I recently copy-edited a book called Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain, published by our subsidiary, Thorntree Press. The book covers a wide range of topics relevant to bisexual people and allies in the UK and other English-speaking countries. I learned a lot from editing this book, as I always do, but one thing I had to deal with was entirely new to me: content notes.
Read More »Content notes and trigger warnings: A primer for editors
I loved academic writing when I was a student, and now I get really excited when I get to work with students as an editor. In the past few months, Talk Science has done formatting, copy-editing and writing coaching for graduate students in sociology, political science and education.
The Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) has guidelines for working on theses and dissertations that clearly outline everything you should consider. We follow these strictly at Talk Science, and I’ve gone through and picked out a few points to expand on with my own experiences.
Read More »Editing academia: Working with students
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) recently published Trade and Green Economy: A handbook, the third edition of a handbook that examines the relationship between trade and the environment. The third edition focuses specifically on the green economy, which UNEP defines as an economy “that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.”
Talk Science did the copy-editing, proofreading and design of the English version of this handbook, as well as the design of the French and Spanish versions. We didn’t do the translation, copy-editing or proofreading of the non-English versions, but since we did design for all three, we handled a good chunk of the project management as the manuscript passed through us on the way to the designer.
Read More »Working with translations: Version control
I think plain language is awesome. I’m glad the movement is gaining momentum and that there are enthusiastic advocates out there trying to make plain language the default. And I’m excited to be learning more about how to improve my own plain language skills.
But I’m not so excited about the current of language shaming that undercuts plain language advocacy.
Read More »Advocacy, please
At a recent meeting of the BC branch of the Editors’ Association of Canada, a panel discussed the role of editors in ensuring accessibility to information. One of the final questions asked was, “Are editors advocates?” I think that yes, we absolutely are. But here’s another question: What are we advocates for? There are some general things we advocate for, clear communication being one, but I think that each of us has something specific that is important to us and that we should cultivate in our roles as editors.
Read More »English, science, and the editor as advocateI don’t often leave a six-hour seminar with more energy than when I came in, but if it’s six hours of language stuff, I’m pumped. This past Saturday the BC branch of the Editors’ Association of Canada hosted a workshop called Eight Step Editing, delivered by veteran editor and writer Jim Taylor, who developed the program in the 1980s. Jim has taught this process literally for as long as I’ve been alive, and I soaked up all the expertise I could. Eight Step Editing provides a framework for the editing process, a systematic way to approach editing that begins with making the fewest changes to the author’s words and becomes progressively more in-depth. I won’t go into the eight steps (you can find a good summary here), but I will share with you what got me so excited.
I recently received a letter from the Editors Association of Canada informing me that I’ve passed the last of my exams and successfully earned the right to put the letters CPE after my name: I’m a certified professional editor. The copy itself was very clean, so I sent it back to them with only a few stylistic suggestions.
Joking aside, I now have a widely recognized professional credential as an editor. What might seem a bit strange is that I’ve already edited thousands of pages of text for dozens of clients. That would seem to make me a professional editor by any reasonable definition. The key in this case is the “certified” part.
Read More »Stand back, I’m about to do editing