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Archive for 2008

Pew Foundation on the future of the Internet

Friday, December 19th, 2008

Those of you involved in writing for the web, or in using social media as part of your marketing and communications campaigns, may be interested in reading this report. It’s the Pew Internet Project’s report on “the Internet and American Life,” and includes projections on how Internet-based technologies will affect American’s work lives and private lives.

Particularly interesting is Pew’s prediction on the eradication of work/life boundaries. Here’s how they see the year 2020:

In 2020, well-connected knowledge workers in more-developed nations have willingly eliminated the industrial-age boundaries between work hours and personal time. Outside of formally scheduled activities, work and play are seamlessly integrated in most of these workers’ lives. This is a net-positive for people. They blend personal/professional duties wherever they happen to be when they are called upon to perform them — from their homes, the gym, the mall, a library, and possibly even their company’s communal meeting space, which may exist in a new virtual-reality format.

Whether this will be a blessing or a curse–if it happens– remains to be seen.

Posted in Social media / Web 2.0 | no comments »

Max Kerning

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Fun site for all you designers out there . . . and you editors attuned to kerning.

And, for the more serious-minded, here’s AIGA’s 2 cents on spacing and kerning plus some interesting info from Adobe.

Posted in Good design | no comments »

Lamest social media effort ever

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Social media can be a powerful marketing tool, because it builds credibility when real people discuss your product in a positive manner.

It doesn’t work when marketers create “real people” who are obviously fake.

Posted in Social media / Web 2.0 | 1 comment »

Fugly punctuation (or lack thereof)

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

So one of my personal BBEs (best blogs ever), Go Fug Yourself, discusses the lack on punctuation in the title of the show So You Think You Can Dance Australia.

See? Even the Fug Girls get the fact that bad punctuation confuses meaning.

Posted in Punctuation nightmares | no comments »

Test your proofreading skills

Monday, October 13th, 2008

A punctuation exam for writers” is today’s free download on MyRagan.com

Tags: , ,
Posted in Punctuation nightmares | no comments »

Land of Typos, part exasperation

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

From a research report:

“The report further suggests that the reliance on debt financing further exasperates the issue and that capital needs of the antiquated system are growing faster than revenues.”

I believe the author meant that debt financing would exacerbate (i.e., increase) the issue, not exasperate (i.e., frustrate) the issue.

I always get a little flutter in my stomach when I catch these kind of “gotchas” as I’m copyediting. They’re so easy to miss.

Posted in Land of Typos, Why editors exist | no comments »

Goodbye to David Foster Wallace

Monday, September 15th, 2008

My sister wrote this morning to tell me that David Foster Wallace had died. Found dead Friday night by his wife. He had apparently hanged himself.

Mr. Wallace was a writer so brilliant that I often felt that the back of my head was opening up when I read his words. I writer so talented that he could hold together about 14 different threads in the same nonfiction narrative–without confusing the reader one bit. Hearing about his death brings a feeling of sadness and dismay. Sadness at the loss of such a talent, in a time when talented writers aren’t that common. And dismay in realizing that I’ll never again be able to read another new essay by Mr. Wallace.

Here are a few reflections on his death:

New York Times

LA Times

Chicago Tribune

Entertainment Weekly

I also include a link to a David Foster Wallace essay near and dear to my own heart — his review of Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage. If you want to do it proper, subscribe to Harper’s and download it from there. It’s well worth the $16.97.

Posted in Bryan Garner, David Foster Wallace | 1 comment »

Editors with an attitude (not good)

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Been thinking about an article I read a couple of weeks ago about the so-called “Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL).”

TEAL is nothing but two guys, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, who’ve spent the past summer traveling the United States and correcting typos on public signage. Things you see all the time, like “Bobs Donuts” instead of “Bob’s Donuts.” The duo were finally sanctioned for correcting (read: defacing) a historic sign at the Grand Canyon National Park.

I finally realized what had been bugging me about this story. The way I see things, copyeditors aren’t supposed to call attention to themselves. We’re not supposed run around, waving our arms, making a big deal out of writers’ errors. And we’re certainly not supposed to make the writers we work with feel stupid.

Instead, we’re supposed to work in the background, helping our writers express their ideas as clearly as possible. Getting rid of mistakes that might block a reader’s comprehension. Then fading into the background, and letting the writer–and his or her ideas–shine.

A copyeditor who wants to be the story, rather than craft the story, just might be in the wrong profession.

Posted in Editorial process, Editorial style, Freelance editing | 2 comments »

Ode to “The Elements of Style”

Monday, September 8th, 2008

Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post reflects on a half-century with Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

Good reading for anyone who cherishes this volume — not necessarily as a style guide — but as an embodiment of concise writing.

Posted in Clear writing, Editorial style | no comments »

The high cost of cheap copyediting

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Oh, dear.

Princeton University Press is recalling all copies of one of its spring titles after discovering more than 90 spelling and grammar errors in the 245-page work. The book, Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District, by Peter Moskos, was published May 1 in an initial press run of 4,000 copies.

Believe it or not, the press is pulling all copies of the book, correcting and reprinting it, and redistributing it to stores. Any ideas on what that’s going to cost?

According the Peter Dougherty, the press’s director, the manuscript “had been given to an inexperienced copy editor who failed to do the job properly.” He claims to be “flabbergasted and embarrassed.”

Hmm.

For years, the world’s most prestigious publishers have been getting away with paying peanuts to their freelance copyeditors and proofreaders, with pay rates languishing in the teens or low twenties at best. Is it any surprise, then, that the “inexperienced copy editor” who took this job missed a host of errors? Most senior editors — who have the experience needed to do this type of work — just won’t work anymore for what the publishers are paying.

Furthermore, this *scandal* suggests another, equally serious gap in Princeton U’s editorial process.

Most manuscripts go through at least three passes before going to press — a developmental edit, a copyedit, and a proofread. It’s not unreasonable for a few errors to be missed during copyediting, especially on a complex or error-ridden manuscript. But those mistakes are customarily found and fixed during proofreading.

Is Princeton U also trying to save money buy cutting proofreading out of the process? If so, the results of the cost-cutting speak for themselves.

Posted in Editorial process, Proofreading, Why editors exist | Comments Off

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