This week and next I’m gadding about and not thinking about my blog. I will of course be thinking about copyediting—in between crab cakes—while I attend Ruth Thaler-Carter’s excellent Communication Central conference in Baltimore with a crowd of like-minded writers and editors.
After that, I’ll be off to Daytona International Speedway, where I have a “4-Day Super Infield” ticket to camp at the track and watch my brother Tom race his vintage motorcycle.
In the meantime, don’t go away empty-handed! Here’s a vintage offering of my own: “Still Learning: Fun Language Words.”
Photo courtesy Erin O'Keefe
Have you ever been put out of a cab after you waited forever and finally
lassoed one and got in, and after sailing past a street where you would have
turned (if you had been driving), you said, “Shouldn’t you have turned there?” and the driver slammed to the curb and said, “You can get another cab,” leaving you
incredulously asking “What—? Are you kidding? Are you putting me out?” and, seeing his face,
had to grab your things and slam the door (cab drivers hate that) and hike back
four blocks to the thoroughfare and wait for another cab?
Me, too.
And isn’t that exactly the feeling you get when you suddenly run into trouble with a tricky word-processing feat that you’ve done before with no problem? “What—?” you think, as you start the slog back to the beginning.
In my case, it’s always my fault. I left out a step, didn’t prepare properly, hit the wrong key. Or as that cab driver might say, I thought I knew the fastest route and bullied my way to a dead end.
This time it was the NoteStripper macro,* which miraculously unlinks all the endnotes or footnotes in a document, leaving the superscript callouts in the text and compiling the corresponding notes into a matching list. Even more miraculous: the program can do the reverse; that is, it can embed notes that have been hard-typed.
Embedding notes is the more complicated macro and calls for careful preparation of the document. NoteStripper comes with clear and detailed directions,** but for those of you who like to find your own way, let me just mention a few that will kick you to the curb if not followed:
—The number of notes must match the number of callouts.
—Every
note must start with a numeral: clear out any stray spaces or tabs.
—All note callouts must be formatted as superscripts.
—Nothing else in the document can be superscripted.
I was using the easier macro, converting notes into text, but even then, my attempts to convert a large file (with 1,040 notes) failed on my first three tries. On an impulse, I read the instructions, which told me that sometimes a file can simply be corrupted at some point. I tried again and saw that the file converted successfully up to a point before it crashed. So I deleted the first note after the crash point. That did the trick: the file converted in seconds, after which I typed the corrupted note back in.
On the night I lost that cab, the second one made up for it: a brand-new car, a quiet jazz CD, and a lovely driver who didn’t smoke or text. He took the same route as the other guy, but this time I kept my mouth shut—and was home in record time.
______
*From Jack Lyon’s Editorium.
**Not all products offer such helpful guidance. If you find yourself trying to make sense of gobbled directions, read my Troubleshooting Guide to Following Instructions.
Photo courtesy of Kecko
Hi Carol,
I’m in the processing of copy editing a 1,000-page textbook that is due in two batches. I’ve already sent in the first batch of chapters, and as I’m editing the second batch of chapters, I’m coming across errors I missed in the first batch. I’ve already sent a list of close to twenty errors (although some were related, such as the same word misspelled twice) that I missed to my project manager, but I’m still coming across more. Another person is doing the proofreading for this project so I won’t have the opportunity to fix these mistakes myself.
Is there a certain number of errors,
perhaps based on the number of pages, that copy editors miss and that is
expected? This is my first project with this company and my first time editing
a text of this length. I don’t want my project manager to think I’m careless.
How should I proceed? Any advice you could provide would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks so much.
Sincerely,
Jenna
Dear Jenna,
So far you’ve been doing the right thing, and quite honestly I don’t see any alternative to continuing to send lists of errors. To withhold the errors wouldn’t be right—and in any case, the proofreader will probably notice them later. Your only decision is to weigh the nuisance of sending several lists against the cumulative embarrassment of sending one long one. You might ask your project manager which she prefers.
But don’t be defensive or apologetic when you send a list of errors. When I edit a long work, I’m constantly making new corrections in the early chapters, so I know that a certain amount of this is to be expected. And at least you’re catching the errors! The supervising editor might be impressed that you are so meticulous, honest, and thorough. This might be routine for her.
As it happens, I rarely edit in
batches, and I don’t send batches to my freelancers, so it’s not something I
would normally encounter. I’d love to hear about the experience other readers
have had with this issue.
Yours,
Carol
Dear Ms. Saller,
I just read your Chronicle column on citation forms—acceptable or otherwise. One of your early examples called to mind a minor irritant of mine. That is, the occasional practice of including the place of publication but not the publisher. I know of no useful knowledge that comes from learning that a book was published in New York rather than Boston. Knowing the city (unless it is, say, Chapel Hill) provides little clue as to who published the book. Academic publisher? Trade book? Self-published? So why bother with city only?
Ben
Dear Ben,
I am told by scholars that in some disciplines, it is indeed helpful to know
what city (or country) a piece of scholarship originated in, since sometimes
research develops in different directions among, say, German scholars and American scholars. They contend that the place of publication can be more
meaningful than the name of the publisher, and in their work they often omit
the publisher’s name.
Yours,
Carol
Dear Ms. Saller,
On my home computer, the antivirus software frequently displays a message, “Your system is secured.” To me, that’s like saying on a shopfront sign, “Everyone is welcomed.” I am positive that the correct message should be “Your system is secure.” “Your system is secured” sounds ungrammatical because “secured” here is and should be an adjective, and the adjective form of “secure” is “secure.” I’ve posed this question on other forums, and some people have defended it by citing the use of a “past indefinite passive voice.” The term “secured” would then be a passive form of verb, but used loosely as an adjective?
The verb “secure” is unique in that it cuts both ways. It can refer to the act of taking over a target; or it can mean preventing external acts of acquisition. In the case of computer antivirus software, the term “secured” can apply in two opposite scenarios: (1) The system has been secured by XXXX virus. (2) YYY antivirus software has secured your system against viruses. Of course, argumentative people will just say use your common sense. But to me, the fact that a possible alternative meaning exists means that this is bad communication. My question is: Is the original message “Your system is secured” grammatically sound and totally acceptable in terms of communicative effectiveness, when compared to “Your system is secure”?
Hope you can find time to entertain my frivolous questions.
Thanks,
Lok
Dear Lok,
I do have time for a frivolous question! Both
constructions are perfectly grammatical and commonly used and nearly identical
in meaning. The past participle “is secured” serves as an adjective, so it
meets your own requirement in that regard. As a copyeditor, I would indeed use
my common sense and not spend time worrying about hidden or subtle or unlikely
meanings. It’s the sort of thing a grammarian—an argumentative one—might
consider in depth, but luckily, I’m not one.
All the best,
Carol
Photo courtesy Frédéric Bisson
What is it about American culture, or education, or religion, that prevents an otherwise normal, intelligent person from concluding without my help that in cases like this you should break one of the rules?
A researcher writing endnotes wonders about including the name of the state where a book was published in addition to the city. He wants everything to be consistent (rule 1), and his style guide says not to add the state if it’s obvious already (University of Virginia Press) (rule 2). But if he leaves out all state names for consistency, readers will assume that a book published in London, Ohio, was published in the UK. What to do?
An editor working on a bibliography encounters a source who signs all work with an initial instead of a full first name. The rest of the bibliography includes full names. The style manual says to use all full names. What should she do? Well, I want to say, what are our choices here? Make up a name? Delete that source? Change all 437 author names to initials only?
Why do they even have to ask?
I’ll tell you why: It’s because for many writers and editors, our work is all about the rules. It’s what we do: we take a chunk of writing and we grind it through the style-guide mill, and we never once stop to ask whether logic and reason and the reader are served. The first question is always “What’s the rule?” instead of “What is helpful?” or “What makes sense?” or—the unthinkable—“Can I break this rule?”
We have the power to break the rule.
Of course it’s fine for “What’s the rule?” to be the first question—as long as it’s not the only question. After all, an understanding of the rules is our best tool for getting writers out of tight spots. And note that I said an “understanding” of the rules, which is not the same as an ability to cite them. Understanding the thinking behind a style choice gives you the power both to discard it when better thinking should prevail and to argue for it more convincingly when the reasoning applies.
I recently spoke to a classroom of new copyeditors, and I took this “knowledge is power” idea one step further. Copyeditors have a choice as to what kind of power they wield. They can wave about the rule book and try to assume the power of saying “No, you can’t” to writers, or they can acquire the power of knowing when to break a rule in order to help writers achieve great writing.
My regular readers know that I like to call that second choice “subversive,” but they also know that it truly isn’t. Choose the second kind of power: it’s a better way of life.
Russell is familiar to readers of this blog as my go-to tech guy. I’m always, always, tempted to run a tech post by him ahead of time, but I don’t always, because the thing about having a tech-savvy friend who has a different, actual job—and a family, and a life—is that you have to save him for when you’re desperate so as not to become a nuisance. I save Russell for questions that I know he won’t be able to resist (I hope he’s not reading this), either because I know he will really want me to know the answer or because (and this is rare) he doesn’t know the answer himself. Yet.
So back to the macros. Russell thought I did fine in explaining how to use Microsoft Word’s macro-recording feature, but he wanted to point out that the example I used—that of making a shortcut key for an en dash—could actually have been accomplished in a much faster way without the use of a macro.
My goal of making a shortcut key for an en dash came about because my new laptop lacks a numeric keypad, so the usual Control-hyphen for typing an en dash isn’t an option. Assigning the keyboard command Control-hyphen to a macro that grabbed an en dash from the Symbols menu was a good solution.
What Russell pointed out, however, is that Word has a quicker, easier way to assign keyboard commands to special symbols, including the en dash. And since many of you probably use these common symbols regularly, I feel I must share. Here’s how:
As you can see from the graphic, shortcut keys are already available for a number of symbols. You can also see that the default shortcut for an en dash requires the numeric keyboard; however, by using the Shortcut Key button, you are free to assign whatever key combination you prefer. (This is also handy for restoring your long-used shortcuts when a default combination changes in a new version of Word.)
If you already knew this but, unlike Russell, haven’t written to point it out, it might be because you assumed that it was beside the point, and that I chose the en dash because it was ideal for making a basic macro, not because I didn’t know about this easier way. Unfortunately, you would have been wrong.
I hope you used my macro lesson to record a simple shortcut for a time-consuming mechanical task you do often. I also hope that you will always, like Russell, feel free to comment or email me about anything useful. It’s how I learn things.
Photo courtesy Taz.
Hi Carol—
I’m sure you won’t get this before I gather my strength tomorrow and face the difficult task of answering one of my authors’ emails. But because I’m sure you’ve plenty of advice to give, better late than never.
I received an email from an author over the weekend. He was very unhappy with the job I did editing his book manuscript and writes that I did “too thorough” a job, changing sentences that did not need to be changed, and in the process, introduced some typographical errors and some content errors.
I will not say that this is untrue. I know I spent a lot of time on his edit, and I’m sure I did, indeed, commit the sin of overediting. My question is how do you come back from that? I know I need to submit an apology, but I’m not sure what else to say other than “I’m sorry you’re unhappy and for the inconvenience.” I’ve only been a copyeditor for a few months and I’m still trying to get the hang of this gig.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Lee
My heart goes out to you! I’m sure you know that most of us have had an experience like yours at one time or another.
I agree that you should apologize and express your regret for being overeager. Ask the writer if he would trust you to make another pass in order to put things right.
If you do another pass, ask the author to explain the kinds of things he didn’t like. If you aren’t confident that you can fix the manuscript, it might be better to say so. In that case, offer to adjust the fee; perhaps ask the writer to pay you what he feels is fair. If the writer agrees that you did more good work than bad, he should pay you something. But whatever you lose in time and money will just have to be chalked up to your education!
If your second pass turns out well, let that comfort you. And in any case, be very careful about the kind of assignment you accept next. It could be that this particular one was too tricky for a beginner.
Finally, you seem to be self-aware, but know that there are writers who exaggerate and even err in their assessments. You might have done better than you think.
Good luck! I hope you’ll let me know how it goes.
Yours,
Carol
Photo by Justin Garland
Dear Copy Editor,
Having looked over your editing, the amount of it strikes me as excessive. Being what I consider a fairly accomplished writer, your intervention at that level seems unwarranted. Frankly, looking at all the redlining, your competence comes into question.
Even acknowledging my slight preference for starting sentences with participial phrases, the question remains of why this should be a problem. Having won awards for my previous books, you are the first reader to find it lacking. In making so many changes to my prose, I wonder whether you actually understood the subtlety of my constructions! Having written and published more books than you have probably edited, my expertise should have been obvious.
In responding to your editing, it will become apparent that I have restored much of my original. Studying it closely, I trust you will acknowledge your insensitivity.
Sincerely,
Your Author
Photo courtesy Kirby Urner
In an effort to pretend that new versions of MS Word are improvements, Microsoft continues to foist meaningless, annoying changes on their users. In the version of Word 2010 installed on my new laptop, for instance, Control-F no longer brings up the Find box. Instead, it opens a “Navigation” pane. To a writer or copyeditor who has used Control-F hundreds of times a day for decades, it doesn’t really matter whether this is a genuine improvement or not: we hate it. (Fortunately, it’s not difficult to reassign Control-F to the Find function, once you figure out that the mischief-loving folks at Word have also renamed the Find function EditFind.)
A drawback of my new laptop that I can’t blame on Microsoft is that it lacks a numeric keypad, so it’s impossible to type an en dash or em dash in Word in the way I’m used to. I know there are other ways. I know that typing two hyphens will automate the creation of an em dash, for instance. But I work on a full-size keyboard at the office, and I want my home keyboard to behave the same way. I want to type Control-hyphen for an en dash and Control-Alt-hyphen for an em dash. Anything else will slow me down.
Enter the macro! In just a few easy steps, I can teach Word to do these things using a fun but powerful feature that lets nontechies combine a series of steps into a single command without knowing a Ø from a 1. If you’ve never used the macro-recording tool in Word, this simple exercise will introduce you to your new favorite plaything:
Here’s how to make an en dash appear every time you type Control-hyphen:
Done! Now whenever you type Control-hyphen, an en dash will appear. If you mess up in the middle of making a macro, simply stop recording. Delete the name of the macro you messed up by clicking on the Macros icon in the Developer tab, which will take you to your list.
Now that you’ve made one macro, I just know you’re going to turn into a macro-making maniac. Macros are great for automating cleanup routines. You can put as many search-and-replacements as you like into a single recording, such as clearing out double spaces and extra hard returns or adding html tags around searchable formats. Just keep recording until you’re done. From then on, you can accomplish the same series of moves with a single command.
A word of caution: any kind of automated editing has the potential to seriously ruin your day. After you run a macro, you can use Word’s Undo command to undo it step by step in reverse order, but it’s a good idea to test your macro before using it on anything important.
______
*If you don’t see the Developer tab, in Word 2007 go to Options > Popular > Top Options > Show Developer Tab; In Word 2010 go to Options > Customize Ribbon > Customize the Ribbon (again) > Developer checkbox.
**Creating a keyboard command is optional. If you prefer, every time you need the macro you can go to the Macros list and click on it and then click Run. Or you can choose the Button option, which will create an icon for that macro in the Quick Access Toolbar. Those choices may be fine for a task you perform only occasionally, but not for typing en dashes.
