=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 6, no. 11 (18 March 2001) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: [1] Editorial: a new URL for the Electric Editors Q & A [2nj] St Albans [2nm] Reference texts on questions of grammar and usage [Offshoot of [2nl] Subjunctives and dollars] [2no] A French query [2np] Portuguese names - initials [2nq] Diacritical fonts [2nr] Tonic sol-fa Business matters [4eb] On-screen editing [4ec] Getting Work in Australia [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[1] Editorial ----------------------------------------------- A new URL for the Electric Editors Date: Tues, 13 March 2001 From: Ian Kingston, i.kingston@ntlworld.com As of today, the Electric Editors Web site has moved to its new address: < http://www.electriceditors.net/ > Some of you may have been using this URL for a while, but it hasn't been the official URL until now. Please update your bookmarks. The old URL will work for a short while, but will simply redirect you to the new site. Iain Brown has done all the hard work of moving everything over to the new site, redesigning the entire site in the process. With everything now in one place, rather than being scattered across several people's different Web spaces, the site will be easier to maintain and navigate around. In addition, the site now has a search facility. You can search for anything in previous issues of Grapevine, EDline or LANGline, or among any of the other pages. If your own pages contain a link to the Electric Editors, please change the link to point to the new page. If your link is a graphical link, you will also need to change your link to point to the new graphic, which is at: < http://www.electriceditors.net/about/link.htm > Despite our best efforts, there are probably still some glitches lurking within the new site. If you find anything, please let us know by emailing us at info@electriceditors.net ---[2] Q&A ----------------------------------------------------- ** [2nj] St Albans Date: Tues, 13 March 2001 From: Elizabeth M Murphy, emmurphy@ozemail.com.au Anna Beth McCormack wrote: > On proofreading: I like Hudson's fourth law. My favourite law > of proofreading is the one that says the worst mistake will be > made in the biggest type. Is this one of Hudson's also? Or just > Murphy's? > > On punctuation 'rules': Hear, hear! I'm not too fond of > absolute rules either. Let common sense prevail! Well, on punctuation, this Murphy agrees. Punctuation should be used to give meaning to words. If they don't perform that function, leave them out. As to multiple apostrophes, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned words like wouldn't've - perfectly acceptable in quoted speech. Elizabeth (of the Murphy clan) +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2nm] Reference texts on questions of grammar and usage [Offshoot of [2nl] Subjunctives and dollars] Date: Mon, 12 March 2001 From: Johan Segerback, johan.segerback@usa.net Peter Best wrote: > As a "non-professional" editor whose work up to now has > consisted mainly of "favours" for aspiring authors(around eight > books so far), I'd be interested in suggestions as to your most > useful reference texts on questions of grammar and usage. > > Made a note of Quirk from Johan, but would appreciate other > suggestions. > > Similarly, I'd be interested in details of books that provide > novel perspectives on language, including historical and > cultural developments. One standard reference on usage is "Fowler", that is "The New Fowler's Modern English Usage", 3rd ed 1996, edited by R.W. Burchfield. Another is the Merriam-Webster I also mentioned -- "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage", 1994. Both of these are alphabetical lists of grammar and usage questions, and sometimes it is not all that easy to know under what heading to look. I don't know of any comprehensive usage guide for English similar to Grevisse's "Le Bon usage" for French (structured more or less like a grammar) that one might conceivably read through once from cover to cover to find out on what (hopefully rather few) points one's own instincts differ from established, prescribed or contentious usage, but I think that would be useful as well. If anyone knows about one, please let me know. The Quirk grammar may require more knowledge of theoretical grammar than Fowler and Merriam-Webster -- but not unreasonably much more. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 13 March 2001 From: Anne Waddingham, Waddingham@compuserve.com When I went into my 5-year-old's classroom this morning, his teacher had written in large letters on the blackboard: 'Class 1 are brilliant.' It was encouraging to know that her pupils were doing so well, but should I have embarrassed her by pointing out the grammatical error? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2no] A French query Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Judyth Mermelstein, espresso@e-scape.net [Cross-posted from LANGline] Sarah Barrett wrote: > Can anyone help with a French phrase, 'prendre en charge', and > more particularly 'prise en charge'? Examples: > > en France, il a fallu attendre l'e/mergence du VIH, disse/minant > chez les usagers de drogues de\s le milieu des anne/es 80, pour > voir leur prise en charge se me/dicaliser, notamment du fait de > la politique dite de 're/duction de risques' > > and: > > 'une prise en charge globale de l'usager de drogues' > > 'prise en charge' seems to mean something different each time I > come across it. "Prise en charge" does seem to be used in a good many ways these days; it has certainly entered the medical and social services jargon here in Quebec. I'd be tempted to translate the first sentence as: "In France, it was only upon the spread of HIV through the drug-using community in the mid-80s that we saw their management become medicalized, particularly as a result of risk-reduction policies." The problems here are that it is not clear from the context whether this refers to "management" in the medical sense (as opposed to "treatment") or the "self-management" of drug-users who are now far more aware of the importance of hygiene, etc. As for 'une prise en charge globale de l'usager de drogues', this could mean "total responsibility for the (individual) drug-user" (as, for example, where one nurse provides health care, clean needles and advice to a patient) or something else (perhaps with regard to case management by a hospital team, or the responsibility of an NGO or government agency towards this clientele as a whole. Normally, "prendre en charge" would be "to undertake the care" or "to accept responsibility for" something or someone. How best to translate its occurrence in a given sentence depends so much on context that (as for many other terms) you can't just mechanically substitute particular English words for it. Not much help, I'm afraid... ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Daniele Laruelle, danakame@club-internet.fr [Cross-posted from LANGline] "Prise/prendre en charge" does mean a number of things, specially as it has become a catch phrase and tends to be very loosely applied. Basically: to take care of, assume responsibility for - moral, social, financial... In France, and in the context of healthcare, "prise en charge" can refer to the health services covering part or the totality of treatment costs ("prise en charge a\ 100% par la se/curite/ sociale", meaning all costs covered.) It can also mean that the official system - social services and health services - take drug users into their very official care, assuming treatment, costs, counselling, etc. (Prise en charge globale.) I would assume the first sentence to refer to the time before HIV became a serious problem among drug users, a time when medical assistance for them was largely obtained through non governmental support associations. Hence the medicalization, linked to the transfer of responsibility to a more official level of care. The translation Judyth offers seems relevant to me. However, as Judyth aptly pointed out, some ambiguities remain which a much larger context could perhaps clarify (a general overview of the article, the gist of it.) Or perhaps not, as is sometimes the case with convoluted French administrative and official reports... --- [Moderator's note: To assist the writing of accented characters in an ASCII text environment, we have adopted the following convention to show the accent after the character: / acute, \ grave, ^ circumflex, ~ tilde, " umlaut/diaeresis, , cedilla, % o slash, aa ring, sz German double s, | long s, _ line above letter --IDB] +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2np] Portuguese names - initials Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Renee Eve Levie, relevie@uol.com.br [Cross-posted from LANGline] Lionel Browne wrote: > What is the correct form for 'initialising' Portuguese names? > > In the journal article I am editing the authors' names are > given in full: > > Antonio Jose de Magalhaes Silva Cardoso > Manuel Antonio de Matos Fernandes > > In a previous paper their names appeared with first initial > only: > > A Silva Cardoso > M Matos Fernandes > > and their surnames (in the verso running heads) were given as > > Silva Cardoso > Matos Fernandes > > Is this the correct form? If not, what should it be? For author's names the correct form is the first one: Antonio Jose de Magalhaes Silva Cardoso Manuel Antonio de Matos Fernandes +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2nq] Diacritical fonts Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Cecelia Munzenmaier, cmunzen@uswest.net Just got this query from a designer I'm working with on a vocabulary activities book. Do you know of any Diacritical fonts we could purchase to use in the glossaries? It will be a nightmare for either the person who enters the text and or the designer if we have to show pronunciations the old way!!!! (Meaning insert each symbol and adjust as necessary) +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2nr] Tonic sol-fa Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com One for all you musicians out there: is there any consensus on how the syllables representing the notes are spelt - do or doh, ra, re, ray etc.? ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com Chambers Dictionary gives several alternate spellings for most of these notes. It came up in a friendly Scrabble game some years ago. We were playing in Canada and were using Chambers Dictionary. I played "TE" and was challenged by a player who only knew "TI". On investigation we found that her Canadian dictionary (Gage) only gave one spelling for each note but, as I've mentioned, Chambers gave a variety. This seems to be another Transatlantic difference. ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Sulaiman Adebowale, sulaiman.adebowale@codesria.sn I allow Chambers Dictionary only in a scrabble match and if I strongly believe I am a better match to my opponent. Just too many alternate spellings. You can mispell a word and, bingo, it is right there as an alternative for the word. ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Corinne Orde, c.orde@btinternet.com In my ancient Oxford Companion to Music, they are: doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te. The original French/Italian is: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. This in turn was derived from the first syllables of each line of the Latin verse: Ut queant laxis Resonare fibris Mira gestorum Famuli tuorum Solve polluti Labii reatum S[i]ancte Joannes (The ut was later changed to do). ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Ron Andrews, rja@osk2.3web.ne.jp According to the The Oxford Dictionary of Music (Oxford University Press 1994), just as in the Oxford Companion to Music mentioned by Corinne, the spellings of the pronunciations are: doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te, along with explanation of how sharps and flats are expressed too. (Sharps change vowel to 'e', flats to 'a', so 'doh' becomes 'de' when sharp, and 'me' becomes 'ma' when flat.) Tonic Sol-Fa (Oxford Dictionary of Music): < http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=246225 > However, Grove's Concise Dictionary of Music (Macmillan Press Ltd 1994) has the spellings as: doh, ray, mi, fah, soh, lah and te. And don't forget the extra syllable 'bah', inserted for the sharpened 6th if 'lah' is defined as the beginning of a piece in a minor key. ;-) (Normally, 'doh' is defined at the beginning of a piece.) Tonic Sol-Fa (Grove's Concise Dictionary of Music): < http://www.xrefer.com/entry/197026 > Other links of interest: The Hand of Guido (Guido d'Arezzo, Gui d'Arezzo, etc.) (details about the origin of the sol-fa syllables): < http://ocelot.cc.purdue.edu/~raybro/solmization.html > John Curwen Manuscripts (Performing Arts Library, University of Maryland): < http://www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/MUSIC/Curwen.html > Oxford Dictionary of Music: < http://www.xrefer.com/entry/238534 > -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Bob Davenport, bob@bobdavenport.freeserve.co.uk The 2000 edition of the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors prefers doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te. ---[4] Business matters --------------------------------------- ** [4eb] On-screen editing Date: Tues, 13 March 2001 From: Kathryn Moran, Kathryn.Moran@chi.frb.org Sarah Barrett wrote: > One of my clients is considering moving to on-screen editing, > having hitherto sent me hard copy. They've asked me what kind > of rate I'd think appropriate. I assume that OSE still attracts > a supplement. I'd be grateful to anyone who can suggest by what > sort of percentage my rate should go up. Since I am not a freelance editor, I cannot comment on charges. However, I must agree with Roger to a degree. I do much of the "clean up" on my files before I do any editing. I find that this allows me to concentrate on my copyediting. I also use track changes, and I find doing clean up first reduces the amount of marking in my file. My clean up is limited to items that the author won't notice--spacing, en-dashes, etc. I do perform at least one pass on hard copy. It's amazing how my eye views the article differently on paper versus on screen. Once I'm satisfied with the copy, I perform a second electronic clean up before sending the article off. I suppose I view the speed at which the computer performs these functions as an inducement to use the functions. I am generally working with very tight deadlines, but the expectation of accuracy is very high here, and I like to use all tools available to me. ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Owen Salter, osalter@benalla.net.au I was intrigued by the recent discussion about the processes involved in efficient on-screen editing. I come to the issue with a mixed background: fourteen years in magazine editing before moving to book editing, where I've been for ten years. I still keep up a little magazine copyediting and I find working on-screen quite efficient here, especially with sudden-death deadlines breathing down your neck. But with books my feeling is more ambivalent. 1. I still prefer *seeing* the copy in front of me. My impression is that this is a common feeling among editors; the screen doesn't quite feel real. Or perhaps it's that I don't feel so in control of things up there. 2. If a job requires basic, more or less straightforward line editing, working on-screen is easy and often advantageous. However, the more complex an editing job becomes, especially as it moves into the structural side of things, the more difficult it is to work efficiently on-screen. Of course, on the whole it's neater and cleaner to shift text around on the computer than to indicate on a manuscript where sentences, paragraphs or sections need to be moved (with all the attendant coloured markings, notes, instructions, highlightings, symbols, arrows, etc.). But working out *what* to move -- i.e. deciding what should be reorganised and how -- often requires a global view of a section, chapter or group of chapters that just isn't easy to come by on screen. I have considerable sympathy for Roger Jones, who says that after his initial "clean up' of a manuscript he prints out a hard copy to work on. I often do the same. On complex jobs involving lots of structural manipulation I still like to lay pages out across the spare bed and stare at them transfixed until solutions to the problems begin to crystallise in my mind. Editing on such a hard copy, of course, doesn't mean editing to a finished standard; that would be absurd given that the changes then have to be transferred onto disk. I work with a pencil roughing in changes, then once I know where things are going I move back to the screen. 3. I also do some ghostwriting and even some occasional journalism, and strangely enough I find a prefer writing on-screen -- probably a legacy of those 14 years in magazines. But whether editing or writing, on complex jobs involving a lot of on-screen work I still like to check a final print-out. Perhaps it's just my peculiar psychology, but I only really feel I've tamed the beast if I can *see* I've done it, in ink rather than pixels. On-screen editing has revolutionised the print media, but the picture in publishing seems a little less clear. Some publishers still want jobs done on hard-copy -- even when they send a MS on disk "for reference"! One publisher went to the expense of training me and other freelancers to use a particular specialised editing program only to drop it later and return to pen and paper. Some people love Word's "track changes" feature, others find it a chore. Clearly we're in a transition period, but how long the transition might take, and how far it will go, seems to me an open question. ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Anna Beth McCormack, mccormack@goulburn.net.au Owen Salter wrote: > 3. I also do some ghostwriting and even some occasional > journalism, and strangely enough I find a prefer writing on- > screen -- probably a legacy of those 14 years in magazines. It's not at all strange. For drafts, fingers can keep up with thoughts and changes of mind much better on-screen than they can on paper, where speed results in illegible scribble with much crossing-out. Result: better imagery, better flow, stronger feeling---something worth editing. Editing, on-screen or off, is quite a different matter, for 'slow and careful' is the rule. However, I do like hard copy and think it will always have a place, for two reasons: --- On-screen it is very easy to miss mistakes that 'jump off the page' in print. (Why??? Is the reason psychological or retinal?) --- Getting an overview of structure, comparing several parts of a book at the same time, ensuring consistent presentation---such things seem best done by spreading out pages and not losing sight of one while you adjust the pattern on another. -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Hannah Hyam, hhyam@clara.co.uk Anna Beth McCormack wrote: > --- On-screen it is very easy to miss mistakes that 'jump off > the page' in print. (Why??? Is the reason psychological or > retinal?) I disagree - I think that when checking over clean, edited copy, I am more likely to spot any remaining errors than when I check through hard copy littered with red marks. I do still find the odd error that I missed when I scan the printout, but I'd probably have missed them on paper anyway! > --- Getting an overview of structure, comparing several parts > of a book at the same time, ensuring consistent presentation--- > such things seem best done by spreading out pages and not losing > sight of one while you adjust the pattern on another. Again, I think that editing on screen has a huge advantage, in that you can use the 'Outline' view (if you have previously applied heading styles, which I always do even if I have to get rid of them later), and collapse it to see instantly the structure of the document with the various levels of headings. This is an invaluable facility. And you can leap from one section of a document to another much more quickly on screen. All in all, I find that on-screen editing beats hard-copy editing hands down, in every respect. I have not done a single on-screen job that I thought would have been better as hard copy, but almost any hard copy job would have been better, more efficiently and more easily done on screen. -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Nancy Boston, nancyb@bostons3.demon.co.uk Hannah Hyam wrote: > I do still find the odd error that I missed when I scan the > printout, but I'd probably have missed them on paper anyway! I don't see any need to make a printout and hardly ever do. I think the enormous advantage of on-screen editing is that you can change your mind without having to trawl back through the pages making a mess with Tippex or rubbing out pencil marks. You can also enlarge the type size when messing around with punctuation (in references for instance). Another advantage is that when you find a mistake you can do a search to see if it's cropped up elsewhere in the piece, also an invaluable time-saver. > Again, I think that editing on screen has a huge advantage, in > that you can use the 'Outline' view ... And you can leap from > one section of a document to another much more quickly on > screen. You can also use split screen to look at two parts of the same document or to compare one document with another. > All in all, I find that on-screen editing beats hard-copy > editing hands down, in every respect. You can also give the client a better end-product, it's easier to look up spellings, definitions and references online, you can use publishers' or journals' own templates, add extra coding if required, and send both the marked and the clean versions, and there's almost instant transmission by email or ftp transfer - no need to trek down to the Post Office or rely on a courier. -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Matthew Brown, matthew@brown1953.freeserve.co.uk When I was an English teacher, I remember reading an article that said psychologists had found that information was more readily picked up from text on paper than on screen. I can't remember much more than this, but it makes sense to me. (It is probably something to do with with richness of information, redundancy, context, visual cues, etc. Anyone feel like searching Google?) I always advised my students to print out a draft and then check it through (with a red pen, or a pencil) to pick up mistakes their eye had not detected on the screen. It works for me too: when I check my own writing I almost always find something I want to amend when I study the printout. If I'm writing something creative, I can't be objective about it until it is in black and white on a piece of paper in front of me. So what do I do when I copy-edit on-screen, which I much prefer? I rarely study the hard copy methodically; but it doesn't half help to look at it when there's a sentence that seems to be written in double dutch. Final housekeeping checks that I do include spellchecking, sometimes with language set first to USA and then to UK if ise/ize is an issue, and global searches for artefactual punctation errors that I might have made. I still need to spread the hard copy about sometimes, particularly when trying to make sense of an author's subheadings: but, usually, working in Outline or in Document mode in Word 2000 is an effective way of grasping such issues. As for writing on-screen, I find it tremendously liberating: one thing that works well for vague amorphous notions is to just brainstorm them onto the screen as lists and notes and scraps of ideas and interesting phrases, which I can then play around with and expand and elaborate upon until a clearer sense of a text's structure emerges. However, I also keep notebooks for spur of the moment ideas, and like the fact that there is a more permanent record of these. I'm far more likely to re-read and reflect upon them than with the jottings that I have stored on my hard drive, and there is something about the physicality of the notebook that enables me to recall the circumstances in which I wrote the notes originally. -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Kathleen Lyle, Kathleen@klyle.demon.co.uk Hannah Hyam wrote: > All in all, I find that on-screen editing beats hard-copy > editing hands down, in every respect. I have not done a single > on-screen job that I thought would have been better as hard > copy, but almost any hard copy job would have been better, more > efficiently and more easily done on screen. I absolutely agree: I now find hard-copy editing desperately frustrating, because I know it would be so much easier/more efficient to do it myself rather than mark it up for someone else. > I rarely study the hard copy methodically; but it doesn't half > help to look at it when there's a sentence that seems to be > written in double dutch. There are times when we need all the options we have available, and for really heavy language editing hard copy can be helpful - but only as one stage of the process, and probably only for parts of an MS. Using the outline facility makes dealing with headings an order of magnitude easier than it used to be. But there are still editors out there who are not making use of these facilities, not even of a spellchecker, as any proofreader can tell you. -------------------------- Date: Thurs, 15 March 2001 From: Josephine Bacon, bacon@langservice.com Three advantages of on-screen editing over hard-copy editing: 1) If the job is in a DTP format, you can cut and fill to exactly fit the text, get rid of widows and orphans, and use tracking (shrinking or expanding the text) to exactly fit the space. This is something an editor can do much better than a designer because we would not arbitrarily chop off the bottom bit of text, as many designers do. I have seen an index that ended at the letter L because the designer decided to put something else on the page as well as left no room for the rest of the index! 2) Search and replace: none of us are perfect, there may be a word that needs to be changed throughout and if this is done mechanically you will catch all of the instances of its occurrence, and will not be afraid that some have been forgotten or left out (though it's best to check manually as well). 3) There is no danger of anyone who may work on the book after you being unable to read your copy-editing marks or handwriting! A lot of people in the book world are sadly unable to understand standard copy-editing marks nowadays. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Miranda Barker, Wordwiseed@aol.com Agree with most of what you say re on-screen versus hard copy editing. But although spell check is useful I find that it needs to be backed up by reading carefully on screen as it lets through some oddities. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Kathleen Lyle, Kathleen@klyle.demon.co.uk Oh, absolutely, one cannot rely on it 100%, especially when dealing with proper names or complex technical terminology, but it is a useful line of defence against many of the simple typos that otherwise creep through. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Hannah Hyam, hhyam@clara.co.uk Nancy Boston wrote: > I don't see any need to make a printout and hardly ever do. Well, most of my clients require a printout, so I don't have much choice, but I do find it useful in some ways, e.g. to indicate things that can't be shown on screen, such as the need for a special layout in places. One other enormous advantage of on-screen editing is that you retain a copy of the files, and can easily send them again if disaster strikes in the post. In fact there is no end to the advantages of this method (Nancy has mentioned many of them), and I do a hard-copy edit these days only with extreme reluctance. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: David Penfold, penfold@eps-edge.demon.co.uk Another advantage of a printout, although you can see the same thing in a print preview or Page layout view, is that it shows everything, whereas Normal view, in which I normally edit, does not. I can't be the only person who has printed out a file only to find a graphic or a text box right across the middle of the text. It has, of course, moved from where the author put it (or at least the text has moved relative to it). I know I should have checked (and usually do), but it is nice to have features that help one double-check! ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Nancy Boston, nancyb@bostons3.demon.co.uk Miranda Barker wrote: > But although spell check is useful I find that it needs to be > backed up by reading carefully on screen as it lets through > some oddities. Kathleen Lyle then wrote: > Oh, absolutely, one cannot rely on it 100%, especially when > dealing with proper names or complex technical terminology, but > it is a useful line of defence against many of the simple typos > that otherwise creep through. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we should use the spell- checker as a substitute for careful reading, but rather as a backup. I find it particularly useful to run the spellcheck over the clean edited copy as it then finds mistakes that I may have introduced when editing, for instance two words running together where I've inadvertently deleted the space between them. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Rod Cuff, rod@wordandweb.co.uk David Penfold wrote: > Another advantage of a printout, although you can see the same > thing in a print preview or Page layout view, is that it shows > everything, whereas Normal view, in which I normally edit, does > not. I can't be the only person who has printed out a file only > to find a graphic or a text box right across the middle of the > text. For that sort of reason, I habitually edit in Page layout mode. Unless I'm working with a very large document that repaginates itself often, I've not been aware of any disadvantages of so doing. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Kathleen Lyle, Kathleen@klyle.demon.co.uk One disadvantage is that it uses more memory so it may be a problem if you don't have a highly specified machine. I find Page Layout mode very distracting, and never edit in that mode unless what I am doing requires attention to page layout. But I know just what David means about stray graphics - often because the author has decided to format tables by inserting rules as graphics. My main use for the (original) hard copy is for checking references - I still find it easiest to do this the old fashioned way, ticking them off in text and list as I go. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Nancy Boston, nancyb@bostons3.demon.co.uk Rod Cuff wrote: > For that sort of reason, I habitually edit in Page layout mode. > I've not been aware of any disadvantages of so doing. Kathleen Lyle wrote: > I find Page Layout mode very distracting, and never edit in > that mode unless what I am doing requires attention to page > layout. I edit short pieces (news items, abstracts) in page layout as it's often important to see how much space they take up. For longer pieces I edit in normal mode (usually at 150% size) but ALWAYS scan through it in page layout when I've finished the editing. > My main use for the (original) hard copy is for checking > references - I still find it easiest to do this the old > fashioned way, ticking them off in text and list as I go. May I recommend the following method: At the beginning of the job, after doing any basic formatting that may be required, go straight to the reference list, type each first author's name in turn into Search, and as you find each occurrence in the text highlight it (two mouse clicks do it). As you work down the list also check that they are in the correct order for that publication. When you've got to the end of the list, do a search in the text for "19" and "200" and check that each date has a highlighted name in front of it. This method catches missing (in either place), misspelt and wrongly dated references. As I edit I remove the highlighting from each reference as I go along, which helps me not to lose my place in the work. The secret is to work from the reference list back to the text not the other way round (as you would on paper). It's quicker because you find all occurrences of the same reference in one go and you don't have to interrupt your editing to tick off the references. This works for journal papers and book chapters that each have their own bibliography. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Chris Gravell, C.M.Gravell@open.ac.uk Ah -- references -- I use indexing in Word for this. I start with a search for "19" and "200" (great minds, Nancy) and mark each citation as an index entry, including the author's surname and date. I then create a new page at the end of the doc, and insert the index. This gives me a rough alphabetised list of all the citations with the page numbers against them to check against the reference list. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Julia Hubble, Jbhubble1@aol.com Matthew Brown wrote: > I remember reading an article that said psychologists had found > that information was more readily picked up from text on paper > than on screen. I am convinced that this is one of those urban myths, or a story put around by folk who just don't like change. I find the opposite is true now that I work on screen so much. Maybe it's to do with the medium we're the most used to. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: David Ibbetson, ibbetson@idirect.com For fonts it appears that we find the type of font we learnt reading with to be the easiest to read. I gather that English speakers who typically learn to read with a font such as Century Schoolbook find serif-fonts the easiest, but people from continental Europe, who typically learn to read with a sans-serif font, prefer sans-serif fonts. I am told that ESL speakers who first learnt to read a language such as Japanese or Chinese have difficulty with serif fonts because in Chinese the addition of serifs would change one character into another. My source is a number of discussions on e-mail lists inhabited by type-designers. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Michele Clarke, michele.clarke@btinternet.com Further to this thread of email, I have recently 'proofread' a publication aimed at (I should imagine) 14-15-yr-olds, beginning to think about careers. This had obviously been written by the author on a PC, 'designed' and sent out to me. I cannot believe there was any editing process in-between at all. The author had absolutely no idea of grammar, spelling or punctuation. I should imagine I made at least 40 marks per printed page, and that was only A5 size. I pointed this out to the publishers when I returned it (hoping not to tread on too many people's feet, just in case someone in-house had written it!), and that really this had been a copy-editing job, not a proofreading job, therefore the price should have been higher. As it was the first time I had worked for them and had agreed to a set fee, I did not mind. They are sending another today, which they say is much better. We shall see. What really worries me is the fact that a publisher could even think of sending such a horrific MS to a typesetter/designer in the first place, with no editing having been performed at all. Did anyone, I wonder, as Josephine Bacon says, understand my marks?! I shall look out for the book on the shelves, as I am very unlikely to see the book otherwise. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Adele Linderholm, adeledit@globalnet.co.uk Whenever I I've been asked to do on-screen editing using Word's tracking, I've ended up with an unreadable mess. How do I avoid this happening? The problems arise when (1) I change my mind about a correction and (2) when I make, and then correct, a typing error. Unfortunately, some editors insist that tracking is used. ------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 March 2001 From: Nancy Boston, nancyb@bostons3.demon.co.uk To reverse your last action(s), "Control z" is your friend. Otherwise, select the bit you want to change back and use the "reject change" button on the "reviewing" toolbar. > (2) when I make, and then correct, a typing error. This never causes me any bother. Your original attempt should be in blue and if you delete it or change it to something else the letters you've deleted should disappear. > Unfortunately, some editors insist that tracking is used. I find it invaluable and always use it whether I'm asked to or not. When you've finished editing a piece it's a good idea to save it, then save it again with a new name and go to "Tools: Track changes: Accept or reject changes: Accept all". Then you can give it a final read through (and spellcheck) in comfort (preferably in page view) without being distracted by any markings. I usually send my clients both the "corrections showing" and the "all changes made" versions so that they have the clean version to work from and the one with markings for reference. ------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 March 2001 From: Kathleen Lyle, Kathleen@klyle.demon.co.uk Nancy Boston wrote: > I find it [tracking] invaluable and always use it whether I'm > asked to or not. I hate it and never use it unless I absolutely have to! I don't like the messy screen. But you don't have to work with tracking turned on, fortunately. I prefer to use 'Compare documents' at the end of editing if a client insists. Thanks for the tips about reference checking - I will try it the next time I get a suitable MS and see if I can wean myself away from the security blanket of the hard copy. > As I edit I remove the highlighting from each reference as I go > along, which helps me not to lose my place in the work. > > The secret is to work from the reference list back to the text > not the other way round (as you would on paper). It's quicker > because you find all occurrences of the same reference in one > go and you don't have to interrupt your editing to tick off the > references. I don't do this anyway - I always make it a separate job. Much more efficient, whatever technology you use. ------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 March 2001 From: Alison Black, alison@bailihe.freeserve.co.uk Commenting on the suggestion that 'information was more readily picked up from text on paper than on screen', Julia Hubble wrote, > I am convinced that this is one of those urban myths, or a > story but around by folk who just don't like change. I find the > opposite is true now that I work on screen so much. Maybe it's > to do with the medium we're the most used to. Whether myth or not, it happens to be true for me. I have worked partly on screen for around 15 years *and enjoy it* - but tend to notice errors and infelicities of style far more readily on paper than on screen. The rumour (reported by David Ibbetson) that > ESL speakers who first learnt to read a language such as > Japanese or Chinese have difficulty with serif fonts because in > Chinese the addition of serifs would change one character into > another strikes me as very odd. Even if there are individual letters or words where this occurs, I can't help wondering if the difficulty isn't simply that presented by any unfamiliar script. Within Chinese and Japanese (kanji) there are plenty of modifications similar to our font changes. There are textbooks that show various cursive and printed styles. One may be familiar with one way of writing a character and find another way hard to read - just as one may be an educated reader of one's mother language but find someone else's handwriting impossible. ('What do Zen calligraphy and a medical prescription have in common?') Even if we don't confuse the issue by mentioning individual handwriting styles, the point holds. ------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 March 2001 From: Katie Lewis, Katie@farnfilm.com Nancy Boston wrote: > I should have added that when you've finished editing a piece > it's a good idea to save it, then save it again with a new name > and go to "Tools: Track changes: Accept or reject changes: > Accept all". ... > I usually send my clients both the "corrections showing" and > the "all changes made" versions so that they have the clean > version to work from and the one with markings for reference. I found out the hard way that you *must* send a clean version, with all changes accepted, because when the Word document is imported into Quark no distinction is made between changed and original text, so the poor Quark user just gets both ... The irony is that I was only trying out working with Track changes for my own interest, not because I needed to. ------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 March 2001 From: Jane Lyle, jlyle@indiana.edu Kathleen Lyle (no relation that I know of!) wrote of Track Changes: > I hate it and never use it unless I absolutely have to! I don't > like the messy screen. But you don't have to work with tracking > turned on, fortunately. I prefer to use 'Compare documents' at > the end of editing if a client insists. Compare Documents, though, can make for a much messier printout-- and with a long document it can introduce errors. For those reasons I require our freelancers to use Track Changes. If you're distracted by the messy screen, then your best bet is to go to Track Changes, Highlight Changes, and check Track Changes While Editing but *un*check Highlight Changes on Screen. That way Word is tracking the changes, but you don't see the tracking--until you go back into Highlight Changes and check the Highlight Changes on Screen box, at which time your edits are revealed to you in all their messiness. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 March 2001 From: Anna Beth McCormack, mccormack@goulburn.net.au Michele Clark wrote: > I have recently 'proofread' a publication aimed at (I should > imagine) 14-15-yr-olds, beginning to think about careers. This > had obviously been written by the author on a PC, 'designed' > and sent out to me. I cannot believe there was any editing > process in-between at all. ... > What really worries me is the fact that a publisher could even > think of sending such a horrific MS to a typesetter/designer > in the first place, with no editing having been performed at > all. This, unfortunately, happen all too often. I am very wary of undertaking a proof job for a stranger publisher---especially one who says 'read it with an editorial eye'. That means: 'We didn't do a proper edit. Now we're in a panic because we've seen errors. Please do a copy-edit in titchy spaces in proof-reader's time at a proof-reader's fee, but don't change anything because we don't want to do umpteen corrections.' Once bitten ... And I don't mean just small publishers who may be amateurish or paring costs to the marrow, but big publishers who ought to know better. Please do 'mind'. Why should you carry the can? Stick up for workers' rights. Stamp on their toes. It's the only way they may learn. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 March 2001 From: Christine Headley, chps@globalnet.co.uk I had a similar experience with 'proofreading' a module for an MBA course which the author had created via a voice program straight on to the computer. It didn't seem to have been looked at since. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 March 2001 From: Josephine Bacon, bacon@langservice.com I have a wonderful story about that. I had to edit a cookery book. There was a recipe for pasta that began "take a psychopath, and fill it with water. Bring to the boil, and add the spaghetti, etc.." The psychopath was mentioned in several recipes. It must have been a spaghetti pot. Clearly the author had not reread the manuscript at all before sending it to the publisher. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 March 2001 From: Julia Hubble, jbhubble2@aol.com You're right of course, in an ideal world publishers should not expect the proofreader to copyedit. However, in schools publishing in Canada at the moment this is what is happening. There is no time in the schedules for a manuscript to go through a copyedit. It goes straight from developmental editing to formatting and then the proofreader. The time constraints put on the publishers by government do not allow for a decent time to edit the books. Why not employ more editors you may ask, well in my case there aren't any. We are producing science books to meet the criteria of the new Ontario curriculum. The curriculum was published in the summer, the teachers (i.e.our reviewers) have just received in-service training. The deadline for submission is mid-May. So we are still developing and rewriting a book which will be published in 6 weeks time. Any editor who can deal with schools science is working flat-out for one of the four publishing houses competing for the market. We just can't find the people. (Of course, in a year's time the work will have dried up.) So we need excellent proofreaders who can also edit and are prepared to be flexible. Times are crazy. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [4ec] Getting Work in Australia Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Brendan Atkins, atkinsb@idx.com.au Peter Best wrote: > Does anyone have a tip or two on breaking into editing / > proofreading work in Australia? I receive leads through the Society of Editors (NSW) register (to be found at < http://www.users.bigpond.com/socednsw/register > Members pay an annual fee (on top of their society dues) to be included in the register. Not sure if other States have something similar... Most of my work though comes from referrals (which begs the question of how to get the first job, I know!). Knock on doors, get on the phone and arrange personal meetings. Be prepared to travel -- it is well worthwhile meeting managing editors and production managers in person, and you can then operate by email, Express post and courier. Follow up visits with emails and letters. Write a brochure: it will help you to focus on what you are offering, your strong points and the areas you're hoping to work in, and it will save you writing out the same stuff for each potential job. I work mainly for businesses (rather than authors) and have adopted a business-to-business approach -- I'm in business first, and in publishing second (if the first doesn't work out, nor does the second!). It demonstrates my sincerity and commitment to my clients but means focusing on business planning and financial / administrative matters rather more than if I was still a freelance editor working from home (I've recently moved to rented studio space which I share with other creative businesses -- extra expenses (lots!), but opportunities too...). The above approach has worked for me so far (working in corporate communications but also books on business, technical, scientific, educational topics, natural resources management books -- a strange mix reflecting my interests and experience) and it probably wouldn't suit everyone. I do recommend this book: 'Independent contracting' (Robinson, K. et al., Prentice Hall / Pearson Education, 2000, ISBN 1 74009 117 5); it's an excellent resource for anyone wanting to work as a contractor/freelancer in Australia; two of the authors have worked as freelance editors so it's highly relevant to our industry. Gotta go now -- my billable hours are down this week... ------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 March 2001 From: Cathy Gray, cgray@mpx.com.au Brendan gave a url for the Society of Editors (NSW) Directory of Editorial Services. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite right. The address that'll get you there is < http://www.users.bigpond.com/SocEdNSW/esd/ > (just wanted to keep me on the ball, didn't you, Brendan!!) ---[6] Just for fun -------------------------------------------- If it ain't broke... Date: Sat, 17 March 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com From the imprints page of an Open University course: "First published 1992. Second edition 1994. Third (revised) edition 1999. Reprinted withh orrections 2000." +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Oxymorons, no. 26 Political science +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "I'm glad we clarified that", no. 15 On a Swedish chain saw: "Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals". (Was there a chance of this happening somewhere?!) ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for an online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. To post to the mailing list via ListBot, use the following address: ee_edline@listbot.com For digest subscribers, please post your EDline messages to: bywater@zetnet.co.uk Topics might include areas such as Grammar, Spelling, American English or Punctuation. Messages should be pertinent to the basic premise of the list; they may be withheld, or redirected if more pertinent to one of the other mailing lists. The spelling and grammar of messages will *not* be corrected, but some editing of length may be undertaken. The sections of the EDline digest are as follows: [2] Q & A -- questions and answers [3] FYI -- items of general interest [4] Business matters -- items of a business nature [5] Bookmarks -- useful Web pages [6] Just for fun -- time for letting hair down! [7] Miscellaneous -- odds and sods * Administration All messages of a subscription or administrative nature should be directed to Iain Brown, at: iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk with "EDline ADMIN" in the subject line. * To subscribe to the automated version of EDline Send a blank email to: ee_edline-subscribe@listbot.com If you would prefer to read EDline as a weekly digest, send an e-mail to ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with "Subscribe [EDline digest]" as the subject line. * Homepage and back issues: Visit the Electric Editors at: < http://www.electriceditors.net/ > Archives of the EDline automated discussions can be found at: < http://ee_edline.listbot.com/ > --------- ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 2001, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997, 2000 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2001, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 6.11 Next digest issue: 25 March 2001 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=