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?

Reporting on Movies

At my internship this week I did interviews with some really incredible film makers and producers. When I was writing about the films I realized I did not know how what to do with the title of their movies. With essays you always put the title in quotation, Toni Morrison addresses the black woman's view on women's lib in her essay, "What the Black Woman thinks about Women's Lib." The title of a book is in italics. I am reading Toni Morrison's book, Tar Baby. But what do you do when you are referencing a movie or a documentary?

I will get back with you when I find out, or you can let me know if you find out first. In all the reviews, some capitalized the entire title, some italicised and some put the title in quotations. I am not sure what to do or who to follow?

knuckleheaded, hotheaded, ham-handed

I was interested in the occurrence of these words in the Asterisky Business article, specifically in their hyphenation.

The words appear in the following sentences:

In the fifth paragraph-
"...and then several more times in a ham-handed effort to get a roomful of sports reporters to retract or ignore his original use of the word."

And then in the second to last paragraph-
"I don't want Mr. McMackin punished for society's larger troubles any more than I want Prof. Henry Louis Gates or Sgt. James Crowley to bear sole racial responsibility for every inflexible cop or every hotheaded homeowner with an ego."

"And whether you believe it's the intolerance Crowley showed gates, or the intolerance Gates showed Crowley -- or the knuckleheaded intolerance Coach McMackin showed about lives different than his own -- it all gets you to the same place."

In each instance the word serves as an adjective, so why the difference in hyphenation? This is a good example of the evolution of words and how they change from two separate words, to hyphenated words, to a closed form. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary "ham-handed" and its derivatives are always hyphenated. "Knuckleheaded" is a closed compound.

Merriam-Webster lists "hotheaded" as a closed adjective but demonstrates its hyphenated use in the example: "He wrote a hot-headed letter." Dictionary.com lists both versions, "hotheaded" and "hot-headed." This leads me to believe that there is not yet a consensus on the form of this word, and it is an example of the in-between on an evolutionary scale. Because it appears in the same paragraph as "knuckleheaded" the un-hyphenated form is appealing.


I'm still developing my understanding of compound adjectives and when they should be hyphenated, so please comment or correct me!

Capitalization Confusion

Since I wasn't in class Thursday I'm not sure whether or not this was discussed, so I'll mention it anyway. I felt like I really knew the rules of capitalization until I attempted the exercise on page 164. Some of the words were pretty clear, like lower-casing "Staff Secretary," but others really threw me, "Deputy Undersecretary of the Army" for example. I think the context made this exercise a little bit more difficult. Did anyone else feel this way?

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?

Editing Within Different Mediums?

Reading the bit about “One Paragraph, Three Ways” was very interesting, as I had never thought about the importance of preserving the author’s style when editing. However I was wondering if copyediting in different mediums call specifically for different degrees of editing "heaviness". For example, it would probably be safe to assume that maintaining authorial style would be very important in a novel, and so a light copyedit would be used to revise the piece. But what about magazines, newspapers, or web pages? Are there any standards that are restrictive of the medium that the editor must work in?

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.

More questions

The following questions are Ritchie's; a response from me follows each one.

(Q1) Do we hand in the test with our copyediting marks, the final revision with no copyediting marks, or both?

The first: you are being graded on the way you make and use your copyediting marks.

(Q2) The greeting says, "Hello again editors of literary journals." Are we to assume that this letter is a sent mass e-mail? Are we to treat greetings and salutations like headers, where we capitalize certain words?

Please see the back of the version of test 1 with my editing marks; it has, as I pointed out in class, a follow-up e-mail message from Dzanc Books. You will see by reading it who the intended audience for the text of test 2 is.

Actually, the salutation says, "Hello again, Editors of Literary Journals." I suggested to Davis and Moon Yun that they look online for guidelines for the composition of business letters. One of my main reasons for doing this was to get them to focus on the salutation, which is not in the correct form.

(Q3) Are contractions appropriate in business (or any formal) letters? For example, in the second paragraph, "...how we'll go about getting all of the above plans into motion...."

It depends on what is being asked and whom it is being asked of. A personal letter to you from the White House—or, say, a printed invitation to a formal wedding—would probably not have any contractions. In this case, I would say it's all right to use them.


(Q4) I did not understand what the author meant by "want[ing] to pick the brains of the people who have been out on the front lines." When you do not understand an author's meaning, do you still copyedit the sentence, or do you query the author about it's meaning? (I just deleted that part of the sentence because it sounded informal. Plus, if my assumptions are correct, then he is referring to the questions portion of the e-mail.)

First of all, please remember that possessive pronouns like its do not have apostrophes.

Secondly, yes, he is referring to the questions he wants people to answer. I would suggest you do your best to copyedit the passage and then add a query to the author.


(Q5) In "1. Library Subscriptions," the author writes, "group deal offerings to libraries." I am not sure what that means, would it be alright to say "by offering group deals to libraries." I found it difficult to revise this business letter because it required a bit of knowledge on literary journals, marketing, and subscriptions. I know the author is trying to promote his foundation by showing all the ways he can help literary journals, but I wish I still can't figure out what he's trying to say in some parts.

First of all, please note that alright should be all right.

Secondly, your revision sounds fine to me.

I think that the letter, as filled with personality and goodwill as it is, did not get the response the folks at Dzanc were hoping for because it is, as I said in class, (1) too informal for its intended audience and (2) unclear and imprecise in several places.

You will often be asked to copyedit material that you have no training in or formal knowledge of. That is one of copyediting's greatest challenges: to use your knowledge in a formal and logical way to serve the work and its readers. I was once a copyeditor for a research center at the UH, and I was able, after trying to overcome such fears as yours, to copyedit research reports, journal articles, and conference papers produced by scientists in water research. I don't doubt that you can do the same :)


(Q6) In "2. Event Planning," I copyedited the sentence to, "More and more book festivals are popping up every year; often, we know the organizers." Is the O of often supposed to be capitalized? Also, I wasn't sure what KIND of successes they've seen with these events, so I deleted that sentence.

Ack, no! Please don't ever capitalize the first word after a semicolon.

It's OK to delete the sentence, but I need to ask if my copyediting of that passage did not help you.


(Q7) 3. Readings. What are reading series? Is that just another term for reading nights? What variations is he talking about? Does he mean variations of those reading nights? Also, would you consider, "2 to 4 of their authors" and "three or four journals" as estimates? (I remember you said that you should spell out numbers if they are estimates or not critical to the meaning of the passage. Or would consistency rule, such that I should just spell out all the numbers?)

Reading series are series of readings. For example, the English department has a series of readings that are held at lunchtime and feature the work of poets in Hawai‘i. Because they are continuing and periodic, the readings constitute a series. Reading series can have different formats: one important writer reading his latest work; several writers published by one journal or press reading the work just published; two winners of a recent competition reading their award-winning work; and so forth.

And yes, please spell out the numbers in this case.

(Q8) 5. Advertising. Dzanc Books want to drive for lower rates, and help with layouts. Does that mean they want to market group rates, and help with advertisement layouts?

Yes; again, the hastily composed text will drive many people away—instead of toward—Dzanc.

(Q9) 7. Litblogs. For the first time, the author mentions Dan. Who is Dan? Do I ask the author who Dan (and Steve) is? Or do I just write, "Dan, the founder of Dzanc Books," AND query the author?

The latter is preferable, I think.

(Q10) 8. Anthology. Do they mean that they will be accepting nominations, from participating journals, for works to be put into the anthology?

Yes, from journals who work with them. Note the use of the restrictive clause: it is deliberate, i.e., meant to make it clear to everyone that only a certain group of editors and publishers will appear in the anthologies.


(Q11) Question # 16. Are they asking the renewal rate for their subscribers?

Yes, Dzanc wants to know how many subscribers, of the total number, renew their subscriptions.

Test 2 Questions

I have a bunch of questions…

Do I need to write in the “bf” mark in the margin for boldface, or would a wavy line suffice? Also Pat used the “tr” mark for transposing (on the second page of the first test), but is the mark necessary?

Do I have a choice to include the serial comma or omit it? I think this decision depends on which style manual I use, but, since I have no particular style manual this time, can I choose to retain or omit the serial comma if I stay consistent?

If I choose to retain the serial comma, would I have to place the comma every time I use the word “and”? For instance, would I need a comma in a simple phrase like, “She is nice and smart”? Or should the sentence be, “She is nice, and smart”?

Is it assumed that the receivers of this e-mail message know who Dan and Steve are? It seems informal to mention such names unless the parties involved are aware of who they are.

What is the copyediting mark for making an e-mail address hyperlinked?

Should we specifically write “Au:…” when we query the author to distinguish the query from the instructions for the typesetter?

Is “litblog coop” an organization? Should the name be capitalized?

Pat mentioned in class that putting an exclamation mark after an understood statement, such as “library subscriptions have close to 100% renewal rate,” indicates a lack of professionalism. Should we advice the author to refrain from using the mark?

I’m afraid this question might repeat what Davis and Moon Yun had already asked, but are we penalized every time we make the same marking as Pat had done in the first test? Should we come up with our own markings even when we feel that Pat’s markings seem to be doing exactly what we want? Of course, I’m not saying that we should just copy everything…

queries

In exercise 13, do the queries to the author not need to be circled because it's just an exercise? I know we talked about how everything should be circled so as not to confuse a typesetter. Or is it okay because it's obviously not meant to be changed in the type and stands as a query to the author?

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?

Circled Text

When putting circled edit comments or directions in the margins, does it matter which margin? On p. 23 in the text (regarding moving text to a different page), it is specific about which margin to place the directions, but I don't see any other references (for example with italicize, underline, or other clarifications that are placed in the margins).

(from Rebecca)