June 22nd, 2009
I’m a little late posting this, but Writer’s Digest recently published their 2009 list of
101 Best Websites for Writers.
Many of the sites WD recommends are geared toward creative writers, rather than business writers. Nonetheless, the sections on Jobs and Markets and General Resources contain valuable information for anyone involved in independent writing and editing.
One of my favorite sites is not included in WD’s list — Daphne Gray-Grant’s Publication Coach. Daphne’s tips on writing well and writing quickly are highly relevent to business writers, and you can sign up to receive them in a weekly email newsletter.
Scott’s Vocab is another good destination not included in the list. It’s a blog by Ben Schott, author of Schott’s Original Miscellany, exploring odd and novel uses of vocabulary in the news. For feature story writers in particular, it can be fun to pick up one of the terms Schott discovers and use it in just the right instance in a story.
Posted in Freelance Writing |
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June 19th, 2009
Dudes - you need to get to the bookstore NOW.
Matthew Baldwin, one of my favorite bloggers (Defective Yeti) and a contributing writer for The Morning News, is hosting the Infinite Summer AND IT STARTS ON SUNDAY !!!
Infinite Summer involves the challenge of reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest over the course of three months. As Baldwin and friends write:
Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.
Four writers who have never before read Infinite Jest will do so for the duration of Infinite Summer. And each will be posting here weekly, not only to report on their thoughts and progress, but also to promote and facilitate discussion.
Folks who have visited this blog before may know that I’m a huge fan of Wallace’s essays, although I will admit for the first time publicly that I have never before read any of his fiction.
Well, this summer, IT’S GONNA HAPPEN. The only sad part is that we’ll be finishing up the novel just after the one-year anniversay of Wallace’s death.
In any case - I better stop writing and get over to Jay and Mary’s in Troy ASAP. The reading starts Sunday!
[p.s., go here to download bookmarks with weekly page totals to keep you on track throughout the summer.]
Posted in Uncategorized |
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June 16th, 2009
I was driving home from an IABC meeting yesterday when Jim Croce’s pop/folk classic “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” came on the radio.
Maybe because I was already thinking about communications, or maybe because it was a rainy day and I was feeling reflective, I started listening closely to the lyrics. I smiled when I realized what great use Croce makes of standard techniques for effective business writing.
For example:
Use of specifics. Croce doesn’t describe Bad, Bad Leroy Brown as having “two expensive cars.” Instead, he has a “custom Continental and an El Dorado too.” We can imagine that in 1973, owning such vehicles represented the height of coolness.
Use of quotes. Croce doesn’t rely on his narrative alone to convince you how awesome Leroy is. He uses colorful quotes from objective, third-party sources. “All the downtown ladies call [Leroy] the treetop lover,” Croce writes. “The men just call him sir.” [Note: Ladies call Leroy the "treetop lover" apparently because he "stands around six foot four."]
Use of metaphor. Writing consultant Ann Wylie often reminds her readers to use metaphor to bring numbers or abstract scenarios to life. After this song’s concluding jealousy-induced fight, Croce doesn’t describe Leroy as “having received several knife wounds.” Instead, Croce says, he “looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone.” Yeah, that gives us a sense of how roughed-up poor old Leroy was.
Using these techniques to create more vibrant business copy is nothing new. But it’s fun to see how well they played out in one of the most well-known pop songs in history.
Read the full lyrics to Bad, Bad Leroy Brown here.
Even better, watch Croce perform the song on TV’s Midnight Special, circa 1973.
Posted in Uncategorized |
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June 12th, 2009
Fans of classic literature may be interested to note that the Everyman’s Library has just released a newly translated version of Alexandre Dumas’
The Count of Monte Cristo.
Everyman’s always produces lovely, easy-to-hold editions, and this volume is definitely on my must-buy list. However, I’m a little nervous about the company’s claim that this translation “presents Dumas’ work as it was meant to be written.”
I can understand a new translation that presents the work as it was meant to be read; but as it was meant to be written? Can we really go back and second-guess how Dumas meant to write the book and “correct” it accordingly?
Everyman’s publicists also note that this “slightly streamlined version of the original 1846 translation speeds the narrative flow while retaining most of the the rich pictoral descriptions and all the essential details” of the book.
Huh? So, which of the “rich pastoral descriptions” were not included? And exactly what got “streamlined”?
I know that Dumas is no Hemingway, but are we really supposed to go back and do a developmental edit on an author’s work some 160 years after its publication?
Posted in Land of Literature |
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June 10th, 2009
One of our editors in DC wrote today to share these
photos of dragonflies, taken in England’s New Forest National Park.
The folks who run the Forest Walks website have taken other snaps of dragonflies over the past couple of years. If you look at these at work, be careful, as there is a picture of TWO RED DRAGONFLIES MATING !!!
Thanks, Linda, for sending these!
Posted in Dragonflies |
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May 13th, 2009
OK, I have no idea what the story is with this —
Wikipedia’s Guild of Copyeditors — but just ran across it and need to learn more.
Appears to be a group of copyeditors (or, at minimum, English language natives) who volunteer to clean up the articles posted on Wikipedia.
Will report back ASAP.
Posted in Freelance editing, Social media / Web 2.0 |
2 comments »
May 12th, 2009
Wendalyn Nichols at
Copyediting brings our attention this week to a list of
blogs recommended by John McIntyre, former director of the copy desk at the
Baltimore Sun. John’s list, solicited by blogs.com, is a great resource for anyone interested in issues of language, linguistics, and literacy.
How’s that for some off-the-cuff alliteration?
In case you don’t know, blogs.com offers top ten lists of the “best” blogs on a variety of niche topics, from knitting to liberal politics to cupcakes. While you’re on the site, check out the Top 10 Blogs for Word Nerds. The author of that list references John McIntyre’s own personal blog, You Don’t Say.
I think that means the internet has collapsed in on itself and will self-destruct any time now.
Posted in Freelance editing |
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April 27th, 2009
Traveling this week to the
American Urological Association (AUA) annual conference in Chicago . . . it’s an overwhelming experience. I’m one small copyeditor in the midst of some 14,000 urologists. The program book for the conference tops 300 pages; McCormick Place, where the conference is being held, covers 2.6 million square feet.
I’m here to meet with the editorial staff of European Urology, a leading medical journal and one of our super-favorite customers. EU is published by Elsevier for the European Association of Urology, and has editorial offices in Milan and production offices in the Netherlands. So it’s a bit easier for me to meet everyone here, rather than in their home offices.
I’m also here to learn. Although you don’t need to have medical training to be a medical editor, it helps. I think that anything you can do to increase your understanding of the material you edit improves your work and reduces your chance of making errors. To whit:
- You understand the subject matter more thoroughly, so you can edit more quickly and efficiently
- You’re less likely to be confused by the content, so you wind up writing fewer unnecessary author queries — reducing bother to the customer and again, saving time
- You better understand the authors’ jargon, so you’re less likely to unintentionally change the author’s meaning while editing — the cardinal sin of any editor or proofreader.
So, for the next three days, I’ll be missing my family, but soaking in all the information I can on the treatment of prostate cancer and urothelial cancers, and conditions like overactive bladder syndrome, lower urinary tract symptoms, chronic pelvic pain, stress urinary incontinence, varicocele, and infertility. Wish me luck.
Posted in Editorial process, Medical editing |
1 comment »
April 1st, 2009
Today kicks off national poetry month.
Even if you’re a business writer like me, consider subscribing for just this month to the Borzoi Reader Poem-a-Day newsletter, this year dedicated to the work of John Updike (1932-2009). Because even tech writers need some creative inspiration.
I like poems that touch on the very tangible, day-to-day realities of life. Here’s an excerpt from Updike’s “Baseball,” from Endpoint, his final book, published yesterday by Random House/Knopf Doubleday:
It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.
Describing a baseball as being a “city block or more high” above your head . . . Updike is tying an abstract distance to a concrete measurement that you can easily visualize. A technique like that can bring even the most dry business writing to life.
Posted in Clear writing, Land of Literature |
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March 31st, 2009
At the IHOP on I-75 north of Knoxville, a waitress asks me and husband if we would like our bacon “crispy or limpy.”
Without missing a beat, we both respond, “limpy.” ‘Cause that’s the only way that bacon’s any good.
Glad there’s finally a word for it.
Oh — and for more new words and turns of phrase, check out Ben Schott’s blog Scott’s Vocab, on the New York Times website. Astute readers will know Schott from his highly readable Schott’s Original Miscellany and its two sequels.
In this blog, Schott captures neologisms that “encapsulate the times in which we live” — terms like “affluent thrift,” “uplandlords,” or “nomunication.”
I often find discussion of the “discovery” of new words to be self-congratulatory and annoying, but Schott’s casual manner, which includes no judgment of the value or linguistic integrity of the words, feels different. He seems to be writing more as a word archaologist than linguist-gone-jovial.
I like that.
Posted in Dictionary drama |
1 comment »
I’m a little late posting this, but Writer’s Digest recently published their 2009 list of 101 Best Websites for Writers.
“I’ve worked with the staff at Dragonfly for years, and I trust their editing completely. We’ve used them on federal proposals, commercial proposals, IT documentation, marketing collateral … you name it. They are especially helpful on large projects, when we need a team of editors to get a lot done in a short timeframe. They also have great writers who can handle everything from white papers to case studies. Dragonfly is our editorial dream team!".
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