Writer, Editor, Helper

English 101: Still Learning

Q. According to CMOS, what is the correct way of stating the following: “I often wish” or “I wish often?”

Q. Which formation is more correct, “the information requested” or “the requested information”?

Questions like this to the online Q&A at the Chicago Manual of Style used to get me riled. What is behind this mania for “correctness”? This belief that there is but a single correct way to write something? I could only conclude that the writers had been traumatized by teachers whose rules were endless, iron-clad, and in large part imaginary. Brutes who would pen an angry F on any paper containing a sentence with more than eleven words in it and ban this blog for its sentence fragments.

But at some point it occurred to me that English might be the writers’ second language. In that light, instead of ignorant or annoying, such questions reveal themselves to be sophisticated and subtle and (quite frankly) beyond my ability to answer them properly. Issues like the placement of adjectives and adverbs are cruelly difficult to justify in English. How would we ever learn to say “six big red apples” instead of “big red six apples,” if we didn’t pick it up by ear as tots? 

Not being a linguist or grammar expert (in case you had any illusions about that), I browsed online and learned something: It seems that linguists  have long studied sequencing, but they continue to be challenged by its intricacies. Although word order is determined by categories (e.g., size, then shape, then color), attempts at mapping the categories have yet to accurately predict actual usage beyond the basics.*

If native speakers of English can be paralyzed by choices like those in the questions above, I can well imagine the difficulties faced by those still learning. Seeking that level of refinement and, yes,  “correctness,” in another language is only to be admired.

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*For an example of recent research, see Robert Truswell, “Attributive Adjectives and Nominal Templates,” Linguistic Inquiry 40, no. 3 (Summer 2009): 525–33

Photo via Peakpx.

 

Revising CMOS: Behind the Scenes, Part 2; Principal reviser Russell David Harper

Last week, in The Chicago Manual of Style’s “Revising CMOS: Behind the Scenes, part 1,” Mary E. Laur wrote for the Seminary Co-op Bookstores blog about some of the surprises she encountered as a member of the revision team. This week, in part 2, CMOS agreed to post here my interview with principal reviser Russell David Harper.

Russell Harper is the only person on the planet with all of the following qualifications: He has worked as a manuscript editor for the University of Chicago Press for more than a dozen years, and he contributed to the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. For nearly three years, he kept a finger on the pulse of CMOS readers by serving as editor of the online Q&A. He is a technology wonk (I’m sorry, Russell, but I looked it up to make sure, and you are a wonk), with experience in typesetting, proofreading, and printing. And for good measure, he’s a polymath, a published author, and a kind and generous and funny person whose patience and reliability under pressure are legendary.

Because of his unmatched experience in Chicago practices and his techie leanings, Russell was decided to be a perfect choice to serve as principal reviser for the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. As principal reviser, he was responsible for drafting a detailed outline and summary of the new edition and, in cooperation with the Manuscript Editing Department at the University of Chicago Press and the CMOS Board of Advisors, for writing the manuscript itself and serving as its nominal author through all the stages of publication.

CAROL: So, Russell, tell me: when you were asked to revise CMOS for the sixteenth edition, did you have any fears or reservations, and if so, what were they, and did you get over them?

RUSSELL: Well yes. My first fear was for my family. I knew the Manual well, and I knew what a revision would mean. (They survived.) Next, I worried for my safety. My third-floor office at the time—in the attic of a hundred-year-old house in Ithaca, New York—trembled and swayed whenever a city bus or fire truck passed by (about every twenty minutes). So I resolved to make daily backups of every stage of the manuscript to a variety of off-site servers, leaving passwords and instructions with a close and highly literate family member across the Atlantic.

CAROL: Okay, so I’ll add “courageous” to that list of attributes. Readers perhaps know that in-house staff and our board of advisors reviewed various drafts of your revision. On your very first pass did you labor in solitude or sometimes consult with others?

RUSSELL: In one sense, I labored in solitude, more than six hundred miles from the press building in Hyde Park. But in reality, I consulted many people, living and dead, while I worked.

1. At my elbow were the eleventh through the fourteenth editions of the Manual (the manuscript itself was derived from the fifteenth edition). Before making any change, no matter how small, I investigated treatment of the matter across earlier editions. (I must remember to return the now rare eleventh and twelfth editions, though I hate to part with them.)
2. Also at my elbow was a stack of papers annotated by Mary Laur (gatekeeper of corrections to the Manual) and full of suggestions submitted either to the Q&A or directly to the press. For example, there were three letters from a retired editor who begged us to drop the hyphen in simple fractions used as nouns. (His third and final letter announced his decision not to buy the fifteenth edition.) That usage is perfectly logical (My share is two thirds), and some style manuals (e.g., APA) follow it. So in my draft of the revision I changed our own recommendation in order to gauge reactions from the team. (I did this a lot; there’s no better way to find out how an editor feels than to change a rule.) Feelings ran high toward keeping the hyphen for the appearance of consistency across all simple fractions, so that’s what we did.
3. The press generously sent me copies of the latest editions of APA, AMA, MLA—anything I didn’t already own. I was given full access to the Chicago Journals website and, through the University of Chicago Library, to the online OED, Britannica, and other essentials. The press reimbursed me for online subscriptions to AP, Bluebook, Merriam-Webster, and several other valuable resources. And I found the first and second editions of Fowler’s at the local (Tompkins County) Friends of the Library Book Sale. (I couldn’t bear to ask my former office mates in the manuscript-editing department to give up their own copies.)
4. Like most editors these days, I consulted the web constantly—not only to gauge current usage but also to immerse myself in the latest practices and usages of the W3C, the Unicode Consortium, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the Académie française, and other keepers of standards.
5. I consulted the press’s tech people on XML-related esoterica, especially in the beginning. We figured out a way to retain the XML tags used for the online version of the fifteenth edition in a word processor, which made it possible to revise and share electronic versions of the files with everyone, regardless of technical expertise.
6. Finally, you’ll recall that I was in the habit of e-mailing you and Anita [Samen, managing editor at the press] and others to ask you to reveal your true feelings about such matters as the fifteenth edition’s preference for “Fifty-seventh Street” rather than “Fifty-Seventh Street” (not to mention “Fifth and Sixth avenues” versus “Fifth and Sixth Avenues”) or to determine whether there was any good reason to continue to advise a different treatment of titles in the author-date style.

In sum, I had a lot of help!

CAROL: Indeed, I do remember. In fact, for me, one of the most interesting and satisfying aspects of the revision process was the way in which issues like this were broached and settled in passionate but civilized group e-mailings. Looking at my archive, I can see messages titled “I’m probably hallucinating,” “Prissy distinctions,” “Tearing my hair o’er Gruyère,” and on one day, fifteen messages between you and [members of the copyediting team] Ruth Goring and Erin DeWitt and me with the subject heading “Consistency issue with (not) examples.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I seem to recall that when you finished the first draft of the revision, you sent it to everyone on the CMOS Board of Advisors as well as the in-house team, who individually marked it up and sent it back to you. Somehow you read and responded to two dozen versions of the thing, all with no doubt conflicting suggestions. How did all that back-and-forthing ever come to an end?

RUSSELL: And don’t forget that you and the rest of the in-house team and the board reviewed and commented on my detailed proposal, well before any work started on the revision. Fortunately, most reviewers were willing to work in a word processor; for those who preferred not to we annotated a draft based on their handwritten or e-mailed comments. It was a cinch to create a collated version (using Word), to which I added my own responses. These were in turn reviewed and further commented on by project managers David Morrow and Mary Laur—a process that went several rounds. Then the in-house team met in Chicago to discuss all of this (I was lured back to the press by the promise of catered sandwiches). There was a lot of animated debate, and much progress was made, though nothing yet was written in stone. Still, I went back home and prepared a revised “consensus” version of the manuscript that would in turn be delivered to you and your team.

CAROL: So far you’ve been more than generous in acknowledging all the help you had with the revision, so now please indulge me and take a moment to credit yourself. What’s your personal legacy in the sixteenth edition? Which of your contributions are you most excited about?

RUSSELL: There’s a lot of anxiety surrounding the idea that paper is disappearing from publishing. In fact, it disappeared years ago. (This I learned as a typesetting terminal jockey in the mid-1980s.) Today, thanks in part to PDF, virtually all publishers are in the business of making electronic products. Some of them—especially book publishers—choose to deliver this product as ink on paper. And some editors choose to edit on paper. But paper has become an option rather than a necessity. (It’s the electronic version that is a necessity.) So I wanted the Manual to move away from the idea that paper plays anything other than a supporting role in publishing. (Disclosure: in my spare time, I read novels—the ones with bindings—and half my music collection is on vinyl.) Once that’s clear, it’s easier to focus on the essentials—like what exactly is a caron, and is it the same as a haček?

Which brings us to Unicode. The č in “haček” is crowned with a wedge-shaped caron—also called a haček (or inverted circumflex). But if, for example, you want to make absolutely sure you’re using the right character for ě (which can look very much like an e with a breve), you can use your word processor to choose Unicode character 011B. The Manual lists Unicode numbers for these and other characters along with the languages that use them. Anyone can wade through the Unicode Consortium’s tables (which now list more than one hundred thousand characters), but I hope readers will welcome our condensed treatment.

These are small things that touch only parts of the Manual. I also wanted to make sure that the expertise of the [University of Chicago Press] Journals Division played a larger role. The new material on XML grew out of the procedures that brought nearly fifty journals—some of them more than a hundred years old—online within just a few years.

And finally, I worked hard for this edition to pare down our advice wherever practical in favor of single recommendations rather than a host of options and exceptions. Our readers have let it be known since the last edition that they are perfectly able to decide for themselves when it’s best to bend or break a rule. Most come to the Manual to find out what we would prefer rather than merely what we might allow.

CAROL: Russell, that answer is so . . . you. (And it shows why the marketing department didn’t put you in charge of the Twitter campaign.) But I’ll be honest: I wanted you to talk about the changes that will affect all users, not just those who need hačeks! I’m excited that the sixteenth is easier to use. So allow me:

First, you saw that after decades of expanding by accretion, the Manual’s chapters were overdue for reorganization. So now there are three parts. Part I deals with publishing processes (manuscript prep, editing, proofing, figures and tables, permissions); part II with style and usage (the fun stuff: punctuation, spelling, numbers, abbreviations, grammar); and part III with documentation (notes, bibliographies, indexing). All very neat and logical.

Another thing: The original paragraph titles were (naturally) not written with computer searching in mind. For instance, in the chapter on foreign languages, each of twenty languages had a paragraph titled simply “Capitalization.” Now each is titled specifically—e.g., “Portuguese capitalization.” Many paragraph titles were rewritten to be more helpful. Such subtle changes might not be noticed by reviewers, but regular users will notice that it’s easier to find things in the book.

But the biggie—is it too complicated to mention here how CMOS 16 brings author-date documentation style into stylistic line with notes-bibliography style? I think it’s our most audacious change—and perhaps it will temporarily annoy—but ultimately, this streamlining simplifies Chicago-style documentation in such a sensible way that writers and editors will surely appreciate it. Would you like to expand?

RUSSELL: It’s also our simplest change, so simple that I can explain it in 140 characters or less. (Would you believe 1,400 or less?)

Chicago’s author-date style grew in part out of the practices at scientific journals. It is customary in many sciences to credit other scientists in the text, and dates are also important: putting names and dates in the text (Sanchez 2009), rather than using note numbers or symbols, provides context for the latest research. But printed journals have space limitations, and many disciplines developed abbreviated styles for their reference lists. Authors’ first names and the titles of journals are routinely abbreviated (often without periods for either), quotation marks for titles are dropped, and so forth.

Earlier editions of the Manual tried to approximate these variant practices with its own variation, with the result that our examples reflected a style that few people actually followed. I decided that we should focus instead on how the author-date system works—what information should be included and where to include it. Writers and editors can find out—as they always have—which publications prefer which abbreviations and whether to put titles in quotation marks or italics.

So now there’s only one “Chicago style” for documentation but two main systems of organization. It’s simple. Really.

CAROL: Simple. And I know you don’t expect me to resist that 140-character challenge. So here goes: CMOS 16 reference-list style: Spell out author names; headline-case titles; italicize book titles, put article titles in quotation marks.

(We have so much fun I can hardly stand it.)

In closing, Russell, congratulations on heading up a wonderful new revision of The Chicago Manual of Style, and thank you for taking time to explain some of the complexities of that process here.

RUSSELL: And thank you, Carol, for what has been an inspiring and memorable (and fun) collaboration.

Writing Tics: Now You See Them, Now You Don't

Years ago, I was nearly driven mad by a writer who repeated the same wonky sentence structure relentlessly. It went something like this: The subject has A, B, and its C is D. Or The subject is similar to A, B, and does C. Or The subject has been taken for A, B, and in the past C was D. The sentences always featured a series of three without parallel syntax and always omitted the “and” between A and B.

More recently I noticed an author using the word “also” more than usual. It started to bug me, which made me wonder whether it seemed excessive only because I was looking for it. Finally, I counted the number of “alsos” in the text and compared their frequency to that of two other manuscripts. (I know—that was a little sick.) There were four times as many “alsos” in the suspect case.

When I run across writing tics like that and wonder how the writers could have been so oblivious, I’m reminded of the famous study done in the 1990s by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons where they asked subjects watching a video of two teams passing basketballs to each other to count the number of times players wearing white shirts passed the ball. Fully half the viewers who counted the passes failed to notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through the middle of the scene.

Getting thoughts onto paper requires that kind of concentration. Choosing words, herding arguments, tending to all the details that make a work coherent and complete—never mind eloquent—can absorb our attention to the point where the gorillas become invisible. The reader, freed from the more difficult tasks, spots them at once.

I try to resist pointing out bad writing habits to their perpetrators, figuring that the repeated corrections will speak for themselves. But I know better than to count on that. A friend used to try to cure a verbal tic of mine. I would ask, “Are you not putting onions in that”? or “Have you not seen this movie before?” and he would make a puzzled face and say, “Yes? I mean, no?” It didn’t do any good. Recently my sister caught me at it and said, “Hey—you say that too!” So I figure it’s genetic.

I suppose I could have some writing tics, as well. Maybe you can tell me what they are. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed any.

Does Length Matter? In Defense of the Long Word

Not long ago, the online Q&A at The Chicago Manual of Style Online posted this exchange:

Q. If an author uses a rare word like “prevaricators” when “liars” would be more clear, should an editor change it? The author’s audience is college graduates, not necessarily English or journalism majors.

A. Dumbing down someone’s prose should be done for a reason, never simply as a policy. A writer might use a five-dollar word for the sake of rhythm, humor, allusion, or precision. “Prevaricator” is a good word (and it isn’t the same as “liar,” although they overlap in meaning). It would be a shame to banish it from the language. So query it if you think “liars” is a better choice, but be prepared to say why.*

Writing and editing coaches love to hammer on using short words. But good teachers know that insisting on short words is merely a dramatic way to prepare students for the more refined message, which is to use the right word. And sometimes the right word is long. Nonetheless, some students (and for that matter, teachers) never move beyond lesson 1, inflexibly limiting themselves to monosyllables and taking umbrage with those who don’t.

Although Strunk and White are famously obnoxious on related points (e.g., omitting needless words), their advice on word choice is, sensibly, not to avoid long words, but to avoid “fancy” words. A fancy word, short or long, is one that’s inappropriate for the context. (Never mind that S&W themselves love fancy words and use them cheerfully. In The Elements of Style section on composition, for instance, they advise writers to have a “scheme of procedure,” where I might have suggested a “plan.” But maybe they want to sound bustling and authoritative.)

It’s easy to understand why long words get a bad rap. They have the power to simulate importance and to obscure meaning, perhaps the most dangerous of writing sins. I don’t think it’s overstatement to say that all our most important freedoms depend ultimately on clarity in the written word. But “short” does not always equal “clear.”

In short, in word choice, as in other things, long can be just right.

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*When that question came in, we briefly wondered whether it was a trap to get us to admit indirectly that a previous answer at the Q&A had been badly written:

Q. In a sentence, a colon should always be preceded by an independent clause. Why doesn’t the Chicago Manual state this explicitly? All your examples follow the principle. Why doesn’t the manual just say that the introductory clause has to be independent?

A. Because we’re a bunch of spineless and ineffectual prevaricators? Or because there are times when a colon need not be preceded by an independent clause? A case in point: this one.

But surely no one would do that.

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Photo courtesy of PickPik.

“Creative” Copyediting Redux—Don’t Be Afraid

There was a certain amount of pushback (is that phrase too popular yet?) to my statement the other day that good copyeditors are “creative.” Many of you knew exactly what I was trying to say—my favorite curmudgeon had posted a simpatico riff before the e-ink was dry—but others were alarmed, and I can’t say I blame them.

“Creative” bookkeeping, “creative” word processing, “creative” nonfiction—dubious ventures all. And I’m sure the last thing a writer wants to hear about his new copyeditor is that she’s famously “creative.” He can just imagine the frustrated wannabe writer festooning his already pretty good prose with decorative adverbs and multiple exclamation points.

But creative copyediting is not creative writing. Rather, it is creative thinking, reacting, and decision making. It’s seeing the inspired solution instead of the obvious one. It’s the ability to maneuver and negotiate and make choices that the writer would have made herself, had she been able to see past the content to the prose. It’s more about knowing when to leave well enough alone than about decorating. And I still say it’s fun, a grown-up kind of fun, bobbing and weaving through all that on the way to an elegant product.

And yes, Melissaipsa, the author’s ownership of the text is fundamental. Handling it with care and respect increases the challenge, because it imposes limits on our choices. We didn’t write the song: we accompany it, correcting the sour notes, building on the harmonies. Professional writers will hear when the results are good and accept them gladly. If the writer has a tin ear, well, it’s his song.

If his ego gets in the way, well, that’s an issue for another day.

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Image: from Pixabay by Mudassar Iqbal.

Copyediting Improv: Yes, We're Creative

I know I’ve never seen an ad for a copyeditor that listed creativity or cleverness as the required qualifications. But not everyone understands that our work offers a great deal of potential for . . . fun.

If they only knew! While it’s true that we usually aren’t the originators of whatever we’re editing, that doesn’t mean that the creative effort is finished before we start in. Rather, we’re part of it. I often think we have the best part.

Creating ex nihilo is tough work; polishing someone else’s work and pushing it to the next level can be challenging and joyful. Improving a text is all about problem solving, and the more creative we are, the better our solutions.

People who tinker with cars, adjust recipes, alter clothes, or copyedit have in common that we start with something that’s not perfect yet and use our minds and tools to bring it into alignment, give it more flavor, make it fit. The best of us are masters of improvisation. And when we’re in the midst of concentrating and things are falling into place—in the midst of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi made famous as “flow”—well, don’t let anyone tell you that’s tedium or drudgery.

It’s fun.

Last week in this space I talked with novelist and editor Clifford Garstang; in occasional future posts, I hope to continue to engage with writers, artists, and others in the creative community who have something interesting to share. I hope you’ll join me here.    

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Photo by Colin Behrens, courtesy of Pixabay.

 

An Interview with Prime Number’s Editor Clifford Garstang

Today, I’d like to welcome Clifford Garstang, editor of the soon-to-debut online literary magazine Prime Number published by Press 53. Cliff is the author of In an Uncharted Country, a novel in stories published last year by Press 53, and the blog Perpetual Folly.

Full disclosure: Cliff and I are way-old friends, and the first issue of PN on July 19 will include a chapter from The Subversive Copy Editor.

Carol: So Cliff, what’s new or different about Prime Number?

Cliff: A few things, actually. First, we intend to take the name somewhat seriously in that we will from time to time publish math-oriented work. We like numbers, and while that’s by no means an exclusive focus for us, I think it’s new. In general, though, we’re looking for really distinctive work, which I hope will become apparent over time.

Second, we’re hoping to have a craft essay of some kind in every issue. We know a lot of our readers will be writers, and so we want to address them in this way.

Third, we plan to have regular updates between issues. They’ll consist of flash fiction and nonfiction as well as short poems. We hope the updates will keep readers coming back between issues.

And fourth, our tie to Press 53 gives us the opportunity to publish a print annual, which isn’t feasible for a lot of online magazines, and Press 53 is going to be looking at the stories we publish—it will be great exposure for writers.

Carol: Could you give me an example of “math-oriented work” you would consider? One of my friends has a theorem she proved in graduate school, and my niece is an accountant. Any hope for them?

Cliff: Uh, no. Think fiction about a mathematician—have you ever seen that TV show Numb3rs?—or some formal poems that have a fixed numeric pattern, like a Fibonacci or even haiku. Or maybe an essay about how old you’ll be when you publish your first story if you don’t submit to magazines simultaneously—acceptance percentages and long waits being what they are. Let me emphasize again, though, that we’re not exclusively, or even always, looking for math-oriented work.

Carol: I mentioned flash fiction to a friend the other day and was pressed for a definition. What qualities will you look for in flash fiction and nonfiction?

Cliff: There are many definitions of flash. For me, flash is . . . under 1,000 words, for a starter. It also usually has the concision that we normally associate with poetry—no wasted words. And yet there usually isn’t room to fully develop a narrative in so few words, so I like to think of Robert Olen Butler’s description of flash. On the one hand, he says, flash is distinguished from a prose-poem in that it has a narrative that moves through time. In other words, a “plot.” But it is also distinguished from the short story because rather than reaching a Joycean epiphany that may resolve a short story’s conflict, in flash there may only be time to discover what the conflict is about—what the main character yearns for.

Carol: I see—so they can be little slices of life, either real or imagined. In your novel and in your blog you show a love of narrative and story. In the interests of representing various kinds of writing, will you try to suppress your own preferences when you choose work for the magazine?

Cliff: Is that even possible? No, to me, narrative is the thing. There has to be a story. Style, on the other hand, is negotiable. I don’t do a lot of writing that I’d consider experimental, and I don’t read very much of it either, but I’d be open to a story told in an experimental style—if it’s telling a good story.

Carol: And I’m confident I’ll enjoy reading whatever you choose. Cliff, thanks so much for letting us have a peek behind the curtain of Prime Number. I can’t wait to see the first issue. Do you have any advice for readers who might want to send you something when submissions open?

Cliff: I’m looking for work that’s distinctive, whether in style or setting or subject matter. I read a lot of stories, so when I see something that’s fresh I usually take note. But maybe that goes without saying. So my one bit of advice is this—proofread your work one more time before you submit it.

Thanks for giving me this chance to talk about Prime Number!

Carol: My pleasure—and best of luck with it.

Carol: Whew—that went well! So Cliff, just between you and me, do you remember in high school when that student teacher told me I couldn’t be in Our Town because I’d forgotten to bring knee socks to the dress rehearsal, and my mom was so angry when she brought the socks she threw them at the teacher and I thought I would die of humiliation?

Cliff: Well, I’m not sure that’s exactly the way I remember it. By the way, is this thing still on?

Advice for Writers: Preparing Your E-Manuscript

When I complained recently about having to clean up writers’ electronic messes before getting down to copyediting, one aspiring writer asked for more specific advice. If you don't mind a somewhat longer post than usual, read on.

One goal in preparing a manuscript is to allow the acquiring editor, the copy editor, the designer, to see the content of your work plainly, undistracted by your vision of what it should look like in published form. (Trust me; they have minimal interest in your vision.)

Another goal is to save these folks work: together they will have to strip your e-files down to a uniform blandness before they can make an attractive book or article out of it. Your tricking out the work in several typefaces and type sizes will not make it more attractive to professional readers.

If you have a target publisher, check its website for submission guidelines. Often you’ll find detailed preferences. If you’re going to be shopping a manuscript to several publishers, be conservative in your choices.

Specifically:

• Use a classic, serifed typeface (Palatino, Times New Roman). Serifs make reading easier, and editors read all day.
• Use 12-point type for everything, almost regardless of what you’re writing (scholarly prose, a novel, a picture book). Shouting with bigger type is annoying to editors, designers, and copyeditors. Sneaking about with smaller type is even more annoying.
• Double-space if required, but otherwise don’t worry about it. Anyone looking at the files can change the spacing in seconds.
• Minimize the use of built-in or custom “styles.” Ideally, your e-files will be typed almost entirely in Normal style, with exceptions only for generated styles like Footnotes and a few simple styles for block quotations and subheadings. (Typed codes are actually more stable for labeling subheadings: <A>, <B>.) [Update: Over the years, this preference has become outdated. Typed codes are increasingly discouraged, and the use of basic MS Word styles is becoming standard. If possible, check your publisher’s guidelines. - CFS 2.20.2025]
• Never use the Tab key or the Space bar to start a new line.
• Never use the Space bar to indent anything. I’ll go further: never hit the Space bar more than once in a row.
• Never justify the text. That creates weird spacing that is difficult to read.
• Minimize the use of boldface, italics, and underlining. They are useful for clarifying a hierarchy of subheadings, but otherwise they distract. (If you use them frequently for emphasis, refine your writing to eliminate this crutch.)
• Before you submit, remove all updateable fields, hidden text, tracked changes, and anything  that flashes, moves, or disappears.
• If it’s not practical to organize your work in a single file, label your files in a sensible way. Your name plus a chapter number plus a short title make a good label: Jones_ch01_Newspapers.

Those are the basics—and Leon, thank you for asking!

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Photo courtesy PickPik.

Checking for Squirrels

Chicagoans have a tradition of scavenging stuff from curbs and alleys. It’s honorable to set out household debris that you want to disappear, and it’s honorable to cart away an object you find abandoned. Sometimes you can hardly believe your luck: last week my son Ben found a leather recliner and hauled it back to his place. He’d wanted to buy one for a long time, but had resisted (even after I pointed out that it would make a credible business expense for his video-games blog).

The catch, of course, is that there’s usually a defect in discarded goods, no matter how good they look. In the case of upholstered furniture, everyone knows you have to turn it over and check for squirrels.

Evaluating a new manuscript is like that. On the surface, in the form of a paper printout, it can appear to be beautiful and trouble-free—but look carefully at the electronic files, and any manner of wildlife could be lurking. My favorite example is a manuscript that consisted of over 300 separate MS Word files: the writer had started a new one every time he reached the bottom of a page.

Writers are endlessly creative at formatting. They use hard returns and tabs to create block quotations. They type headers and footers on every page instead of using the floating feature. And they love to thwart the endnote feature of their word processors: rather than let the machine renumber, they insert notes manually between the automated ones and then type over the computer-generated note numbers.

I shouldn’t complain: after all, I earn a living making these documents printable. It’s just that word processing is not what I came on board for all those years ago. I’m not trained to do it, I don’t enjoy doing it, and I don’t really know whether what I do is of use to the typesetter. Just once I’d like to receive a perfectly clean and coded manuscript that would allow me to spend all my time copyediting instead of in rodent control.

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Image by JoeBreuer from Pixabay