Reading

How do you read when you copy edit something? Do you try to force yourself to read through the work, at lease once, as a typical reader would? How does copy editing affect your non-copy editing related reading?

Books about grammar, etc.

Ben Yagoda just published a book, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It a new conscript in the swelling ranks of books about grammar. I learned about the book from an episode of Fresh Air, a show broadcast on National Public Radio. (I've attached a link to the segment on the book. Unfortunately, you will have to listen, there isn't a transcript available. Its all here.) In addition to praising the book and its author, the episode advanced a thesis on the cause of the grammar book fad. The reviewer claimed that grammar books let us imagine that real order exists. We can bring sense to a chaotic world just by using commas properly. But do you think that's why people are buying grammar books? What about the sense of superiority that comes with being right? Or the thrill of trivia?

Following from that, what are the base pleasures of copy editing? And for Frank, what are the lower pleasures in your job? To help clarify, let me give an example. I used to write press releases for my high school. When I wrote I would sometimes sit and giggle giddily for long stretches as I marveled at my own cleverness. I certainly felt the "higher" aesthetic pleasures of writing, but there were aspect that I enjoyed simply as fun. Everyone who writes writes, in some way, for glory, or at least thats what I read somewhere. What about the people who support writers? What about anybody? I certainly enjoy the copy editing I've done in part because it makes me feel clever. I'll see if that persists after the test.

Lazy writing

How much do you think the copy editors task is keeping the author honest?

When I reread my writing, I often find most of my time is spent revitalizing passages I slacked my way through on the first go. Lazy writing seems like a fairly subjective phenomenon. For example, John Gardener (author of Grendel and a number of books about writing) somewhere states that writing too many sentences starting with -ing verbs is lazy writing. He claims that overuse of -ing comes from a desire to vary sentence structure, but without effort. e.g. Walking down the street, Dave heard the jingle of a Mister Softee ice cream truck.

Some people may have no problem with an abundance of sentences that start with -ing verbs, but I agree that -ing verbs are a little lazy. Do you think the copy editor is, or should, be the person who makes the writer do the extra work that makes their writing good, even if its outside the scope of the copy editors task to correct the lazy writing? How do you break it to a writer that they are being lazy (I think one can tell if an author is being lazy)? What are some other examples of lazy writing? There are likely a few in this passage.

Freelance Copyediting

When do freelance copy editors come in on a project? Does the author hire a freelance editor to make her manuscript more appealing to publishers? How does a person get started as a freelance copy editor? Do journals ever hire freelancers to help them make tight deadlines?

I'm interested in the general rule here, not anything exhaustive. Although interesting or entertaining exceptions are welcome.

Not Coming Soon

I asked my friend Michael LaGory to respond to David's post; rather than embed his response in the comments, I decided to make it a new post.

Grammar haters had better not hold their breath waiting for the day when people stop using “whom” altogether. It is only slightly more imminent than the day people start using it correctly.

I am not impressed by the argument that “whom” does not make a distinction necessary for understanding. The same is true for much more basic rules, such as subject-verb agreement. Few grammatical errors significantly impede understanding, however much they may erode respect.

The “who”-“whom” error is probably most likely in questions (“Who do you love?” “Who can I turn to when nobody needs me?”) and least likely when the pronoun is the object of a preposition. Constructions like “one of whom” are still widely used. I almost never see “one of who.” The tendency to postpone prepositions increases the likelihood of error. Many people whose ears would twitch at “the woman with who I fell in love” would admit “the woman who I fell in love with” without a second thought, their Inner Grammatical Watchdog unstirred.

The Inner Grammatical Watchdog, although widely domesticated, is not extinct. Although the wolf has turned poodle even in many professional writers, in editors like my dear friend Pat, the dominant primordial beast remains alive and snarling. Set one careless foot in her domain, and she’ll be on your case.

The Death of Whom

Is the word whom disappearing? It seems like people use who in all cases now. Although it's grammaticaly incorrect to use who in the objective case, eventually "whom" likely won't be with us. Does anyone think "whom" is dying? Will the objective case soon cease to exist for the word whom? Are copy editors the last line of defense against "whom's" demise? When do you think its time to let "whom" or other grammatical phenomenon die?

Chicago Manual

I thought you might be interested in reading what one reviewer of the latest edition of Chicago Manual has to say about it. The article appeared in Slate.

My thanks to David for sending the link.

Consistency

A friend of mine who works in advertising told me a story about consistency. He missed an error in a piece of copy that went out in an e-mail. The copy was slated to be reproduced in a variety of forms across a number of web sites and e-mails. Instead of fixing the error in the reproductions he and the rest of the account team decided that the mistake should stay, feeling consistency to be more important than correctness. Let me add that the mistake was barely noticeable. I think it was an extra space around em-dashes, or something like that.

Now in chapter 4 the book states, "Sometimes, consistency rules." I guess I'd like your take on qualifying the "sometimes" in that sentence. In my friends story the break in consistency would have likely drawn more attention than the error he missed. But readers might accept more egregious errors if they kept consistently reappearing. Do you have any examples that might serve as a guide? How are decisions like the one in my example reached at publications?

DK

Communication Style

In class Prof. Matsueda advised that we think of the copy editor as participating in a dialogue with the author. I'm interested in the details of that relationship.

For example, do you change the tone of your queries based on your personal experience with the author? Do you ever try to guess or research the author's disposition so that you can communicate with her more effectively? How often does the dialogue between writer and copy editor end on the page, and how often do copy editors and authors meet, either in person or via email/teleconference? I imagine the effort of relationship management varies between publications, as well as between freelancers and non-freelancers. If you freelance there aren't other people in the organization to aid in managing the author-copy editor relationship. Ideally though, would your final copy edit be identical for the same piece of writing, even if it were written by two different people?

Responsibility

What degree of occupational/moral responsibility should/do copy editors have for the finished work? On the occupational end: what if Idiscover a work is irredeemably beneath its publications standards? Do I edit as well as I can, but let it go? Or is it the my responsibility to blow the whistle?

The moral end interests me more,. If I copy edit something morally reprehensible, or at least irresponsible, am I morally responsible for it? How much of the finished work is it fair to attribute to the copy editor? I see three options:

1) None
2) Just implemented edits
3) As much as the author

The copy editor's name doesn't go on the finished product. Does that mean a copy-editor shares no responsibility for the finished work, so long as the prose follows all appropriate rules of grammar and reads clearly? Or do you feel its more beneficial as a worker, and more moral, to think of myself as responsible for what appears on the page beyond that, because clarity and grammar are inseperable from content? How high do you think the stakes are when it comes to making writing clearer than it once was?

Sorry for the abstract and navel-gazing question. thanks