Monday, February 5, 2007
Question on diction . . .
I've been thinking a lot about diction lately, especially after the last assignment. I found myself excising nearly everything. I am assuming that few manuscripts would need such a profound overhaul, but what if a manuscript has a lot of annoying passive constructions. Perhaps these constructions do not read awkwardly, but do stick out. Could a copyeditor justifiably fix them? I suppose a better question: would a copyeditor spend the time?
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Yes, a copyeditor would make such global changes. If you were in contact with the author, you would probably want to notify him or her that you were doing so. That way, he or she would be prepared for the changes and/or corrections when the galleys were sent.
An alternative would be to draft a memo, to accompany the galleys, that would succinctly—and politely, of course—mention such things. We'll go over how to draft such a memo later in the semester.
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