Okina & the Islands

I was just wondering which of the islands (besides O‘ahu) take an okina. I've flipped through some of the locally produced magazines here and I can pretty much guarantee that I'm not the only one with this question. I saw the okina popping up in what seemed to be really awkward places (Mau‘i). But I can't deny that finding an answer is hard - I've tried looking up the correct spelling on the state's website, wikipedia, random google searches, etc., but so far the results have been so inconsistent! This leads me to a secondary question as well: what kind of resources would you consult in order to check the on the definitive spelling of Hawaiian words?

Chapter 8- Quotations

I decided to revisit this post because I knew that I could look at the use of quotation marks within quotations. After reviewing the paragraph, I now believe that there is an error here- more about that in a minute. On page 196 of the text, the extract indicates that copyeditors are expected peruse the document to ensure that quotation marks are properly paired. (Now back to my original point.) At the very end of the paragraph there are two sets of quotation marks, however, one is without a mate.

Am I right about this? When paragraphs are littered with punctuation things can get confusing.

"“My list of pet language peeves,” she once told The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, “would certainly include writers’ use of indirection (i.e., slipping new information into a narrative as if the reader already knew it); confusion between restrictive and non-restrictive phrases and clauses (‘that’ goes with restrictive clauses, and, ordinarily, ‘which’ with nonrestrictive); careless repetition; and singular subjects with plural verbs and vice versa.” She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic. In her presence, modifiers dared not dangle. She could find a solecism in a Stop sign.""

The Meaning of "Meaning"

Pat,

In my notes from a couple of classes ago, I wrote down four things we need to be aware of when we edit a piece: author's style, author's intention, audience, and meaning. I think you said determining meaning was more difficult than we might think.

I wonder if you or others could say a little bit more about meaning and how one goes about determining it. How is it different from intention?

There is a Style Sheet for Everything

I was looking around for examples of style-sheets the other day and I just realized that these are everywhere. Style sheets are present in everything that we use. Web content is mostly constructed of style sheets like the one above. The only difference between our style sheets and the ones used online is that ours deals with grammatical style as opposed to the styling of the appearance that is included in every aspect of this blog and other websites we browse. Just made the connection after my Google search and thought I would share.

Classifieds Need Editing, Too

This ad was seen in the current issue of Ka Leo:

Work Wanted

Looking for a part time offer where you can earn

extra income at your own flexible schedule plus

benefits that takes only little of your time.

Requirements -

* Should be a computer Literate.

* 1-2 hours access to the internet weekly.

* Must be Efficient and Dedicated

contact us with your resume for more details and

job information at

eheatherallbeautycosinc@gmx.com

Hurry.don't wait! This great opportunity is limited

so contact All Beauty Cosmetics Inc. today!

So, I think it's fair to say that the classifieds don't get edited! Let's see what we can do with this...

Help Wanted

Looking for a part-time job with benefits where you can earn

extra income on a flexible schedule that only takes a little

of your time?

Requirements -

* Should be computer literate.

* Access Internet 1-2 hours weekly.

* Must be efficient and dedicated.

Email your resume to Heather at eheatherallbeautycosinc@gmx.com
for more information and details.

Hurry, don't wait! This great opportunity is limited.

Contact All Beauty Cosmetics, Inc. today!

I'm assuming that the email address is correct, but it might be a good idea to verify it with the submitter, too. As a suggestion to the submitter, I think it might be a good idea to make the email address something a little less confusing. I think she's going for e-heather-all-beauty-cos-inc, but it's easy to see how readers might see the word "ethereal" or "e-health" that might cause the email address to be misentered.

Otherwise, most of the corrections were related to word ordering and inconsistencies in punctuation and capitalization.

Parentheses Problem

Recently, I've been encountering a new way to format a parenthetical sentence. And I was following the book's explanation for this new structuring, till I found this (p. 76-77):

• Last year popular fiction accounted for half of all books purchased. (Business and self-help books were the second largest category.)

• Last year popular fiction accounted for half of all books purchased (business and self-help books were the second largest category).

From what I've read, it looks like the period would be on the inside of the parentheses if the sentence was "its own complete" sentence; otherwise, it would be outside. Yet, the only difference between the sentences is format, not content. Does this mean that the definition of "complete" sentences at some point becomes subjective and that subsequently the placement of parenthetical sentences also becomes subjective? Thanks :)

How About Comic Book Copy Editing?

The other day I was re-arranging things in my room and came across an old comic book of mine. It then occurred to me, being that I am taking this editing class, I wanted to know how these get edited. I looked on the internet, inputting my query into a few different search engines, and came up empty handed. I don't know who copy edits comics, but I assume that the type of editing that occurs is very light due to its creative nature. I also noticed that the language used in comics is sometimes made up. I promise this will be my last inquiry into this subject, but who edits these types of publications?

Moving Large Sections of Text

I am looking at the business letter we were assigned to edit and having a difficult time drawing the line between editing and rewriting. I have been trying to make changes by moving and combining sentences and now I am wondering what is the cleanest way to indicate those changes. We have already seen a few examples of how to move phrases, etc. but how, for example, would I best indicate the following change:

Original-
Aloha! We just wanted to follow up with you on how are you and if everything is coming along satisfactory with your tub installation job, which we did for you on January 22 of this year.


Edited-
Aloha! We wanted to follow up on the tub installation job we did for you on January 22 of this year to ensure that everything is coming along satisfactorily.

Aside from some of the more minor edits, what is the cleanest way to move a large chunk of text without rewriting it?

Editing English as a Second Language

The article "One Paragraph, Three Ways" brings up the important point of maintaining authorial style, but I'm curious how one goes about doing this when English is the writer's second language. How do you balance the need to maintain the author's style when there are severe errors in the author's writing that require sentence structure to be altered or even re-written?

A few comments and questions...

"One Paragraph, Three Ways" touched on a big issue I have while informally editing friend's papers: maintaining the author's style. When I come across sentences that are poorly written or that I feel need to be rewritten altogether, it is extremely hard for me not to impose my own style. This becomes especially difficult if I run into many sentences that fit this description.

Obviously this applies more in a teaching scenario, as opposed to a professional copyediting setting. However, I am curious as to how to best edit a paper in this situation.

When do I...

The text we read was interesting in that it made me come to better understand when to edit the text. During the first week of classes, I was honestly tempted to change the author's text. As the article stated, however, there are a large amount of questions that include how to continue the author's style. It brought me to thinking about the legality of editing it after we discussed the publishing process in class yesterday. How does the author get input in what changes are included when the publication goes to print after they receive the galleys?

Words with double consonants

English spelling has always confused me with regard to double consonants. I almost always double-check the dictionary when writing words like "embarrassment" or "caroling" (vs the variant British spelling "carolling"). I was wondering if there was any kind of rule for the double consonant in English?

In my quest to answer this question on the internet, I found this list of frequently misspelled words:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html

Staff Hierarchy

After discussing the inter-workings of different editing staffs today, I began to wonder where and how certain people fit into the hierarchy. For example, I understood a literary agent to be someone who is proficient in editing skills; however, it seems as though this position is redundant and unnecessary. What is the real purpose of a literary agent, and how would one really be of use in an author-publisher relationship?

Copy Editing vs. Proofreading

Hi Pat,

Could you please differentiate between Copy Editing and Proofreading?

Cindy