Resources

By Jennifer Case As Daniel Hahn pointed out, an editor is like a beta reader. Having an editor look over your translation is like testing your translation out on your target reader. Maybe a term you chose affected your beta reader in a way you didn’t expect, or maybe they feel that the term in…

By Erin Brenner In a previous article, I discussed how to handle special terms for an audience of a (mostly) single faith. That was the easy part. This article looks at the challenging part: when a text that discusses religion is aimed at a diverse audience: people from different faiths, spiritual people of no organized religion,…

By Erin Brenner In the EAE Backroom an editor asked a question on styling a religious term: “Who would capitalize ‘holy family’ in Chicago style?” The ensuing conversation brought to light some issues concerning religious terminology: Our main stylebooks, such as Chicago and AP, offer guidance that is sometimes vague or meant for publications that target general…

By Laura Poole Editors love a good reference, and there’s one under-the-radar type of reference book that’s particularly well-suited to editors: the usage dictionary. Let’s define some terms. A usage dictionary is not a standard dictionary. Your trusty Webster’s New World or Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate is a standard dictionary which primarily contains lexical information: it tells…

By Sue Littleford Why should you take any notice of me, a UK copyeditor of scholarly humanities and social sciences? Well, exactly a year before I started drafting this post, I received this comment from a professor-author: “Everything has gone so smoothly and the tables which you sent our authors make the process quick and…

By Andy Hollandbeck The word person, which, when you focus on its plurals, presents a few unusual considerations. These days, the standard plural of person is people. Native English speakers might not even realize, in the larger scheme of things, how odd this is. Person and people don’t even have a common etymology! Person stems from…

By Brit Stamey While for many winter can conjure up images of decorated pine trees, houses covered in lights, and even snowy locations, this idea is largely based on a Northern-Hemisphere-centric, Western, and Christian ideal of the winter season. Talking about “winter holidays” groups many varied and unique celebrations. This article aims to describe a…

By Eloise DeHaan Every copyediting field has its own special words. My field is medical copyediting, and I edit reports about healthcare that are written in an academic style featuring many clinical terms. I watch out for special typos as I edit reports about new medical treatments. A drug regimen can be transformed into a…

By Erin Brenner Here’s a work situation that can be a bit unnerving: You copyedit feature articles for an online publication. Generally the managing editor (ME) does a developmental edit on the article and then sends you the article for copyediting. Your latest copyedit comes back to you with list of 17 problems and the…