Creating a template & other blabbity things

I was wondering how do you create a template? I've been putting together a chapbook using MSWord and it is no fun. I had to figure out columns and that awful odd even numbering. It's a headache to add pages and on top of that I'm doing front back printing! Grr. Any suggestions? Programs?

Also, I've been thinking about what Pat's friend asked about violence in writing. Some of my students have written violent things, okay not all of them, just one and a school therapist comes to talk to him/her about twice a month. It's school policy to report any writing or any behavior that is violent, naturally. I talk to this student; give them a lot of extra attention; talk about "general" things. However, I think what happened at Virgina Tech makes me think of Marilyn Manson's quote in Bowling for Columbine. Not a coincidence that Bravo decided to air it this week, hmm? I'm sure you all remember this, but for those of you haven't seen the documentary, Moore asked Manson, "What would you have said to those kids?" As Moore was discussing how this could have been prevented, etc. Manson answered: "Nothing. I would have listened. I would have listened to what they had to say and that's what no one did." Ok, it's not profound or anything, but do you ever feel like people have seriously forgotten how to do in a larger context? Sometimes I feel like my role as a graduate student is not to listen or understand but attack and critique; it's so tiring! Most violent acts seem to stem from one's inability to communicate or rather feeling as if what one is trying to communicate is not getting through. There are a million examples in our community, in the world. What I like about copyediting is that it allows the author/writer to communicate more effectively.

Sorry, I don't have time to proofread this! I know I switch POV!

Book questions

1. In a discussion of "that" and "which," the book throws out a term I don't believe we've learned; if we have, I apologize, but what is an elliptical sentence?

2. The examples our book gives on misplaced modifers seem to me, also "missing subjects." For example, the book states: "1. Watching from the wings, the orchestra played the overture." The explaination the book gives is that "Someone or something other than the orchestra is watching; it could be a soprano or a murderer [aren't the writers bright and cheery?]. Query the author unless you are certain from context you can supply the correct noun or pronoun" (134). I guess my question is, can misplaced modifers be called missing subjects?

3. The book states, "Unless the sentence is extremely short, use a comma between two independent or main clauses...joined by and" (142). I'm wondering is this "extremely" short sentence a judgement call?

4. The book does this "extremely short" business again with introductory clauses and phrases. "Unlesss the introductory phrase is very short, a comma is necessary to indicate the pause in thought" (144). Again, is this a judgement call?

5. Colons! The book gives an example of a colon used to "add" or "supplement" to a sentence. I don't believe I've seen this often in writing. I think the em-dash is more often used. Am I wrong? The example the book gives is this: ""Only one course was open to the present: to fire the secretary" (147). This seems odd to me; I'm sure it's correct, but I was wondering if this is common for a colon. Ha..ahhh..okay.

By-the-by

So I was wondering, is this a wrong sentence: "You may earn extra credit by writing a report or by submitting a completed reading list." In other words, is the second "by" unnecessary?

Also, is it okay to put a comma between "report" and "or?" I notice some documents have this? (Or is it "do this?")

Anyway, thanks for your help!

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!

Redundant

So I know we are supposed to edit instead of delete text, but a large portion of the text is redundant, misplaced, and illogical. I know it's late to be posting about this, but I think I'm going to have to claim clarity as my aim here. As well as keeping the author's colloquial, albeit cheesy style.

What do you think Pat? Am I going against what you want us to do, which is practice as much as possible our editing marks?

I feel torn, but I'm gonna go with my gut and with what I would do in a non-test situation.

Dashes and things

Hi, when would you use just one dash?

Also, in Japanese class, my professor said something about adjectival (sp?) nouns. What the heck are those?

Styleissh

What if an author's intention is to mix styles such as pidgin with academic speak? How does one copyedit accurately, meaning how do we make sure the author's intentions still come across when the focus is a hybridity/differing power structures? The author's intentions may be to point out or defy conventional grammatical structure while still maintaining their mastery of it. Ah, maybe this is more of a "regular" editor question, huh.

I ask because I just read Sage Takehiro's column in the BIW, in which she systematically destroys (but is still nice) to a reader's response of her response to Maui Fever; yes, the show on MTV. Anyway, the article was da bomb, but I was thinking, ho, that would be one hard thing to copyedit!

Exceptions

I was thinking about the exception of phrases like "a number of" and "a variety of" taking singular and plural verbs; and I felt the need to post a question regarding the use of "their."

"Their" is a plural pronoun; but why can't "their" be a singular pronoun, if used consistently in written languagel? I know there are a lot of problems in gender studies with identity; and the use of "their" is ambiguous, in a wonderful way; it allows for a dual or third gender.

Don't you think "their" can be used as single pronoun? Can't the English language make an exception? Really, it's not like we don't make a milliion already. :-)

I don't know. Just a thought.

Poetry

I'm the editor for "Seeds + Esssse." It's a public school-based poetry journal for students from K-12 (and perhaps even college.)

My problem: how should I edit pidgin? I have my own ideas of how to spell in pidgin--should I leave the words the way the poet wrote them, or should I create a kind of pidgin dictionary, specifically for the journal?

Hyphens

I'm wondering when are end-of-line hyphens ambiguous?

(D)em hyphens are confusing--specifically, the soft hyphen. In our textbook is reads, "If a hyphen appears only because a line is too short for the whole word, you must mark this 'soft' hyphen for deletion" (24). I'm not sure what the book means by a line being "too short." I thought the rule was only use a soft hypen on a word if a sentence is too long to hold that word; thus, the word would be separated at a suitable syllable cut off. Do they mean too little space in the line? At any rate, if in the manscript there is a soft hyphen, doesn't the type-setter know it's a hypenated word?

In the other source given to use in class it states, "Hyphens appearing when dashes should be used-except double hyphens representing an em dash--should always be marked; otherwise a hyphen may be used between continuing numbers like 15-18 or may confusingly be used to set off parenthetical matter. Whenever it is ambigious or likely to confuse the typesetter an end-of-line hyphen should be underlined or crossed out so that the type-setter will know whether to retain the hyphen in the line or close up the word" (How an Editor Marks a Manuscript). Do you underline to retain the hyphen? I understand all of this is to help the type-setter, but I'm wondering if there is a difference between the font or size of the text on the paper the type-setter is reading and the way it is created in a computer document so that the hyphen would not be needed as the word is inputed? Is that why the soft hyphen should be deleted?

I know it is a small matter, but could someone clear it up for me?

Thank you!