ICYMI: Three lists about copy editing that are worth reading
By Gerri Berendzen
Lists can make your life easier. Lists also can be thought provoking. Last week, three editing bloggers put together lists that are worth reading and thinking about.
So in case you missed it, here are three blogs about copy editing to bookmark and discuss.
TERESA SCHMEDDING
On her personal blog, Teresa Schmedding, president of the American Copy Editors Society, did a five-part series from May 5-9 on “Five things I’m not losing sleep over.” Schmedding recapped the series on May 10 (with links to the individual entries.)
Her five things: more than vs. over, question headlines, repetition, abbreviating state names, and starting sentences or paragraphs with conjunctions.
The purpose of the series wasn’t to set new policy, but to get copy editors thinking about setting editing priorities (and her priorities might not be your priorities).
“I didn’t write the blog series in an effort to change anyone’s mind on these ‘rules,’ ” Schmedding wrote. “My goal was to challenge you to think about what you’re spending your precious time on. In a perfect world, we’d have tons of time to sweat every single piece of punctuation and every word choice. But we live in reality, and there are too many things demanding our attention.”
Some of the entries sparked interesting debate on Facebook.
MIGNON FOGARTY
The podcaster and blogger you might more readily recognize as Grammar Girl offered a detail-oriented editing checklist on May 8.
The checklist’s 25 entries include lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement, jargon, missing or unnecessary capitalization, and unnecessary shifts in verb tense.
It’s a great “clip-it-out-and-keep-it-at-your-desk” list.
JOHN MCINTYRE
In his “You Don’t Say” blog on baltimoresun.com, John McIntyre followed up on Grammar Girl’s post. He wrote, “you are well advised” to take Fogarty’s checklist into consideration, but noted it needed a big picture companion.
Wrote McIntyre: “The Old Editor fears that in your attention to individual trees you might lose your way in the forest. Thus, in addition to Grammar Girl’s micro-editing checklist, you might benefit from The Old Editor’s macro-editing checklist.”
His list offers questions editors can ask themselves about an article’s focus, structure, organization, credibility, tone, and legal and ethical considerations.
All three blogs are worth reading and bookmarking.
