Session descriptions are listed below in alphabetical order.
Presenter: Lauren Filippini
New to #SocialMedia or ready to expand your skills as a #CopyEditor on social? This session will explore best practices for writing and editing copy on various platforms, as well as dive into visuals, planning resources and accessibility to improve your reach and impact on your followers.
Presenters: Katya Jenson
Many of the world's 7,000 languages are underdocumented, imperiled and misunderstood – and all too often misrepresented in the news.
This session’s goal is to explore best practices in writing and editing content that concerns them, drawing on and evaluating linguistic resources that are accessible to the public. We’ll discuss thorny issues like language status and the political forces that shape it as well as language variants, elevating the discourse around both them and their speakers.
Presenter: Jennifer Yankopolus and Paul Beverley
Macros are free editing tools that run inside Word (PC and Mac) to help you be more productive and accurate. They are quick and easy to use once you know the basics. This session will introduce you to what macros are and how your work will benefit from using them. It will also demonstrate some of the most popular macros among editors and show you how to install them in Word. The session will be centered around Paul Beverley’s library of 1,000 macros—so no programming skills are needed, just a desire to learn and to speed up your work.
Presenter: Maya Berger
Business data is the freelancer’s secret weapon when it comes to making informed decisions. As a freelance editorial professional, you’re responsible for every aspect of your business, from the projects you take on to the rates you set, your continuing professional development (CPD), and the levels of editing you offer – and tracking your business data keeps you in control of it all.
In this session, I’ll show you how keeping records of your income, project details, business expenses, holidays, CPD, and marketing strategies can help you make smarter business decisions and meet your business goals.
Presenter: Alysha Love
Content marketing lives in the space between the worlds of editorial and marketing. And in the corporate world, it's all the rage.
What does good content marketing copy look like, and how can you edit to help it meet its goals? We'll go broad on the purpose of content marketing campaigns and forms they can take. Then we'll narrow in on best practices, including search engine optimization and calls to action, so you can walk away confident in your ability to edit a digital content marketing article.
Presenter: Emily Stewart
A multipotentialite is someone with diverse interests and creative pursuits. While freelance editors sometimes refer to editing as a specialization to justify our hours and rates, running a business requires a wide range of skills that makes many editors a suitable fit for the multipotentialite label.
This session explores how embracing multipotentiality can help editors build relationships and gain clients while also addressing the challenges of having and pursuing multiple interests.
Presenters: Michelle Waitzman
Stop scrambling to find projects to fill your schedule—work with long-term clients instead. Marketing your business and negotiating with new clients is time-consuming and stressful. It’s much easier to work with clients who already know you and value the work you do. Nurturing long-term client relationships will bring you steady work, make it easier to get enthusiastic referrals, and allow you to work more efficiently as you get to know your clients’ expectations, styles and quirks. Learn how in this practical session.
Presenters: Ellen Jovin
Ellen Jovin has dispensed language advice from her Grammar Table, a popup traveling grammar advice stand, on the streets of dozens of US cities. Her language conversations with passersby are the basis of her new book, Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian (HarperCollins, July 2022), and her presentation will feature lively language anecdotes showcasing the healing, hilarious, unifying power of words. Please also expect small quizzes, but Ellen has promised there will be no grades and no detention!
Presenters: Brad Scriber
Countless situations require editors to tweak a word or two in order to convey a sense of size, or number without using an actual figure. Whether you don't know the exact number in question or just want to avoid including it, hedge words are essential editing tools.
During this session we'll explore a sampling of words and phrases that will help you be just as vague as you need to be and explore a few ways to deploy imprecision in an exacting way. A handful of the things that we'll discuss are in this very description.
Presenters: Eve Weston
The arrival and adoption of virtual reality and other immersive technology (XR) is presenting new experiences across verticals. Whatever you write about—entertainment, medicine, cooking, travel—you will soon have cause to write about XR. However, while we have long had language to discuss and analyze books and movies, the simple designations of first, second, and third-person don't cover all the options and combinations presented by immersive experiences.
This talk will introduce vocabulary and present resources that specifically address what is possible in virtual reality and which will facilitate better and clearer discussion, analysis, and communication about immersive experiences.
Presenters: Heather Pendley
Have you ever wondered about indexes? What type of material could benefit from an index, how are they created, and who should attempt them? What’s the difference between a computer-generated and human-generated index? Do editors have a leg up in this field? What about training, equipment, and income?
Since it is important in the publishing field to understand the steps involved in developing indexes, see how (and why) it's done. We’ll discusses both back-of-the-book and embedded/hyperlinked indexes and includes examples of some of the tools used in creating them, such as Word, InDesign, and dedicated indexing software programs.
Presenters: Laura Cameron
Government writers are notorious for producing gobbledygook, that mind-numbingly bland or convoluted prose that only the keeper of state library archives could love. Of course, these authors need editors to iron out the knots in their tangled text. But editorial gigs in Communications Offices at federal, state and local governments can be surprisingly diverse. You might also work with infographics and Tableau, brainstorm catchy titles for new programs, revise travel guides or produce ad hoc videos. This session introduces editors to the breadth of Technicolor possibilities behind the gray doors of government.
Presenters: Alysha Love
Whether you want to shake up your career, communicate better with colleagues or just clean your perpetually messy desk, we've all got changes we want to make that can accelerate our growth. To make sure those ambitions don't go the way of your New Year's resolutions (do you even remember yours?!), take a page from the executive coaching handbook.
You'll learn how to set smarter goals and improve your follow-through by drawing on techniques rooted in cognitive coaching, positive psychology and motivational interviewing. Leave the session with the keys to setting clear goals and working toward them.
Presenters: Jen Anderson
We live in a "buy buy buy" world where we're surrounded by constant advertisements making empty promises and massive claims. As writers and editors, it can be difficult to sift through the market jargon to present realistic reviews to readers. After all, it's about approachability and not sales numbers, right? This session will explore ways to cut through marketing language, describe products effectively, and maintain journalistic integrity — all without losing the magic of product content.