copy editing
October 19, 2009
October 15, 2009
- This is a continuation of our interview with Alan Rinzler. Two weeks ago, we discussed his legendary life as an editor and publisher over the last 45 years. Alan continues to be a freelance developmental editor, one of the best. Since I often tell people that they need a freelance editor, I thought it was time to try to get to understand the process a little better and to find out what a ...
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September 30, 2009
- If anyone out there needs editing done, I can help! I am a professional freelance book editor and a published author with over twenty years of writing and editing under my belt. I do everything from basic proofreading to very "deep" comprehensive editing with commentary, feedback, critique, and rewording - all for one very low price. Whatever level of editing you need, I can do it! Just ...
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September 20, 2009
- Mary Norris started working at The New Yorker thirty-one years ago, in the editorial library, moving on to the collating department and the copy desk. Since 1993, she has been a page O.K.'er, or query proofreader. She has written for The Talk of the Town and contributes to the New Yorker books blog. She is working on a memoir about having a transsexual sibling, the legendary Baby Dee. ...
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August 28, 2009
- Copy editing somewhat-green writers is starting to affect me. On several occasions lately I have found myself mentally editing the sentences of someone talking on TV or radio. Not a good sign.That may be why I found this sentence in today's New York Times so striking. Then again, maybe the sentence is striking. It's from a review of Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt (whose standup comedy I love, ...
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August 25, 2009
- It's as enticing as the caramel topping on a candied apple. (changed to)It's as enticing as a caramel apple.* * * *Autumn is a great time to enjoy the region's ambient weather.(changed to)Autumn is a great time to enjoy the region's weather.
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August 4, 2009
- I changed: "As of now, the program is slated to continue till Dec. 1" to: "The program is slated to continue till Dec. 1.""As of now" crops up in my own speech and writing. But I never realized today how detestable it is, at least in journalistic writing. (It's like I'm having some kind of hate epiphany.) In journalism, where economy of words is a virtue, "as of ...
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July 7, 2009
- run-on sentence = 373,000 hits misplaced modifier = 40,100 hits I don't believe in run-on sentences. My working theory is that they're bogeymen invented by professional writers in order to scare the crap out of aspiring writers, divert newbies' attention from more important issues like misplaced modifiers, and thereby thin out the competition.In all my years of copy editing and reading friends' ...
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July 6, 2009
- The Washington Post had a good piece a few days ago about an increasing number of typos in their paper -- a trend that corresponds with a decrease in the number of copy editors there.The article cites a decade-old study that emphasizes how messy copy can hurt a newspaper's bottom line (that means money, to all you publisher types). The idea is that "each misspelled word, bad apostrophe, ...
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July 3, 2009
- Re-reading the definitions, I've decided that maybe the Los Angeles Times made the wrong call when they referred to several different types of news media as "mediums." (Maybe they were too hasty, as was I in interpreting the meaning of all this.) Here's the full definition from the Times' go-to dictionary, Webster's New World. Note that it offers separate definitions for the plural of ...
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