Sunday, February 25, 2007

Runningoutofspace&whatthehelltodowithclose-upmarks

K, so as I was doing the test, I noticed there were several parts where I had no space to insert a period, new text, and delete text without overcrowding the area. How do copy editors keep the page so neat? I had a very hard time. I'm also not a fastidious person so I tend to want to play with the way I make my marks.

A question about close-up marks (is there a hyphen; I'm to lazy to look it up right now), when deleting large portions of text and there is a period at the end, should I make ridiculously long close-up hooks or simply rewrite the period?

Thanks!

1 comment:

Pat said...

It would be better to simply rewrite the period.

Copyeditors can be messy too. In fact, they often have to fight the urge to edit in small, messy, or indecipherable print. The main thing to remember is that someone else will be entering your changes; out of respect and consideration for that person, your editing must be neat.

If you find that you can't fit your editing into the line, you can (1) put it in the margin, bracket it, and indicate where it should go or (2) print or type it on a slip of paper and attach this to the page. I mentioned this in class but probably didn't emphasize it.