Sessions are listed below in alphabetical order.
Presenters: Tracy Cook
Charts and graphics — when done well — can provide compelling visual elements that complement text. But sometimes, they leave readers confused: “Where did this data come from? These numbers don’t add up… What’s the key takeaway supposed to be?”
This session will arm you with 14 actionable items to review when you’re editing charts and graphics. We’ll cover common errors, best practices, and what to look for when you’re on deadline
Presenters: Yateendra Joshi
The heart of copyediting lies in details, which means that to assess how well a document has been copy-edited, you need to read it in detail—and that takes too long. The proposed session presents alternative approaches to conducting such assessment quickly by automating the process as far as possible, using a combination of macros, off-the-shelf software tools, and sampling. The proposed approach also makes such assessment entirely objective and yet does not require the assessor to be an expert copy editor, making the approach particularly suitable for senior management. Caveat: the proposed approach is confined to Microsoft Word documents.
Presenters: Judy Wallace
Corporate marketing: It's a pressure cooker of tight deadlines, endless approvals, and competing priorities. So how do you navigate the chaos and still produce good copy? We'll explore ways to balance marketing, branding, legal/compliance, and communications requirements; understand where and when you can be flexible vs. firm on grammar and style; and learn how to build consensus.
Presenters: Charmaine Cooper Hussain
It is possible to edit high-tech content without an engineering degree! Designed for those interested in tackling high-tech marketing content (contributed articles, white papers, application reports, blog posts), in this session you'll learn how to make technical explanations more engaging and easier to read for wider audiences, while still preserving technical credibility.
I'll discuss passive to active voice conversions, the power of second-person plural pronouns, and revisions away from promotional proclamations toward an angle that describes a product's end effect on those using it.
Presenters: Jen McGovern
Editing technical content in proposals can be intimidating, especially if you’re not a technical specialist! But here’s a secret that editors don’t share: You don’t need to be an absolute expert on the content you’re editing to make a positive impact. Jen McGovern, CPSM, a former copyeditor turned marketer, will discuss how you can edit technical content in architecture, engineering, and construction proposals. She’ll share tips and tricks to help strengthen your editing skills and help you feel more confident tackling technical writing.
Presenters: Dr. Rachael Lussos and Dr. Nupoor Ranade
We know that enforcing style guide “rules” is sometimes unethical. The “his or her” phrasing excludes nonbinary genders. Some grammatically “incorrect” sentences follow Black English grammar. If discrimination based on sex, race, or gender is unethical, but editors have to enforce rules, how can they edit ethically?
We offer four suggestions for editing ethically. Participants learn how to balance rule-following with ethical decision-making and convince their clients that the ethical edit is the right one. We share from our experiences as professional editors, teaching editing in a professional writing Master’s program, and researching editing and language use practices.
Presenters: Susannah Noel
The three editorial roles of line editor, copyeditor, and proofreader all focus on the language of a book, rather than the big-picture content, which is why they fall under language editing as opposed to story or content editing. Authors and new editors are often confused about the various types of language editing, but clearly understanding the differences can help freelancers schedule their time effectively and charge appropriately.
This informative session will explore the three roles through plenty of examples, provide verbiage to help explain services to authors, and look at how these roles play out differently when working with publishers versus independent authors.
Presenters: Tanya Gold, Antonn Park, Kristen Tate, and Rachel Fudge
When you start freelancing, the initial goals are clear: fill your schedule and make a living from your editing work. But once you meet these goals, what’s next?
In this session geared toward intermediate-to-advanced freelancers, four experienced editors with different backgrounds and specializations share how they stay challenged, grow in interesting and satisfying ways, keep their creative spark alive, create balance between their work and personal lives, and make their businesses work for them.
You’ll hear multiple strategies and ideas that could help you figure out what’s next for you and your editing business.
Presenter: Jessica Lulka
This presentation is geared to freelancers that are curious about how to find and secure jobs with in-house editors that actively recruit contributors for content. The session will cover what in-house editors look for in terms of freelancer expertise and content, how freelancers can navigate the query process, what to know when they talk to a potential in-house editor and information about freelance contracts.
After this session, freelancers will know more about how in-house editors find freelancers and how to spot green and red flags during the negotiation process
Presenters: Michelle Rosenfeld
It is more important than ever to ensure your organization and clients are considering diversity and inclusive language across all products and outlets. But how do you go about determining appropriate guidelines for your audience and getting buy-in from writers and leaders to implement changes? In this session, learn what resources to use for adding or updating diversity and inclusion sections in your internal style guide and how to sell these changes up and down the organization.
Presenters: Chelsea Lee, Timothy McAdoo, Efua Andoh, Nadia Dawood, and Vanessa Hintz, PsyD.
The central tenet of inclusive language is to call people what they want to be called—but what people call themselves changes over time, so editors have to keep their skills current. In this session we will discuss new and established APA resources about inclusive language, explore how these resources are based in psychological science conducted with real people, and share strategies for staying current with developments in inclusive language use.
Presenters: Karin Horler
Learn how TextExpander and similar autocorrection/text expansion tools can help you edit and proofread more efficiently, whether you’re working in Word, Acrobat, Google Docs, Overleaf, or any other application. This session will include live demonstration of many ways to use text expansion in the process of editing and proofreading. You can also use these tools to streamline your admin tasks and business correspondence. If you know autocorrection only as the source of silly errors, you’ll be surprised at what it can do!