Random Advice for Copyeditor Newbies

If you’re new to copyediting, consider these snippets of advice. (Be sure to check with your supervisor if any of them contradict your usual instructions.)

• Don’t query a word or spelling or locution without looking it up. If a writer uses an unfamiliar word or spelling more than once, it’s very possibly intended. It’s easy to paste “eat one’s cake and have it, too” into a search engine and learn that the writer doesn’t have it backward.
• Don’t waste a writer’s time by continually asking for approval. (“Okay? If you don’t like this, I can put it back.”) Rather, indicate your flexibility in the cover letter. On the manuscript, use queries for giving or asking for information.
• Save grief later by e-mailing the author before you make editing decisions that are hard to undo. (“Re romantic/Romantic: do you have a system for capping? Should I meddle?”)
• Don’t track changes that will be invisible or confusing on a black-and-white printout, such as deletions of hyphens.* If the editing is difficult to read, the writer won’t easily see that the results read well.
• Be conservative in editing until you have more experience. You should be ready to explain every mark you put on the page.
• Remember the copyeditor’s creed: First, do no harm.

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*My workaround is to explain in the cover letter that I have edited common compounds silently in accordance with CMOS and Webster’s 11th Collegiate, and that otherwise I track the opening or closing of compounds respectively like this: right_wing or home-townhometown.

Photo by Jamey Boelhower from Pixabay

Comments

[andy]

"Don’t waste a writer’s time by continually asking for approval."

Unless, of course, you're working with tech authors (often more tech than author) who only pay attention to queries and assume whatever else you're doing with the English is just fine. Queries like "change okay?" are often the only way to get them* to focus on a passage and make sure that the edit didn't distort the meaning.

* Individual authors may vary.

[Katharine O'Moore-Klopf]

Sensible advice.

[Karen H.]

My advice is always to query to require action of the author. Otherwise they often don't know what to do. I've queried "Update available for in press item?" and gotten back the answer, "Yes." Now I say, "If published, please provide year and page range."

[Brainpeeks.wordpress.com]

I like your style, i.e., using "copy editor" and "copyeditor newbies," but why "copyeditor's creed"? Did I catch an error? Do I win a T-shirt?! Just another bored copy editor ribbin' a colleague . . .