Entry into the world of NY publishing

Nicole Sawa was an Abernethy fellow for MANOA during the 2009–2010 academic year. She received her master's degree in May and moved to NY in August. Here is a report on her first week at a major publishing house.

My first week at Norton went really well. On one hand, it was overwhelming because of new people (and the resulting super-politeness + new procedures + lack of supplies. On the other, everyone is friendly and helpful, the procedures are things I am familiar with because of MANOA but are just larger in scale + I got my official @wwnorton.com email address on Wednesday and my office on Friday!

In case I haven't said this enough: you are doing a really good job of training people for jobs in publishing. I get the sense that the people training me keep expecting me to ask more questions, but I feel like I have a good grasp of the essential elements.

I mean things like the importance of tracking, being responsible, putting files and notes in a shared location, keeping coworkers informed, following procedure, and most importantly, understanding why every step is important. Even though this had been explained to me by teachers, other employers, and of course my first days at MANOA, I felt like I really only understood how essential they were when applying them at work, and sometimes suffering the consequences if I or someone else had overlooked steps!

I was thinking about this because Norton people are telling me the exact same things, so MANOA's professional standards are a match for any big publisher. All that is different are the details. (However, I've assured them I'll have to ask a lot of questions once I actually start doing things like contracts and invoices and payments.)

The things I've done this week are things I first learned at MANOA: intranets, file sharing, tracking manuscripts, and checking blues. Their intranet is huge (they have to use intranets as well as FTPs like Cyberduck, and my team uses a lot of Google docs and Basecamp within our own projects), and my big project this week was making sure the pages (tables, pictures, chapters, etc.) for an upcoming ebook textbook matched the already-published print version. I could've used the MANOA checklist for page proofs!

Instead of being with the science department, as I orginally thought, I'm in the digital media department on the college side. I'll work mainly with the science ebook editor (where applicable, a discipline will have an editor for the print textbook and an editor for the ebook), but also with the sociology and music ebook editors. However, I'll also work with the print editors and EAs for those disciplines, since the print textbooks are still the primary foundation, and the ebooks and ancillaries like study guides, DVDs, videos, CDs, digital flashcards stem from it.

I'm still not sure if I understand it accurately, but I'm looking forward to it. It seems like I'll be working with a lot of different disciplines and media.

I like that Norton is somewhat big but still independent, and I can learn a lot working in digital media. Plus, having my own office is a big creature comfort for me, and it's only 35 minutes away by subway. So I love where I am.

And the whole point of this long email is to tell you how this week has been and to say thank you. I couldn't be where I am now without you, and MANOA. All of my job interviews centered on my experiences at MANOA. So if you have any students interested in working for MANOA and/or eventually working in New York publishing, feel free to have them contact me: I will vouch for the power of MANOA!

Thwart

Working on a story, I looked up this word in my computer's dictionary to be sure I wasn't using it incorrectly. To my surprise, I discovered a new meaning for thwart:

preposition & adverb archaic or poetic/literary
from one side to another side of; across: [as prep.] a pink-tinged cloud spread thwart the shore

Academic jargon

As with the jargon I posted recently, this will give you bellyaches and belly laughs.

Luis Verano

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to follow up on my presentation with two more things I found interesting in my investigation of Luis Verano's translation.

The first is something I noticed in the manuscript but forgot to mention in class. I wanted to highlight how meticulous Luis was with his translation. One of the comments in the manuscript was in regards to the use of the name "Macbeth" in the original text. To resolve doubts about whether the use of the "Macbeth" referred to the play or the character, Luis read the entire play to check if the context applied to any specific line. It turned out that the usage in the text referred to Macbeth as the title of the play.

The second is something Luis said to me in email correspondence. I contacted him with several questions about translating, especially the editing process, and he responded with the following:

"I don't really know what the relationship between a translator and an editor is because any translations I ever did that involved an editor were accepted exactly as I presented them without any changes, including one of a book that was more than 500-pages long and required over a year to complete. This book required considerable research, consultation, and input from many people, and when I turned the translation in, it was reviewed by three editors from three organizations in different countries. They did not change a single word."

At first my heart sank when I read this because I've never written anything that couldn't benefit from editing, especially not a translation. Having now seen the manuscript for his translation in Manoa Magazine, I'm still a little confused. I'm not quite sure how to feel about his answer, but I thought I would share his response with all of you for your consideration.

Books for sale

to use an a or an e?

While writing a paper this weekend I came across a common problem: whether to choose affect or effect. Generally, I can choose the correct word and forge on, but this time the much-hated green squiggly line appeared under my chosen word and I was forced to rethink my option. So I researched the difference between the two words and thought I would share my findings:

• affect is a verb meaning "to influence." It can be seen with various verb endings (-ing, -ed) and in various verb forms such as gerunds or participles.

EX: The shorter runway affected her performance.

• effect is a noun meaning "a result." It will only be seen in the previous form or with "s" added to the end to make it plural.
  

EX: The effects of the experiment can be seen in published results.

Composing type the old way…

For a definition of composing type, see this page. And here are Gary Mawyer's reminiscences of the machines used by a company he worked for many years ago.

I certainly remember the linotype, and George [Beetham Jr.] is my witness. The old Michie Co. used linotypes for their city codes (state codes were still set by hand in wooden frames, and the type was rectified by a guy with a wooden mallet). As George will recall, the row of linotype machines was on the right-hand side at the top of the stairs when you came to work. Those things were shatteringly loud, and there were enough of them to vibrate the floor. The smell of hot lead fumes was no laughing matter, and we used to speculate what it would be like to pull an entire shift in a lead fog. There was some splatter associated with the type too.

We proofread city codes, and the difference in quality versus case type was stark, I would say. But for utilitarian printing, the machines were fine. I do not think these were late-generation linos. In fact they were probably quite early ones since the Michie Co went back to the 1870s. I would hazard a theory that the linotype was what made the incredible profusion of local newspapers that used to exist possible. For instance, as late as 1970 a place as small as Point Pleasant, WVA, still had 2 local newspapers.

The film by Douglas Wilson is right. As machines, they were incredible, and when the Michie Co dropped the not very lucrative city codes to concentrate more on new federal case reports, the old linos were broken up and sold for scrap. We saw them lying there, and we remarked on the way home from work one day that if we had as much as $10 between us and a basement to put it in, we could have picked up a perfectly good linotype. However, it might have been a challenge to keep it running.

Give vs. Gives

So I'm stumped. When is "give" supposed to be used as opposed to "gives?" For example, I came across this sentence:

A kind and generous family give us each a cold beer.

And how would one go about finding the answer to such a question when google fails?

Sentence 10 in quiz 4

For an explanation of why I'm inserting the hyphen in "login" in "login page," see this site on common errors in English.

Help desk

The youtube.com video I mentioned yesterday.

Don't even think about it…

After Deadline

Since we are currently focusing on sentences in class, I wanted to send a link to one of my favorite sites, After Deadline, a weekly critique of grammar, usage, and style in the New York Times. I believe Pat posted something from it the other day. I like it because (a) it reminds me that even the New York Times makes mistakes; (b) it deals with real, not contrived, sentences; (c) it comes out only once a week, so it is easy to keep up with; and (d) it is short, so you an read it in a few minutes and not feel overwhelmed with information.

Second Ka Leo letter

This is the one whose ending was changed from a rhetorical question to a statement.

First Ka Leo letter

My first letter on the subject. I've proposed to Ka Leo a follow-up piece, and the news editor is interested.

Powerpoint presentations

Dr. Henry had suggested these sites for preparing a PowerPoint presentation. They have some very helpful tips and guidelines.

Lana Johnson's tips

Creating a great presentation

editing our papers

I found some tips about editing or proofreading. Hope they help everyone as we come to the end of our semester.

Preparing yourself to proof or edit

-Write at the end of the day; edit first thing in the morning. (Usually, getting some sleep in between helps.)
-Listen to music or chew gum. Proofing can be boring business and it doesn't require much critical thinking, though it does require extreme focus and concentration. Anything that can relieve your mind of some of the pressure, while allowing you to still keep focused, is a benefit.
-Don't use fluorescent lighting when proofing. The flicker rate is actually slower than standard lighting. Your eyes can't pick up inconsistencies as easily under fluorescent lighting.
-Spend a half-hour a month reviewing grammar rules.
-Read something else between edits. This helps clear your head of what you expect to read and allows you to read what really is on the page.
-Make a list of things to watch for—a kind of "to do" list—as you edit.

You've Got... bad proofreading skills?

Talk about embarrassing editing and proofreading mistakes! This is an email sent out to the entire UH community by the Office of Student Affairs just today. Pay close attention to the subject line.

ESL editor wanted…