lie for the first time in relation to Donald Trump when he finally acknowledged that he thought Barack Obama was born in the United States....A lie implies that it was done with complete, total knowledge that it was a falsehood and that the person pushed it despite all evidence against. And I think what Donald Trump pushed about President Barack Obama not having been born in the United States was a lie. And I think there's no question he knew it was a lie."
• Newsthinking: The Secret of Making Your Facts Fall into Place by Bob Baker (how to structure a story so it holds the reader's interest)
• Online Portfolios for Editors (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Copyediting, 8-20-12, Part 1)
---Part 2, Clean Capture (9-10-12)
---Part 3, A Venue (10-02-12)
---Part 4, Enhanced Graphics with ThingLink (10-29-12)
---Part 5, Your Portfolio on LinkedIn (11-19-12)
---Part 6, Unify Your Online Presence (12-10-12, all in Copyediting)
• Online quizzes: ACES' Grammar Guide Quizzes (short and surprisingly helpful!)
• Online resources for journalists (Poynter)
• Online style guides
• Oxford Etymologist (an Oxford University Press blog)
Parent-teacher relations for editors (Hazel Harris, Editing Mechanics, 5-21-13, on three approaches to editing). See also Why being on a publisher’s list might not be enough to get you work (3-1-13)
Paris Review "Writers at Work" Interviews(selections from 1953 on, a gift to the world, and with a single click you can view a manuscript page with the writer's edits)
PDF Editing Stamps (Copyediting-L's stamp tool for making proofreader marks on a PDF document. Go to "Resources" tab and under Miscellaneous you will find Diana Stirling's zip file of proofreading marks in red and black. Louise Harnby offers a set of stamps for UK proofreaders and editors.
The peripatetic copy editor (Ruth Walker, Christian Science Monitor, 3-27-14). On the road, stuck in traffic, copyeditors tend to proofread bumper stickers and road signs and wonders why everyone can't distinguish between "mass nouns" and "count nouns" ("fewer" or r "less" emissions, "10 items or less" or "fewer." Not to mention which state abbreviations are right in which contexts.
Picture research and permissions: Adding to your editorial toolkit. Panelists Kris Ashley, Veronica Oliva and Tim Cox on a Bay Area Editors' Forum; notes by Micah Standley 3-24-09.
A Primer on Medical Copyediting, Health fellow Angilee Shah interviews medical editor Katharine O'Moore-Klopf (for the Reporting on Health blog, 7-1-11). Much of KOK's work is editing medical articles from ESL (or EFL) authors, of which the supply is increasing, according to this article: China poised to overhaul US as biggest publisher of scientific papers (Alok Jha, Guardian, 3-28-11). The subhead: Royal Society report shows China pushing UK into third place in scientific publishing
Regret the Error Craig Silverman reports on trends and issues regarding media accuracy and the discipline of verification.Stories about errors, corrections, fact checking and verification. You can also read the book: Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech
Remembering Tom Wolfe, the master of the long sentence (Roy Peter Clark, Poynter, 5-15-18)
Resources for starting a proofreading and editing business (Louise Harnby, excellent and useful blog posts)
The Rise and Fall of the English Sentence (July Sedivy, Nautilus, 11-16-17) The Declaration of Independence Is Hard to Read. The surprising forces influencing the complexity of the language we speak and write. Sentences like the opening line of the Declaration of Independence simply do not occur in conversation....We utter the first syllables of a sentence while taking a leap of faith that we’ll be able to choose the right words en route....The unpredictable aspects of language, the things you just have to know, may be especially slippery for the adult mind.
The Secret Life of Lexicography: Beyond Drudgery (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-3-17) A review of the book Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper. (Stamper's blog: Harmless Drudgery.
Sentence diagramming: Putting some of the worst sentences ever constructed on solid, dotted and diagonal lines Sarah Garrett, ACES Conference 2018, 5-8-18) Hillary Warren opened her funny and enthusiastic talk by saying she hasn’t seen this many people "come to hear me talk without paying tuition."The Seven Deadly Copy Editing Sins (Anne Glover, Poynter Online, 8-25-02) Arrogance, assumptions, sloppiness, indifference, ignorance, laziness, inflexibility--explained, so you can avoid them.
7 Phrases You've Been Misquoting (Haley Marie Craig, Odyssey) Blood is thicker than water. Curiosity killed the cat. A jack of all trades is a master of none. Great minds think alike. Money is the root of all evil. My country, right or wrong. Starve a cold, feed a fever.
7 Stages of Revision Grief (Jordan Rosenfeld, Make a Scene)
Sharp Points (Bill Walsh explains his position on such issues as "a historic" or "an historic")
Speed reading vs. typography (Dick Margulis, words / myth / ampers & virgule, 5-29-06). See especially section on basic concepts for composing headlines and subheads, where to break, or not break, clauses and phrases, etc. For example, "If you have to break a phrase, keep modifiers (articles, adjectives, adverbs) with their targets."
Spell Checkers , software for spell-checking medical, scientific and technical, or legal documents (Inductel, which also produces definitions dictionaries)
• Summer Institute for Midcareer Copy Editors
• Subcontracting (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, An American Editor 4-2-14)
• Tangled Web. Victor Navasky and Evan Lerner report on a Columbia Journalism Review Survey, which finds that magazines are allowing their Web sites to erode journalistic standards. See also the full CJR report: Magazines and Their Web Sites (click on opening page to get text).
• Technical Editing SIG Scholarships (Diane Feldman scholarships, Technical Editing SIG)
• 10 famous rejections editors lived to regret (YouTube, Writers' Revenge)
• 10 Copy Editor Traits That Guarantee You Success (BAnne Glover, Poynter, In Search of the Perfect Copy Editor, 8-25-02)
• 10 trusty digital tools journalists should try right now (Ren Laforme, NewsU, Poynter, 4-2-15)
• T-shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops, golf shirts, and other wearables for editors ("I edit, therefore I live." "It's NOT my book," etc.) Copyediting-L Gear for the CE-Lery
• Thinking About Money: How to calculate your effective hourly rate, or EHR (American Editor, 10-6-10)
• 33 Struggles Only Copy Editors Will Understand (Emmy Favilla and Megan Paolone, Buzzfeed, 10-16-14) 1. You are literally blinded by pain any time you see “is” or “be” lowercased in a title. And yeah, you don’t use “literally” figuratively.
• 3* Rookie Editing Goofs You Can Stop Making Right Now (Carol Fisher Saller, Editor's Corner, CMOS Shop Talk, 1-31-17)
• Three Steps to Protecting the Author's Voice (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 6-25-13)
• Thsrs (the shorter Thesaurus -- great for headline writing -- gives you synonyms for the word you enter, the same length or shorter)
• Time Tracker. A valuable "macro" in the EditTools repertoire (wordsnSync). Check out all the time-saving macros.
• Tips on Tact and Tone (Pat McNees on Editing That Makes Authors Want to Cooperate)
Proposals. Five critical mistakes to look for when editing proposals (Joseph Priest Aces, 11-9-18)
Publishing: A helping hand (Karen Kaplan, NatureJobs.com, orig. pub'd in Nature 12-1-10). Can the growing number of manuscript-editing services turn a mediocre paper into a publishable one? A plug for the legitimate editing of scientific papers, with sidebars on Opportunities in editing and How to choose a manuscript-editing service. Writes Kaplan, "Prices — which vary depending on the level of service, the length of the paper and the turn around time — can be anywhere from $250 for a 6,000-word paper with a 14- to 21-day turnaround to $5,000 for a 12,000-word paper with a 48-hour turnaround."
Read First, Then Edit (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 9-4-12)
Wanna work in your PJs? Then be good (Meg E. Cox, Freelance Feast)
The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle by Steve Slaunwhite, Ed Gandia, and Pete Savage (available by Kindle or as paperback). The blog: The Wealthy Freelancer
What an Author Should Give an Editor (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 5-31-12). The things an editor needs to know about a manuscript to do the job well and efficiently, without a lot of back-and-forth Q&As.
When editorial project managers expect too much (Hazel Bird, The Wordstitch blog, 5-22-18) "Pie-in-the-sky expectations introduce risk into a project. Project managers should be reducing risk, not introducing it....The best results are realized when the roles and stages of a project are carefully joined up and everyone is doing their appropriate bit....Effectively managing a project involves asking as many questions as you answer."
Why being on a publisher’s list might not be enough to get you work (Hazel Harris, Wordstitch)
Why Writers Fight Style Guides Over Animal Pronouns (Cara Giaimo, Atlas Obscura, 3-30-16) Should a moose be an "it"? Some writers and scientists think creatures deserve better.
• Trump’s Typos Reveal His Lack of Fitness for the Presidency (John McWhorter, The Atlantic, 1-11-19) They suggest not just inadequate manners or polish, but inadequate thought.
• 25 Commandments for Journalists (former Guardian editor Tim Radford's manifesto for the simple scribe, Guardian, 1-19-11--some are about ethics, and some about style and substance)
• 25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English (So Bad, So Good --The best and worst of the Web)
• 25 tips for writing effectively for older readers (Sarah Carr, SfEP blog). See also Effective communication with older people (press release about the Society for Editors and Proofreaders developing a commercial package for organizations that interface with older people. See How to overcome barriers to effective communication with older people (digest of briefing and discussion 11-20-13) and see NUJ Guidelines on reporting age (PDF, National Union of Journalists, UK, 8-18-06 -- free download of 224kb PDF)
• 21 top tips to make the most of your freelance copy-editor or proofreader (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, UK))
• Twitter, who's on:
---A directory of Twitter handles for book trade people
---Twitter lists for editors (KOK Edit). Follow the tweeters on Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's lists of good Twitter feeds. By category: Health and medicine, news media, science resources, scientists, freelancing resources, and edit-Long-Islanders.
---Best editor twitter feeds (Galley Cat's list)
• Copyeditor's Typographic Oath (a set of copyeditors' commandments, Erin Brenner, Copyediting). Do no harm. Respect the writer . Don't be a search-and-replace editor. Look it up. He who pays makes the rules. That is some of them! See also Should You Be a Dog-Whistle Copyeditor? (Brenner, Copyediting, 9-25-12) "A dog-whistle copyeditor takes the time to edit the copy to such a fine degree that few people will notice the differences."
• Unicode Standard, Unicode Character Code Charts (scripts), and Unicode Character Code Charts (punctuation, symbols, and notational systems)-- links to the formulas for Unicode characters in many languages
Why Editing Matters
• Why Editing Matters (microsite of the American Copy Editors Society, ACES)
• Ira Glass's Commencement Speech at the Columbia Journalism School Graduation (Glass, This American Life, 5-17-18) "Editing is crucial because in my experience anything you try to make - what YOU want is for the story to be AMAZING. But what the story wants to be is MEDIOCRE OR WORSE. And the entire process of making the story is convincing the story to not be what it wants to be, which is BAD.
"And turning it from the bad thing it’s trying to be, where the sources are inarticulate, and you don’t know how to structure it, and the structure you make doesn’t work, into the shining gleaming jewel that you have in your heart … that is editing!"
• Why You Need a Professional Editor (Dave Bricker, 8-17-12). This is particularly good advice for writers who are self-publishing.
• (Harriet Evans, The Guardian, 6-16-11). Every good ebook needs a good editor. With the advent of ebooks, self-publishing has exploded, convincing some authors they don't need publishers. But they do need editors.
• Humbled by Copyediting (Elizabeth Fama, guest posting on Subversive Copy Editor blog, about how shamed and grateful she felt for a thorough copy editing -- 8-8-11)
• Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales (Sean Coughlan, Education and Family, BBC News, 7-13-11)
• Will Automated Copy Editors Replace Human Ones? (Michael King, American Journalism Review, 4-15-14) "Sometimes, [Beaujon] said, the supposedly significant changes copy editors make are really more like 'secret handshakes from editor to editor' to prove one’s knowledge of obscure, arbitrary journalistic style rules." But automated programs don't get nuance, irony, humor, or the big picture.
• The Price of Typos (Virginia Heffernan, Opinionator, NY Times 7-17-11). On a home page or a site offering commercial products, where there are concerns about trust and credibility, "In these instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue."
• Students armed with sub-editing skills are given tools for life (Tim Luckhurst, The Times, Higher Education, 3-5-09 on the immense value of the sub-editor, "the lowest caste of editorial personnel who earn their meagre livings correcting the style, grammar and accuracy of their 'betters' on news and features desks." Even the finest journalists make mistakes, and bloggers, you need sub-editors, too!
• Why Editing Matters (Jake Sherlock's amusing video slideshow of images of typos in public, at ACES regional conference--there's a whole page of related videos on that YouTube page)
• Mind if We Watch? Copy editors matter. (Karen Dunlap, Poynter 11-9-02)
• Review of a book that really needed editing (both developmental -- who is your audience? -- and copyediting)
• Why you need a copy editor (marked-up memo from Toronto Star about reduced need for copyeditors)
• Readers prefer edited news, research sponsored by ACES finds (American Copy Editors Society 3-17-11)
• Regret the Error on the issues of media errors and accuracy. This page contains links to excellent resources on the public's perception of the press, human error, studies of newspaper accuracy, studies of broadcast accuracy, fact checking, and more.
• Why are there so many errors in The Anthology of Rap? The editors respond. It Was Written. Paul Devlin (Slate, 11-10-10) on how so many errors crept into this Yale University Press publication. (They apparently "leaned heavily" on material full of errors.)
What do editors and copyeditors
(and proofreaders, etc.) do?
Do you want to hire (or be) a developmental editor, substantive editor, copyeditor, production editor, assignment editor, or proofreader? Read up on the different functions:
• Kinds of editors and levels of edit--what every writer should know (with links to material on levels and types of editing; fiction editing; copyediting; proofreading; newspaper editing; technical editing; freelance editing; the editor-author relationship; whether editors are valued and valuable; and becoming an editor)
• What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing by Peter Ginna (a Chicago guide). Essays by 27 of the most respected editors in publishing talk about their work. “Detailed and comprehensive in scope . . . The book explicitly aims to keep in check any romantic notions of an editor’s life, emphasizing that editors take meetings, publicize books, and check contracts at least as often as they make marks on manuscripts or host boozy lunches.” --Times Literary Supplement
• Why Are You Hiring a Professional Editor? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 3-5-14) For those who think they might skip this step. Main messages: Not everyone can be a good editor. Peer group editing is not the same as using a professional editor, professional editors are skilled artisans worth more than a bottom-scraping fee, and the editor who has successfully edited a romance novel is not necessarily the editor who can successfully edit a large manuscript on cancer genetics. Different skills are needed for different projects.
• How Star Wars Was Saved in the Edit (YouTube, Rocket Jump Film School, 18 minutes and worth watching.) A video essay exploring how Star Wars' editors recut and rearranged Star Wars (effectively creating the rhythm and pacing we saw on the screen): A New Hope to create the cinematic classic it became. In a sense, this shows (in the film world) what developmental editing can also do with written material. (In the hands of a good professional editor, it is far more than catching typos.) "...they say a film is written three times: first, in the screenplay, next, in production...and finally, in the edit.
• Why photo shoots need editors too (Julia Sandford-Cooke, SfEP, 1-13-15), Excellent overview of a position most of us don't think about, and should.
• Guidelines for Ethical Editing of Theses / Dissertations (download PDF, Editors Canada)
• How should I brief a copy-editor?, followed by How should I brief a proofreader? (SfEP, UK, with advice to clients on what to include when you send a job to a copyeditor or proofreader). See also What should I look for in a copy-editor or proofreader?, keeping in mind that SfEP is geared to British audience.
• Becoming an Editor (from the blog, This Crazy Industry)
• She asked the question that changed my life: Betty Prashker, dead at 99 (Lucian K. Truscott IV, newsletter, 8-19-24) An indefatigable advocate for women in publishing and for equal pay in an industry that was a paragon of patriarchy when in 1945, she became a reader of unsolicited manuscripts from “the slush pile,” as it was called in publishing. She was a force of nature, and she made her mark at a time when women in New York publishing were as scarce as ice in the Sahara.
---Betty A. Prashker, 99, Who Pushed Boundaries in Book Publishing, Dies (Trip Gabriel, NY Timers, 8-14-24) A top editor and executive at two publishing houses, she was an advocate for women in publishing, and for equal pay in an industry that had long been male-dominated. “She was a terrific editor,” said Erik Larson in an interview. “She had a rare knack for being noninterventionist. She’d take what you gave her and make it better by cutting things out and tying things together without getting in your face.”
---Pathfinding Former Doubleday & Crown Editor-in-Chief Betty Prashker Dies at 99 (Penguin Random House, 8-14-24) At Doubleday, her authors included Kate Millett, who wrote the ground-breaking “Sexual Politics,” Gay Talese, William F. Buckley, and Phyllis Chesler. She launched the careers of Judith Krantz, Dominick Dunne, Jean M. Auel, Erik Larson, and Susan Faludi, as their editor at Crown.“In all, Prashker is estimated to have edited more than 500 books,” according to Publishers Weekly. In 1998, Vanity Fair cited her as one of 200 Women Legends, Influencers, and Trailblazers.
---Betty Prashker, publisher of the feminist classics ‘Sexual Politics’ and ‘Backlash,’ dies at age 99 (Associated Press, WTOP, 8-9-24) Back in the 1940s, Prashker had failed to convince Doubleday to take on a promising young writer she had met at a Greenwich Village party, James Baldwin. Now, her judgment was welcomed.
• Editing Fiction. Links to Carolyn Haley's excellent series of pieces on editing fiction on An American Editor. See especially (scroll down for) the parts on The Subjectivity of Editing Fiction.
• What they think about when they think about editing (John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun, 8-22-15) All the things good editors do and why you should not expect them to come cheap.
• Interview with a TV (Copy) Editor (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyeditor, 3-17-15) Crosswords puzzle editing led Duncan McKenzie into other fields, including TV. “On Train 48, there were no captions to check, but, with, over 300 episodes, we had a major challenge in keeping track of the information about each character. Actors improvised their dialogue, so, after each episode, we'd have to record key facts, and integrate that into the current database of facts about each character.”
• Style Sheet: A Conversation with My Copyeditor (Edan Lepucki, The Millions, 2-7-14) An enlightening Q&A with copyeditor Susan Bradanini Betz, both for copyeditors and those they may edit. Also a useful style sheet. Says Betz: "When I copyedit, I get closer to the manuscript than I was ever able to as an acquisitions editor. I read every single word, looking at each word and tracking the syntax, not skimming over sentences. It’s not my job as a copyeditor to suggest big-picture changes or comment on quality, so I am focused on the story and the language at the word and sentence level. I keep the reader in mind and try to anticipate what might be confusing or problematic; I check facts and dates, track characters and events for consistency; and I do the most thorough read I possibly can, coming away with an in-depth understanding of the work that wasn’t possible for me in acquisitions." (Acquisitions editors sign authors to write books for their publishing company. Developmental editors edit and manage books from the point of signing to the final draft. Production editors manage books from final draft to publication. But some book editors handle all three of those stages. Generally, however, they farm out the copyediting to freelance copyeditors who check for consistent style, correct grammar and spelling (or, with fiction, appropriate incorrectness). Technical editors generally have good knowledge of a subject area and review a manuscript for technical accuracy.)
• What Does Editing Look Like? Behind the (Crime) Scene at the Editor’s Screen (Corina Koch MacLeod and Carla Douglas, on The Book Designer, 9-10-14) And the visuals clearly demonstrate the principles explained.
• Professional Editorial Standards (2009) by Editors’ Association of Canada. Downloadable PdF at http://www.editors.ca/files/public/PES-2009-FINAL.pdf. Spells out what is done in generally recognized editorial stages, in five parts: The fundamentals of editing; structural editing; stylistic editing; copy editing; proofreading.
• How I Learned to Edit and My Thoughts on the Author Aspirant (Len Epp, LeanPub, interviews Jane Friedman on Backmatter, 5-10-17) Listen to audio and/or read the transcript. About the long process editors go through to become good editors, and about author aspirants and changing times, as well. For example: Long ago, writers were "born to privilege," and could afford time to write, or they had patrons. Then some could live on book sales. "But that flipped yet again, where, for instance it was Mark Twain who - his most successful book wasn't sold through bookstores, but it was sold door to door - peddled, like a vacuum cleaner or something. And at the time, people kind of looked down their noses. Like, proper authors with proper books are sold in proper bookstores. They are not sold door-to-door like a vacuum, or some sort of weird smarmy cure or potion. But that's where he saw his greatest financial gain, in supporting that effort....you find lots of interesting things happen if they're willing to not let status anxiety take over their thinking in terms of how the book gets to the reader..." and so on. More of Jane Friedman's good insights.
• “Copy Editor” vs “Manuscript Editor” vs . . .: Venturing onto the Minefield of Titles (Cheryl Iverson, Council of Science Editors, March-April 2004) No two publications use the same terms to describe the same work, and in a discussion among editors "It was the issue of substantive editing and working closely with the author that most often was key to characterizing the work that should be called "manuscript editor" or "author's editor" rather than "copy editor."
And some preferred "technical editing" to "substantive editing."
For some, the distinction depends on to whom the editor owes allegiance (the author or the publisher) and to some it depends on whether the editing is done before or after acceptance. Or is the editor's obligation to the reader? Does it matter if the edit is light or substantive? An interesting discussion and a reminder that freelance editors must clarify what their clients expect their scope of work to be.
• Author editing (Wikipedia) "Although term "authors' editor" is little known, even by persons whose work could accurately be called author editing, it is not new but has been in use at least since the 1970s. The roots of this profession seem to lie in the arena of medical editing in the US." That type of editor is getting a manuscript (typically academic) ready for submission. If you work with self-published authors wise enough to hire an editor, it may help to use both terms: author's editor and copy editor.
• In a Changing World of News, an Elegy for Copy Editors (Lawrence Downes, NY Times, 6-16-08) The job hasn’t disappeared yet, but it is swiftly evolving.
• Copyediting or Proofreading? Getting the Most for Your Editing Dollar (Corina Koch MacLeod and Carla Douglas, on The Book Designer, 5-13-15). How is copyediting different from proofreading and why proofreading is not usually enough for a self-published work.
Proofreading could mean reading final copy against marked-up copy; or it could mean reading final copy for minor errors of spelling, punctuation, layout, etc.--and pointing out errors.
Copy editors work at an earlier stage of production, and may also be concerned with more substantive editing. In terms of payment, proofreaders are low on the totem pole.
• Donna Tartt and Michael Pietsch (editor Michael Pietssch and novelist Donna Tartt in a Slate Book Review author-editor conversation). Donna Tartt does not like being "standardized."
• Editing and revising fiction (Writers and Editors)
• The 3 Stages of Copyediting: I — The Processing Stage (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 2010). Adin explains: "Mechanically, the copyediting process can be divided into 3 stages: the processing stage, where the manuscript is prepared for the copyediting process; the copyediting stage in which the manuscript is actually copyedited; and, the proofing stage, where the manuscript is checked for the misses that occurred during the copyediting stage. Adin talks here about using macros to speed up the process.
Part II: The Copyediting Stage (8-4-10).
Part III: Proofreading.
• Some Copyediting Terms (Wendy Belcher, Academic Copyediting)
• Thinking Fiction: An Overview of the World of Fiction Copyediting (Amy Schneider, An American Editor, 9-8-14) A checklist of what you will and won't do as a good fiction copyeditor.
• The Mind-set of the Fiction Copyeditor (Amy J. Schneider, An American Editor, 10-6-14)
• What You Need to Know to Edit Fiction (Erin Brenner, on An American Editor, 8-25-14)
• Editing and revising fiction, excellent articles targeted to fiction editing,
• Two Slate editors debate their very different editing philosophies. (Dan Kois, Laura Helmuth, interviewed by Jennifer Lai, Slate Plus, available free for a while, 5-12-14). Two Slate editors debate their very different editing philosophies.
• Interviews with, and profiles of, agents and editors
Are you a writer or an editor? The following two entries, from The Open Notebook, provide insights into the main differences between writing and editing, especially about science. "Writers and editors work together all the time, but the two clans are somewhat mysterious to one another. Mutually suspicious, even. How do you know which career path you should specialize in? And how do editors become editors, anyway? Ann Finkbeiner and Laura Helmuth asked several journalists to describe the differences between writers and editors."
• Are you an editor or a writer? Part I: The writers. (posted by Christie Aschwanden, The Open Notebook, 1-16-13).
• Are you an editor or a writer? Part II: The editors. (posted by Christie Aschwanden, The Open Notebook, 1-16-13).
• 33 Struggles Only Copy Editors Will Understand (Emmy Favilla and Megan Paolone, Buzzfeed, 10-16-14) 10. You silently judge people for not knowing the differences between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash. 6. You evaluate potential mates on their ability to correctly use “fewer” vs. “less than.”
• Endless Rewriting (Helen Hazen, American Scholar, Spring 2013). When a novice writer received a letter from Jacques Barzun, asking her to write a book, how could she have known what she was in for? A great example of a top book editor helping a novice think through the main points and structure of her book--though few editors operate at the level Barzun did here.
• Escape from the Grammar Trap (Jean Hollis Weber, TechWhir-L, 4-15-10). Some reasons why editors focus on details and not the bigger picture; how much attention technical communicators should pay to formal rules of grammar, punctuation, and usage; and how we can distinguish between essential, nonessential, and fake rules of grammar, punctuation, and usage.
• What Ever Happened to Book Editors? (Marjorie Braman, PW, 9-20-13). A veteran editor gets back to basics: "I can envision a model in which the in-house editor is the jack-of-all-trades that the publisher requires, while still editing select projects. For other projects, the in-house editor might need to work with a trusted freelance editor to help move things along. But publishers have to acknowledge what every editor—in-house or freelance—knows: editing is crucial and can make the difference between the success or failure of a book."
• The Twin Pillars of Editing (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 9-23-13). "The twin pillars of editing are the thinking and the mechanical... The thinking pillar is what attracts people to the profession. Should it be who or whom? Does the sentence, paragraph, chapter make any sense? Does the author’s point come through clearly or have the author’s word choices obfuscated the message? The thinking pillar is what professional editors live for; it is often why we became editors." Using • macro tools can speed up the mechanical part of editing.
• The Odd Role of the Publisher/Editor (Josh Sternberg, Digiday, 3-7-13). Jason Pontin, publisher and editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, is the digital media version of the player-coach. "Being a publisher and understanding the business realities has made him a better editor." Says Pontin: "I’m much more focused on the idea of a curve on my wall of where I want the digital audience to be 6-12 months from now, not just in traffic or page views, but in return visits. And that matters to us. I want a high degree of audience engagement, as it benefits us editorially and as a business.”
• The Business of Editing: Light, Medium, or Heavy? (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 9-24-12)
• Editor, Editor, Everywhere an Editor (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 1-13-10). A good explanation of the differences between developmental editors (editing for structure, clarity, and the big picture) and copyeditors (the "rules-based" editor).
• Editing Titles vs. Editing Duties, Part 1 (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 8-6-13). Editing titles don't always match up with expected editorial duties. Part 1 explains what a line editor and a developmental editor are expected to do. In Part 2 (8-13-13), Brenner covers proofreading and fact checking.
• Duties of an Editor & How Editors Help Writers (Fiction editor Beth Hill, The Editor's Blog 2-1-11)
• Black day for the blue pencil (Blake Morrison, Guardian)
• The Business of Editing: A Rose By Another Name Is Still Copyediting (An American Editor, 6-27-12, writes about the trend for publishers to outsource copy editing offshore for very low fees, getting poorly edited work back, and hiring American editors to "proofread" PDFs, by which they mean copy edit the poorly edited copy at proofreaders' rates.
• What does a copy-editor do? and What does a copy-editor not do. (FAQs, Society for Editors and Proofreaders, SFEP)
• Why good copy editors are ‘abnormal’ humans (Craig Silverman, Poynter, 8-9-13). If you’re a good editor, you’re “able to look at a page without using your brain,” Igarashi writes. “Put another way, you need to be able to look at words in a way that goes against everything your brain would naturally do when it looks at words.”
• Classifying editorial tasks (Jean Weber, Technical Editors' Eyrie). When rules-based and analysis-based edits overlap, which editorial decisions are negotiable with the writer, and which are not?
• Clarity for Editing (Justin Baker suggests clearer names for levels of edit, STC Technical Editing Sig 4-20-07)
• How Editors Talk to Editors Is Not How Editors Talk to Writers (4-22-2013)
• A copyeditor's commandments (Erin Brenner, Copyediting Tip of the Week, 2-1-12)
• Copyediting: A Duty of Care (Corporate Writing Pro, 12-7-11). An excellent list of the things a good copyeditor does, well-phrased, including, "Revising sentences to bring subjects and verbs closer together," "Moving subjects to the front of the sentence," and "Discovering hidden verbs, otherwise known as nominalizations."
• Copy editing (Wikipedia's entry is useful; Wikipedia's entry on Editing contrasts editing roles (print media, executive editor, periodicals, and scholarly books and journals); its entry on business editing is slightly peculiar.
**Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (superb links from KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf), on several themes, including The Basics, Business Tools, and Editing Tools.
• Definitions of Editorial Services (Bay Area Editors' Forum)
• Definitions of editorial skills (Canadian Editors) on developmental/project editing; substantive or structural editing; stylistic editing, rewriting, copy editing, picture research, fact checking/reference checking, indexing, mark-up/coding, proofreading, mock-up (rough paste-up), and production editing
• Developing New Levels of Edit (Judyth Prono, Martha DeLanoy, Robert Deupree, Jeffrey Skiby, and Brian Thompson, STC, revising levels of edit for technical editing, as originally spelled out by Van Buren and Buehler), PDF.
• Developmental Editing (Kristi Hein, Pictures & Words) describes what she did on a couple of developmental editing projects--good examples of what this macro level of editing entails)
• What Will Happen to Developmental Editing? (Dan Cohen, 11-17-11).
• The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading (Mark Nichol, Daily Writing Tips, 4-2-11)
• What Copyeditors Do (Scott Berkun, 9-25-09, what copyediting looks and feels like)
• Do Editors Edit Anymore? (Caroline Tolley, guest blogging on Writer Unboxed, about the craft and business of fiction, 4-19-11). There are two kinds of editing, and most publishers don't have time to provide good editing anymore, so that fiction manuscript had better arrive already edited.
• Duties of an Editor & How Editors Help Writers (Fiction editor Beth Hill, on The Editor's Blog, who also wrote What Should an Editor Do for a Writer?
• Editing: What? (Delores Farmer and Sherry Southard on levels of editing)
• Editorial skills, categorized and defined (Editors Association of Canada)
• Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, a book that explains the publishing process and the special skills needed for particular areas, such as mass market and romance, edited by Gerald Gross
• Editors Roundtable: Introducing Nancy Wick and Julie Van Pelt (Kyra Freestar interviews two developmental editors of fiction, on The Editor's POV (a forum for freelance editors of fiction and creative nonfiction)
• Editors: Scourge of the Earth or Cheap Psychotherapists? (Rebecca Rosenblum, The Afterword, National Post, 12-6-11). An excellent explanation and appreciation of the differences between substantive or developmental editors, line editors, copy-editors, and proofreaders -- as distinct from acquisition editors and production editors.
• eLife>: Can a Top-Tier Journal Run Without Professional Help? (Phil Davis, Scholarly Kitchen, 12-1-11). Davis predicts that a scientific journal with no professional editors will soon face the same problems PLos Biology and PLos Medicine did.
• ELSS Editing Requirements (Rick Weisburd on what's required for scientific editing and translation from Japanese, at one serious firm)
• An Evolving Model for Editing (Deborah Howell, Ombudsman, WaPo, on the changing role of the editor as newspaper staffs are cut)
• Five Ways to Recognize a Bad Editor (Popular Soda). With the recent ebook explosion, dozens of freelance editors have popped up, self-promoting, taking payment, and supposedly editing ebooks. How can you tell if you’re getting a good deal from a reputable freelancer or about to be screwed over by a misguided (potentially malicious) hack? Here are our five signs of bad editors.
• The Hidden Costs of Copyediting (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-6-12). For publishers who think copyediting is too big an expense and should be cut.
• How (Freelance) Editors Operate (San Diego Professional Editors Network)
• How to Become a Developmental Editor (Scott Norton)
• Is Freelance Proofreading the Job for You? (Kate Rosengarten, KateProof, 8-1-12)
• Levels of Edit (San Diego Professional Editors Network)
• In Praise of Copy Editors (And Why We Need More) (Reid Norman, Communications Strategy 4-26-12)
• Lives and Letters, an interview with Robert Gottlieb. This Salon.com interview with the legendary editor is ostensibly about writing but gives helpful insights into the editing process (and the writer-editor relationship) inside a good publishing house. See also the Gottlieb collectionLives and Letters
• The role of the editor in the technical writing team (Jean Hollis Weber's excellent outline of what editors do, types of edit, and interactions with the writing team)
• Showcasing the Work Editors Do (Bay Area Editors' Forum), links to many useful articles
• So what does a proof-reader/copy-editor/transcriber/copy-writer actually do? (A day in the month of Liz Broomfield, Libro Editing Services, 2-9-11)
• A day in my life (Glasgow editor Lucy Metzger, in the first of an SfEP blog series)
• So You Want to Be an Editor: Information about a Career in Editing (in one page, the Editors' Association of Canada provides a great overview of what being an editor involves and requires). On the second page of its standard freelance editorial agreement , EAC provides a breakdown of tasks required, and the type of editing those tasks typically fall under. Very useful!
• Stop Editing Me (Scott Norton on the editor's natural bent)
• Unraveling the Mysteries of the Editing Process (Erin Brenner, The Writing Resource)
• The things editors do (John D. McIntyre, You Don't Say 2-15-12) Take this sentence: Please welcome the Hart’s into our Diocesan family.
• What a Freelance Editor Can Do for You (Kathryn Craft, Writania, 7-12). When to hire a developmental editor, a line editor or copyeditor, or a proofreader.
• What a permissions editor does (Julie Cancio Harper, Permissions Trackers, on Publishing Careers 1-31-08)
• What Do Editors Do? (Bay Area Editors Forum)
• Adding to Your Editorial Tool Kit: Image Research and Permissions (panel for Bay Area Editors' forum, 3-24-09)
• What Do Hiring Managers Want? (Gail Saari's notes on a BAEF panel in 2003 featuring Lasell Whipple, managing editor at Jossey-Bass; Joy Ma, former managing editor for PC Games magazine, currently with Key3Media; Lorena Jones, managing editor at Ten Speed Press; and Walter Keefe, of Synergy Personnel Services, Inc.)
• What is substantive editing (Jean Weber, Technical Editors' Eyrie: Resources for technical editors). You can find answers to a lot of how-to questions here: Technical Editors' Eyrie
• What Editors Do (Lynette Smith's useful chart, San Diego Professional Editors Network), PDF
• What exactly does a newspaper copy editor do? (Bill Walsh, The Slot, on "The Lot of Journalism's Noble Misfits." Check his other entries, too, including How a Copy Desk Works, How Can I Become a Copy Editor? , and What's a slot man?)
• What Editors Do and What Editing Can't Buy (Writer Beware, SFWA)
• What is substantive editing? Steven L. Kanter, MD, editor of Academic Medicine, interviews Albert Bradford, director of staff editing (YouTube video). Bradford explains that far beyond "comma chasing," structural editing is working collegially (not correctively) with an author with something substantive to say to carve away the bad stuff (like Michelangelo carving sculpture) to reveal the "David," to be sure the substance (theme, idea, argument) is clearly and compellingly enough stated that even someone not in that field would find it of interest, and the author will feel grateful for having a better piece.
• What It's Really Like To Be A Copy Editor Lori Fradkin, The AWL, 7-21-10)
• What It Takes to Be a Medical Writer (Susan E. Caldwell, on her helpful biotech ink spots blog). Subscribe free to The Biotech Ink Insider for job info;,archived articles.
• Specialist Q&A -- science and natural history editing (Liz Drewitt, SfEP blog, UK, 10-1-15)
• Specialist Q&A – working on maths books (Louise Harnby, SfEP blog, 5-13-15)
• Specialist Q&A – medicolegal editing (Etty Payne, SfEP blog, 7-12-15)
• Specialist Q&A – working for business client (Kate Haigh,SfEP blog, 4-27-15)
• What to Look for in an Editor (Author-Editor Clinic, PDF)
• What We Want in a Copyeditor (Jossey-Bass Managing Editor Lasell Whipple, for a BAEF gathering, 2003/4)
• Why Copy Editors Are Necessary: A Small Treatise on the Publishing World (Nancy Hanger, Windhaven Press, on why copyeditors are necessary for fiction)
• Why Editing Matters (American Copy Editors Society, or ACES, which invites your comments)
• Why Children’s Publishing Needs Freelance Editors Now (Emma D. Dryden, Publishing Perspectives, 6-20-12)
• Your Copy Sucks: You Don't Even Know What "Edit" Means (TJ Dietderich, PRBreakfastClub)
Clients: How to work with an editor, proofreader, or project manager
• 21 top tips to make the most of your freelance copy-editor or proofreader (Society for Editors and Proofreaders)
• How to Find and Work with a Professional Editor (Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn)
• How to Survive Editing (Daphne Gray-Grant on Jane Friedman's blog, 3-14-23) Having a gut-punch reaction to being edited is part of the cost of doing business for writers. Here’s advice on how to survive the process. 'If your editor has used “track changes” and if they are someone whose judgment you trust implicitly, consider hitting the “accept all” key, then reading through only the corrected manuscript to ensure all is okay with you. In this manner, the edits won’t traumatize you, but you can still accept the benefit of the editor’s knowledge. Just remember that this maneuver won’t delete their comments, so you will still need to deal with those.'
• How to Avoid Taking Edits Too Personally (Hattie Fletcher on Jane Friedman's site, 10-18-22) If you generally trust your editor, one way to approach the manuscript you got back is to take a bit of it, save a new file, hit “Accept All Changes” and see what it looks like. In the best-case scenario, you’ll be delighted by how well the manuscript reads: there’s all of your stuff, just a little more shipshape than you left it."
• 21 top tips
to make the most of your project manager or managing editor (Society for Editors and Proofreaders)
• Why You Need a Professional Editor (Dave Bricker, 8-17-12). This is particularly good advice for writers who are self-publishing.
• How to Brief an Editor (Institute of Professional Editors Limited, Australia). Be clear about what you want an editor to do before you engage them. What level of editing do you require?
• 7 Common Myths About Hiring a Freelance Editor for Your Book by Nancy Peske. Explains the various basic kinds of editing.
• Setting Editing Expectations (Erin Brenner, Copyediting 4-3-12). A checklist of possible tasks for a report manuscript; if the budget is tight, ask client to use this to specify which items are a priority -- create a triage list. The sample list of tasks to be done is help to show clients who think all that's required is a quick spell-check.
• The art of editing
• What book doctors and consulting editors do
• Kinds of editors and levels of edit
• How and how much editors, proofreaders and other publishing professionals charge
• Fact-checking (and how to spot fake news)
• Training: courses, workshops on editing, proofreading, and publishing
• Errors and error rates in editing
• Why editing matters
• Where to find work
• Tips on marketing your editing and proofreading services
• The business of editing
• Contracts for editorial services (and/or rules of engagement)
• Editing checklists
• Style sheets
• Tips and tools for editors and proofreaders
• How to approach an editing project
• Editing academic writing
• How to use Track Changes
• Macro tools for editors and proofreaders
(search and replace plus)
• Macros and software for references, citations, footnotes and endnotes
• Author's alterations (AAs) and document version control
• Fact-checking and hoax-checking sites
• Is it worth doing sample edits? taking editing tests?
• Organizations for editors and publishing professionals
• Associations of translators and interpreters
• Sites for and about translators and translations
• Resources and tips for publishing professionals
• Blogs and websites by and for editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders
• Books for editors
• Books on design
• Indexing: why and how
• Books on indexing
• Interviews with (and profiles of) agents and editors
• Interesting examples of heavy editing in literature
• Kinds of editors/editing and levels of edit
[Go Top]
Training: Courses, workshops on
editing, proofreading, and publishing
Note: the instructors for these courses may change, and the quality of the course may vary with by instructor.
• Council of Science Editors (CSE) Publication Certification Program (an honored specialty certificate)
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS) certification (an honored specialty certificate)
• A Certificate Program and Certification Are Not the Same (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK-Edit blog, 5-31-16) "The United States does not have any organizations that provide certification of general editing proficiency. Note, however, that the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences provides certification of editing proficiency in the life sciences, and the Society for Technical Communication, whose membership includes writers and editors, provides certification of technical communicators....Editors Canada is one of several professional associations outside the United States that does provide general certification."
• Professional Certification vs. Certificate Program (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
COLLEGE-and-UNIVERSITY-BASED TRAINING:
• UC Berkeley Extension Professional Sequence in Editing. A four-semester sequence, either classroom and online training. Four required courses: grammar;, mechanics and usage for editors; introduction to copyediting; intermediate copyediting; and either substantive editing or a professional sequence in technical communication. Self-paced, but weekly deadlines keep you on track, says one enthusiastic participant.
• UC San Diego/Extension Copyediting Certificate College-level classes, assignment deadlines, interaction with instruction. The program can be completed online in 9 to 12 months. Tuition is $425 per course. Both UC courses use University of Chicago style.
• UCLA ExtensionCertificate in Editing and Publishing, an estimated $4,320.
• Graham School, University of Chicago editing certificate program Four required courses and one elective, which can all be completed online.
• Columbia Publishing Course. Formerly a six-week summer course in which college trained in the basics of book editing, sales, design, and publicity, this year, writes Julie Bosman in the NY Times (7-15-11), the E-Book Revolution Upends a Publishing Course. Writes Bosman, "This year’s 101 students were chosen from more than 475 applicants, the highest number in years, showing that they were not deterred by the $6,990 fee for tuition and room and board on the Columbia campus — or by the limitations of entry-level positions that pay around $30,000 a year." See also • Columbia Publishing Course (ColumbiaUniversity, New York City). See Famed Radcliffe Publishing Course Relocates to Columbia School of Journalism (Kim Brockway, Columbia University Record, 9-25-2000)
• Master of Professional Studies in Publishing (30 credit hour, 2-year cohort program. Classes offered on weekday evenings in Alexandria, VA, or online through distance learning.)
• NYU Center for Publishing (NYU School of Professional Studies courses in publishing span the breadth and depth of the industry—from understanding the fundamentals of editing, copywriting, marketing, and digital rights to mastering the latest Web tools and platforms that publishing professionals use. The NYU Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) immerses students in an intense, six-week study of book, magazine, and digital publishing. Now entering its 38th year, the program combines workshops, strategy sessions, and presentations by some of the leading figures in publishing.
• The Graduate School (Washington DC). Classroom training (evening and weekend), online training. Plug in key words: editing, proofreading, editorial practices.
• Simon Fraser University (SFU) courses and workshops toward SFU editing certificate. See Amy Haagsman's From proofreading to plain language: A review of SFU’s editing program
• Denver Publishing Institute) (University of Denver four-week introduction to book publishing)
• Book Publishing at Portland State University (PSU) (graduate program focuses on providing a comprehensive view of the publishing industry)
•Yale Publishing Course, two versions of an intensive, week-long course for publishing professionals: Magazine and online publishing (July); Book Publishing, print and digital (August). Tuition: $5450. Earlier we ran this link to a story about Yale's course:Yale launches course for the magazine and book publishing industry (to fill the gap left by the closure of the renowned Stanford Professional Publishing Course (SPPC), which was offered from 1978 to 2009).
• The Publishing Training Centre (this British-based organization offers distance learning courses in Basic Proofreading, Copy-Editing and Successful Editorial Freelancing, among others, as well as Quickfire (four-hour online) courses and classroom-based short courses. Here's Louise Harnby on Editing Digital Products: What's in it for the freelance proofreader?
• USDA graduate school and certificate courses (Washington, DC)
• Book publishing courses (Publishing Central, listed, but definitely not evaluated).
• Pace University Masters in Publishing program (a 36-credit program)
• Master of Professional Studies in Publishing (George Washington University 30-credit-hour, 2-year cohort program)
TRAINING OFFERED BY PROFESSIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATIONS
• American Copy Editors Society (ACES, emphasis on editing for journalism) offers various forms of training, including its annual three-day conferences, held in a different state each fall. Members who cannot attend conferences can get session handouts and stories posted on conference sites. ACES (which purchased and has taken over Copyediting) also offers regional editing and digital boot camps. In 2012, ACES entered into a training alliance with The Poynter Institute’s News University. Poynter NewsU provided discounted training for ACES members in exchange for ACES contributions on several Poynter NewsU training initiatives. Self-paced, uses AP style guide, with focus on jounalism More info here and in next entry:
• Poynter ACES Certificate in Editing (geared to journalism). Take the NewsU courses, complete the online assessment for each course, and you will receive your certificate from Poynter's NewsU.
• American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) certificate training, and online pocket training (for members only)
• Author-Editor Clinic (Seattle-based online instruction in developmental editing of fiction and creative nonfiction--a structured approach to learning how to analyze manuscripts and to communicate with writers). See PDF FAQ about online classes .
• Copyeditors' Knowledge Base Katharine O'Moore-Klopf a/k/a KOK Edit's excellent and useful directory to venues for training (and certification) for editors.
• Editorial Boot Camp (various locations) and Fiction Editing Boot Camp
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), one-day workshops, seminars, and classroom and online courses for editorial freelancers. See Online courses, webinars (online catalog, Editorial Freelancers Association). For current or upcoming courses, see Active courses (ranging from various proofreading and copyediting courses to developmental editing of fiction or nonficiton, book mapping for developmental editors, medical editing, WordPress A-Z, sensitivity reads, children's literature, etc.)
• Editors Canada, new brand for Editors Association of Canada, offers testing for certification, Professional Editorial Standards, seminars, and certification study guides.
• EEI Communications Training (the publishing think tank, Washington DC area, has changed its training arm--it is now The Business University (based in Alexandria, VA)
• Editcetera workshops, Making Words Right (programs in San Francisco and Berkeley and webinars)
• Medical Writing Certificate Course (UC San Diego Extension) Designed to prepare biomedical or life sciences graduates to be medical writers in the commercial sector, government agencies and/or academia.
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders (sfep) training, particularly helpful for British students. In addition to many onsite courses, SFEP offers distance learning (online) courses in proofreading, copyediting, editorial project management, and successful editorial freelancing, and Quickfire courses onsite.
• KOK Edit's page on Education and Training provides a fully annotated list of training resources for editors.
• Narrative Magazine has a page linking to a long list of Publishing and Editing Programs.
ON TRAINING AND MENTORING, GENERALLY
• How to Pursue a Career in Editing: Advice for College Students (Tiffany Yates Martin on Jane Friedman's blog, 1-24-23) Q: My dream is to be an editor and writer. Do you have any advice or guidance to offer on how to make this dream a reality? A: Study the craft. "Writing and editing both rest on the same foundation: an understanding of story craft and language. You learn how the sausage is made—and made well—and eventually internalize those skills so that they’re automatic; you don’t have to focus consciously on craft and mechanics because they become a part of you." Work with a publishing house as an intern or assistant editor. Work with the people who work with manuscripts. Learn from IRL manuscripts. Get into the habit of analyzing everything. Work your way up in ability and experience.
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby, Proofreader, 12-1-11). Louise's comments apply especially for British-based publishing professionals; there are definite differences between British- and American-style publishing but the principles of what she says are the same in both arenas.
• Teaching the Art of Copyediting (Erin Brenner, on An American Editor, 5-19-14) If copyediting is teachable, why aren't there more great copyeditors? See also Brenner's Copyeditor Training, Part 1 on certificate programs and courses (Copyediting, 11-1-11), Part 2 (conferences, and other short-form training opportunities) and Part 3 (self-directed training opportunities.
• Why not a master’s in editing? (Anthony Haynes, Monographer, 2-18-13).
• The Practical Editor: What Does Professional Certification Look Like? (Erin Brenner, on An American Editor, 6-23-14)
• Teaching yourself editing (John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun, 1-19-13)
• Maybe they could try to teach editing (John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun, 6-20-12)
• Do You Mentor Mentees or Proteges? (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 1-30-14)
• Do You Need a Mentor? (Cassie Armstrong, Morningstar Editing, 6-3-15, "Cleaning up the verbal spill")
• Find a Mentor to Boost Your Career Beyond Mid- or Sr Editor (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 3-9-15)
• Co-mentoring: free continuing professional development for editorial professionals ( Hazel Harris, Editing Mechanics blog, 5-25-13)
• Improve Your Editing Skills Through Mentoring (Anonymous, Copyediting, 1-7-14)
• Mentorships (ACES Mentor Program)
• In Praise of Blunt Editing and Grumpy Mentors; or, What I Learned From Journalism (Denise Kiernan, PowellsBooks.Blog, 9-21-17) Not really about mentoring editors, but worth a read anyway.
• Evaluating Editors (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 1-13-14)
• So You Want to Be an Editor (or Proofreader) (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, On the Basics, An American Editor, 6-13-16) Lists skills needed, tools of the trade (what you need in your office), and links to training resources.
• Training in Editorial Freelancing (Louise Harnby's roundup of articles on editorial freelance training in the U.K., published in her blog, The Proofreader's Parlour
• Editorial Training and Industry Consensus? A View from the UK (Louise Harnby, 5-21-12)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby, 12-1-11)
• Proofreading: How to Choose the Right Training Course (Louise Harnby, 2-16-12)
Where to find work
(for editors and publishing professionals)
Scroll down for Specific sites for finding editorial work
It usually pays to join an organization that provides searchable listings of members that job-providers (or contract providers) can look through. (See Organizations for Editors and Publishing Professionals) And sometimes it pays just to join an organization UNRELATED to publishing but about a subject you are passionate about -- and let everyone in that organization know that you edit or proofread or write for a living. (You may be the only editor those people will ever hear about.) People with money to spend and specialized skills that don't include wordsmithing don't have time to go through gazillions of resumes from people with limited skills, so they like the winnowing out that a targeted membership or a specialized directory helps provide. Budget to be listed in several places. As my old friend Alex Bespaloff used to tell me, "You have to spend money to make money." If you're looking for editing work with firms outside of publishing, you probably want to approach a company's communications or publications manager and editor, or if there are none, staff in the the marketing department.
This is a partial listing, for editors and other publishing professionals. If you are looking for an editor or proofreader, this might also be an indirect way to find someone. See also Tips on marketing your editing and proofreading services
• Where to Find Fiction Work (Carolyn Haley, Thinking Fiction, An American Editor, 5-4-15) "...in general, the more people in the chain between you and the author, the more dollars that are dispersed to others before you. Conversely, the more channels you draw from, the more secure your workflow and income will be over time."
• Finding Work Katharine O'Moore-Klopf (KOK Edit)'s) excellent links and descriptions --for finding work on sites where jobs are posted, or by getting yourself posted or showcased on sites where people come looking for subcontractors. A good place to start if you're looking for job postings. See, for example, Busting the Myth of the Feast-or-Famine Cycle, and
The 1.5-Hour Daily Social Media Schedule.
• Freelance or employee: Which is better? (Phillip S. Leventhal, The Write Stuff, Journal of the ERuth E. Thaler-Carter,uropean Medical Writers Association, 2009)
• On the Basics: The what, why and how of marketing a career or freelance business (Ruth Thaler-Carter, An American Editor, 6-12-23) Ruth links to four related topics, including How editors (and proofreaders, writers, photographers, graphic artists, etc.) get referrals and jobs (4-22-23)
• Recognizing Self-Imposed Limits to Your Editing Business (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, on An American Editor blog, 9-14-15). Ruth writes about the folly of refusing to use current technology, keeping your focus local, not investing in your business, not continuing to learn, not networking, not understanding & knowing your effective hourly rate, and not promoting or publicizing yourself & your business.
• Is There a “Best Industry” for Editors? (Ruth Thaler-Carter, on An American Editor blog, 4-7-14). Good on where to look outside of traditional publishing for work.
• Website resources for editors and proofreaders (Louise Harnby, crime fiction editor). Tips on setting up a website for your freelance business. See Louise's marketing tips below, as well.
• How to land a (first) tech job: from zero to success (Szymon Bujowski, LinkedIn, 4-12-23)
• What should be on your website? (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, An American Editor, 3-25-2020)
• Freelance Mailing List Job Links
Specific sites for finding editing work
Specific sites for finding work
• Indexer Locator (American Society for Indexing)
• ACES Jobs Board (American Copy Editors Society, for news and journalism editors)
• Bay Area Editors' Forum
• Bookjobs.com. All kinds of jobs in book publishing on site of Association of American Publishers
• Council of Science Editors Job Bank
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). List yourself there, and members also get access to this EFA Job List
• Going Solo toolkit’s work record spreadsheet (Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) )
• Job Banks and Publishing Marketplaces (another page on this website)
• Journalism Jobs
• KOK Edit (Katharine O'Moore Klopf's Copyeditors' Knowledge Base)
• Language Alliance Remote Translator Interpreter Jobs, +1-303-470-9555
• Louise Harnby's Resource Library
• Preditors and Editors (for editing, copywriting, ghostwriting, indexing, and software). Particularly useful for those seeking publishing professionals are the warnings about those who are "not recommended." A Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America site.
• Publishers Lunch Job Board
• Publishers Weekly Job Zone
• ServiceScape, a professional book editing marketplace.
• Society of Technical Editors Job Bank and Career Center for technical communicators
• Working for Academic Editing Agencies (Anna Sharman on Louise Harnby's blog, 2012).
• The Write JobsWriters Write!.
Tips on marketing
your editing and proofreading services
• 3 Keys to Freelance Editing: Position, Package, and Price (Jane Friedman, 7-29-2020) First, understand terms like developmental editing, content editing, copyediting, etc., and know which type you do, which area of writing you're most helpful with, and which type of client you're best able to help. Second, figure out who your target client is and how to package your services in a way that makes hiring you easier. And consider that pricing the package may be better for you than offering a price per hour or per word.
•Self-Employed Editors, Can You Build a Clientele Instantly? Katharine O-Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 10-18-18)
• Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business by Louise Harnby. "Marketing can be summed up in four words: Being interesting and discoverable." In his review of the book, Rich Adin offers additional advice.
• Marketing Tips for Freelancers (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, EditorMom, 7-8-09). Excellent advice that still works.
• An editor’s guide to creating an online portfolio (Rachel Schallom, Poynter, 8-9-18) Tell stories about key projects, infuse your portfolio with personality, focus on your work. Very persuasive.
• The Generalist–Specialist Dichotomy and the Editorial Freelancer (Louise Harnby, on An American Editor, 5-9-16) Saying you do "everything" is less credible and doesn't inspire trust; not providing specialty terms makes you less discoverable (SEO); specializing shows you have interests and are likely to be experienced, competent, knowledgeable in those specialties; and saying you do X rather than Y clarifies your business preferences. Present yourself in terms of relevant training, industry-specific knowledge, subject matter, client base, editorial services, and clear statements of interest ("I love fiction"). Thanks, Louise!
• Finding, working with, and retaining [ESL] clients, Part 1 (Geoff Hart, An American Editor, 11-25-2020) How to find work with authors who know English as a second language. Clear communications, "Show, don't tell." Part 2, 12-2-2020) Cultural considerations, rhetorical issues, editing tips. Part 3, insights into ethical issues you might encounter in working with ESL authors.
• Uniqueness & Being Valuable to Clients (Rich Adin, The Business of Editing, 5-18-16) Valuable and unique services may include things like renumbering references ("in both the reference list and in-text callouts) with a report that details the renumbering. There's a macro to do that. And publishers who want that unique service will pay more. (But it took him six months to negotiate the higher price.)
• Why Freelance Editors Should Attend Their Clients' Conferences (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-18-16). Being the only editor (or writer) among a roomful of specialists in a topic is a great way to make yourself visible--and they will know you are interested in their field.
• Why editors should build relationships with authors, and how they can do so (Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, ASBPE, 12-17-14)
• What Needs to Change (Karen Yin, Conscious Style Guide, reprinted from Copyediting, April/May 2015). "Editing itself should be invisible—copyeditors can no longer afford to be." The tradition of editors toiling in the shadows no longer works, as most of us are entrepreneurs, not salaried employees.
• The Proofreader’s Corner: Editorial-Business Marketing — The 4 Ps of Persuasion (Louise Harnby, An American Editor, 7-27-15) Pictures, praise, portfolio, professional practice.
• Are Networking and Marketing Essential to an Editing Business? (Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, On the Basics, An American Editor 5-12-14)
• Lessons Learned: Marketing for the Small Business Owner (Louise Harnby, 3-11-13)
• Lessons Learned #2: The Daily Marketing Challenge and the Online Lunch (Louise Harnby, 4-25-13)
• Lessons Learned #3: Three Steps to Effective Directory Advertising (Louise Harnby, 6-4-13)
• 7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts (Gregory Ciotti, Kissmetrics)
• 5 Social Media Sites You Should Be Using (Part I) (Erin Brenner, on An American Editor, 11-3-14) Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, of course, plus Google+ and Goodreads. and in Part II (11-5-14): Storify, SlideShare, and Pinterest.
• How to Start Your Editing Business. Larry Jordan's advice may be useful, particularly for video editor.
• Dear Newly Self-Employed Editors . . . (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf talks about the practical realities you might anticipate and not get derailed by).
• How I Got Started (SfEP blog) Graham Hughes makes transition from IT career to one in editing and proofreading. From the same blog: Samantha Stallion starts with translation work, Abi Saffrey moves from small editorial jobs to developing a specialty in economics--working for corporations, until going freelance (in which she kept building skills and developing niches), How Richard Hutchinso moved from work with math, modeling, and computers to copyediting and proofreading. He "still can’t quite believe that people will pay him money to read books, and are (mostly) happy to have their mistakes pointed out."
• Book Editing Associates FAQ . This is a great model for a FAQ page for editors and an interesting system of marketing a group's members' services.
Is it worth offering sample edits?
taking editing tests?
• The Question of Free Sample Edits, Part 1 (Jamie Chavez, Copyediting, 3-3-15) (reasons not to offer free sample edits to prospective clients) and Part II (3-10-15) on reasons to consider them, in certain circumstances.
• No More Missus Nice Gal (Jamie Chavez, Read>Play>Edit, 1-12-15)
• Why Give a Sample Edit (Lillie Ammann 2-28-11) A "sample edit isn’t appropriate for a very small project. But for a book-length manuscript from a first-time client, I insist on doing a sample edit—for my benefit and the benefit of the prospective client."
• EFA Suggested Guidelines for Editorial Testing (download PDF, Editorial Freelancers Association)
• How to Take an Editing Test (Copyediting.com, 12-23-16)
• Testing Copyeditors, Part 1: Skip the Editing Test (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 9-1-15)
• Testing Copyeditors, Part 2: Take the Editing Test (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 9-8-15)
• Testing Copyeditors, Part 3: Alternatives to Editing Test (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 9-15-15)
• Editing Tests (An American Editor, 2-13-12) "I no longer will hire an editor who hasn’t taken a test and passed it."
• Wannabe Editors: Can You Pass a Proofreading Test? (Subversive Copy Editor, 3-4-13)
• Winning Copyediting Work, Part 1: Get to Know the Project (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 11-12-13) Questions to ask the client. Remember: you want to know what the project is about and how tough or easy an edit it will be.
• Winning Copyediting Work, Part 2: Show Your Stuff (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 11-19-13)
• Testing Copyeditors: Ethical Test-Taking (Adrienne Montgomerie, Copyediting, 3-2-18)
Seven ways to make your LinkedIn profile more appealing to editorial project managers (Hazel Harris, Wordstitch editorial services, 3-14-13)
• Grammar quizzes and exercises (go here to test and sharpen your skills!)
• Can You Afford To Take That Editing Job? (Right Touch Editing, 4-25-24) Things to consider if you'll be an employee, and things to consider if you're freelance.
Where to find an editor (in the U.S.)
Several U.S. organizations post directories of professional freelance editors or allow you to.
See also Where to find professional editors in English around the world in the section after this one.
• Aces: Editors for Hire (specialty: journalism editors). See also Aces Job Bank.
• Bay Area Editors' Forum
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences BELS members pass a rigorous 3-hour exam for certification as an editor in life sciences.
• Cambridge Academic Editors Network Editors based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Copyediting-L's Directory of Freelancers Public directory of copyeditors who subscribe to Copyediting-L, an excellent email discussion list for copyeditors. [This seems to be unavailable now.]
• Editorial Freelancers Assocation (EFA)
Check EFA out for common rates(on the low side).
• Editors' Association of Earth (Facebook group) and EAE Adspace.
• Editors of Color Database (Beta) A database of editors, proofreaders, and sensitivity readers of color.
• National Association of Independent Writers & Editors (NAIWE) Focused on career building.
• Northwest Editors Guild, which has excellent links to resources,including a range of fees normally charged for various types of editing.
• Reedsy (more a business than an organization) pitches itself to self-publishers, takes 20% commission, and draws in clients for freelance editors.
• The Comprehensive Guide to Finding, Hiring, and Working with an Editor (Chantel Hamilton on Jane Friedman's site).
See also the larger list (with specialties) of
Organizations for Editors, Proofreaders, and Indexers
Where to find professional editors in English outside the U.S.
---Australia and New Zealand: The Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd)
---Australia: Freelance Editors' Network
---Canada: Editors Canada
---Ireland: Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland (AFEPI)
---UK: Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)
(H/T Ann-Marie O'Shaughnessy's Facebook entry)
See also Where to find professional editors in the U.S., above.
Interesting examples of
heavy editing in literature
Sometimes the editor helps create a piece, by carving away the flab and helping to find the artistic center within. Sometimes such heavy editing does not have such felicitous results. Among the most interesting examples of heavy editing in literature:
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's heavy cutting of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (see, for example, The Textual History of 'The Sun Also Rises' by Carmen Corral (Sigma Tau Delta) and various accounts of both the editing and its repercussions, including Fitzgerald, Hemingway And The Sun Also Rises (Literary Traveler, 7-12-99)
• Max Perkins' heavy editing and reorganizing of Thomas Wolfe's long, long novel manuscripts (including Look Homeward, Angel) is one example covered in Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg
• Gatsby Before He Was Great (Jimmy So, Newsweek, 5-6-13). "in a recent movie version, Luhrmann reportedly enlisted 'Trimalchio' to shape a 'darker' Gatsby, and we’re told that DiCaprio carried a copy of it everywhere he went."
• Ezra Pound's beautiful editing of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland(Eliot's title was He Do the Police in Different Voices . (See interesting account in this Wikipedia entry.
• Gordon Lish's editing of Raymond Carver's short fiction--the subject of at least two interesting magazine pieces:
---The Carver Chronicles (D.T. Max's long fascinating 1998 piece in the NY Times Magazine about Gordon Lish's extremely heavy editing of Raymond Carver's early fiction) and its effect (good and bad) on Carver's short fiction. Raymond Carver's stories were at the center of American literary life in the 80's. Now they are at the heart of a battle over his legacy: Were some of them the product of collaboration? And why all the secrecy surrounding his archives?
---The Two Raymond Carvers (Giles Harvey, NY Review of Books, 5-27-10)
---"Looking for Raymond Carver" (A.O. Scott, NY Review of Books, August 12, 1999), subscription or purchase required
---"Rough Crossings: The Cutting of Raymond Carver" (Simon Armitage, The New Yorker, 12-24-07). (For some reason I have "David Remnick, unsigned" in my notes--anyone know why?)
Books on Design
• Brady, Michael. Thinking Like a Designer: How to Save Money by Being a Smart Client
• Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style
• Butterick, Matthew. Typography for Lawyers (received the Legal Writing Institute s Golden Pen Award)
• Felici, Jim. The Complete Manual of Typography: A Guide to Setting Perfect Type (includes material on French, Spanish and Italian typographic conventions and differences between British and American conventions)
• Hendel, Richard. On Book Design
• Lee, Marshall. Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production, 3d edition
• Lupton, Ellen, and Abbott Miller. Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. See Ellen Lupton's website
• Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. See Edward Tufte's website, including PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports.
• Book design. Dick Margulis's helpful online series on designing book interiors.
• Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours P. Syme