ACES: The Society for Editing is delighted to bring an exciting program of 36 sessions to ACES VCON24 this September. These sessions will be led by expert presenters who will share their experience, their skills, and themselves as they teach and coach in a variety of subject areas relevant to editors.
The session lineup and details are subject to change.
In order to help you plan your conference, each session is categorized into one of four topic areas:
Each category is also tracked into one of three audience levels: introductory, intermediate, and advanced.
Click on a track below to see the sessions in that subject area.
Reading Beyond the Editorial Canon to Improve Your Editing
with Cynthia Williams
New and seasoned editors are familiar with books such as The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, and The Copyeditor’s Handbook, all considered part of the “editorial canon.” Joining these books are popular recent volumes, such as Dreyer’s English, Between You & Me, and The Subversive Copy Editor. But editing-adjacent books can reveal new and exciting lenses through which to approach our work as editors. This session will outline how books like The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, Craft in the Real World, and Elements of Indigenous Style — along with publications like the Journal of Second Language Writing and research on how we read — can transform an editor’s approach and enhance their understanding of the author-editor relationship.
Editing Tools: Where to Start?
with Hilary Cadman
Editing tools can be useful, helping you to work faster and more effectively. But they cost money to buy and then require an investment of your time in learning to use them properly. If you're a new editor, it can be difficult to know where to start. This presentation covers four tools: PerfectIt, PhraseExpress, Editor’s Toolkit Plus and ProWritingAid (all of which work with both PC and Mac). In each case, Hilary will explain what the tool does, how you might use it in your workflow, and the pros and cons of using it. By the end of the session, participants will have a good idea of which tools would be of most use in their work.
Fact-Checking Live!
With Gerri Berendzen
Fact-checking can be as easy as finding the right website … or sometimes it can lead you down the rabbit hole. This session will offer a list of websites that can help in your fact-checking work and tips to improve your fact-checking skills and efficiency. And you’ll get the opportunity to propose fact-checks we can do together online as part of the session. Working together and getting the opportunity to go through a live fact-check will help polish your verification skills. There's something here for editors who are new to fact-checking and for those who've do it know but want to hone their skills.
Authenticity vs. Sensitivity
with Phoenix Raig
The mentality around sensitivity reading is due for a much-needed shift. To avoid a slippery slope into censorship and the siloing of authors into restrictive categories, authenticity reading is sure to play a big role as we move forward into the future of editing. This discussion will take a hard look at authenticity reading and how it can be used to empower rather than silence. We'll break down the mentality shift from sensitivity reading to authenticity reading, look at examples where authors felt their voice was taken away and discuss alternative solutions, and break down the difference between outsourcing responsibility and simply asking our authors the hard questions. We'll also discuss being an authenticity reader as someone who doesn't belong to a minority group, what this looks like, and why it's important, allowing attendees to begin considering their own reading areas.
Navigating Fair Use in Educational Publishing Without a Law Degree
with Amanda Vernon
This session will equip editors to assess the use of copyrighted materials in educational content and communicate copyright best practices to their clients. The knowledge and practical skills introduced will help ensure educational materials are timely and relevant for students and respectful of intellectual property rights while also minimizing the liability for educational publishing institutions. These resources and strategies do not replace legal counsel in copyright law but provide a fair use and copyright tool kit for editors to aid them in supporting their clients in the development of meaningful educational experiences for students.
Partner or AI Plagiarism Bot?
with Vee White and Caitlin O'Brien
While generative AI tools pose exciting possibilities for streamlining editorial work, they can also facilitate plagiarizing or infringing others’ content without users’ knowledge or creators’ consent. This fact is only underscored by insufficient training on the complexity of plagiarism and copyright in general among editors and writers. So how do we walk the narrow tightrope between AI’s promise and its pitfalls? We’ll briefly recap myths and misconceptions about plagiarism and copyright, and focus on those concerns specific to AI, recent developments affecting this conversation, and best practices for ethically and respectfully using these tools.
Substantive Editing in Six Steps
with Emily Primeaux
Substantive editing involves deep analysis of material to ensure content is engaging, well-structured, and easy to understand. The aim is to improve clarity, coherence, and effectiveness by addressing organization, flow, tone, and voice. However, tackling a substantive edit can be challenging and daunting as it requires a heavier hand and a keen eye to deeply transform text beyond basic corrections. In this session, we will break down the process into manageable parts, providing editors with a systematic approach to transform any piece of writing. You will learn specific techniques to dissect complex content, restructure narratives, and fine-tune voice to better resonate with the intended audience. Each step will be illustrated with real-world examples, demonstrating how these techniques are applied across different contexts. We will explore the role of a substantive editor in collaborating effectively with authors and other stakeholders, ensuring the integrity of the original message while enhancing readability and engagement. This session is ideal for editors looking to refine their craft, take on more complex editing projects, and deliver high-quality content that stands out.
Saving Research Writing from Itself
with Katie Van Heest
Scholarly manuscripts and research-based nonfiction don’t have to be dry. With real-world examples, humanities editor and publishing professor Katie Van Heest exposes stultifying language patterns and shares efficient line-level solutions for editors looking to expand their stylistic skills. This session lays out hallmarks of self-sabotaging prose and suggests fixes for academic and other learned nonfiction. In the aggregate, certain common writing quirks can drain the life out of an argument: overused (and meaningless) words and phrases, clunky transitions, empty intensifiers, flat topic sentences, patchworked quotations, anxious qualifiers, and contrived claims. Faced with weaknesses like these, which can be subtle, nonfiction editors can experiment with tense, paraphrase strategically, and remove the layers of distance that authors unintentionally build into their sentences. Lively prose demands more than formal correctness, but editors shouldn’t be daunted. Attendees will learn straightforward maneuvers to complement their services in copyediting and structural editing. Current stylistic editors will improve their eye for textual deadwood and sharpen their methods of intervention.
Editing the Technical Report
with Tara Moeller
What makes copy editing the technical report different from other types of editing? While the basics of editing are the same (grammar, syntax, etc.) the approach can be very different. A technical report is not meant to entertain, but to provide instant information to someone who needs to make a decision. As an editor of technical documentation for the Department of Defense for over 25 years, I have found that there are a few guidelines that make editing technical documentation easier: understanding the difference between academic and technical writing, the needs of the very specific audience the report is for, and the requirement for absolute clarity.
Excel for Life: Business and Editing
with Matthew Krecic
2+2=4. But what about =SUM('Tracking'!L18,'Care Tracking'!P17,'Pet Care Tracking'!P23)? Combining math with a spreadsheet — whereby a spreadsheet that has many complicated (overwhelmingly so!) cells with formulas, such that changing one value can seemingly upend all calculations and our hard work — can induce a feeling of panic. However, this does not have to be. In this session, how to successfully use Excel spreadsheets for life, in both aspects of our professional lives — business (think administrative tasks) and editing (think handling, analyzing, and fact-checking/confirming) — will be demonstrated. If the concepts/techniques demonstrated here do not entirely eliminate panic, they will at least lessen it.
How to Fix an Article with a Broken Structure
with Kathryn Jepsen
Sometimes an article draft is full of lovely sentences, but it still just doesn’t seem to work. The problem with such a draft may stem from its structure. No amount of wordsmithing can fix an article jammed into a shape that doesn’t support the story it’s trying to tell. It may be that the article has been squeezed or stretched into the wrong type of structure. If an article comes out long after the event it’s describing, for example, it generally should not be written as if it were breaking news. Or it may be that the article is trying to fit into multiple structures at once. An article that begins as a feature may discover its true identity as an explainer halfway through. In this talk, learn to recognize and repair a story with a broken structure. Learn about the differences between the news story, the explainer, the feature, and the profile. Find out how to set structural expectations by providing clues at the beginning of a story, and find out how to fulfill those expectations by ensuring an article includes the dimensions its structure requires. This class is primarily for those who assign and/or edit news and feature writing.
Clear Communication with Microsoft Word's Track Changes
with Erin Maher
Microsoft Word's Track Changes is a powerful but idiosyncratic tool. When you learn to use it with more intentionality and understand the nuances of its logic and behavior, you can communicate more effectively with clients and make it easier for them to work through your edits. In this session, you'll hear about an approach to Track Changes that treats it as an active collaborator rather than a background process, considering both the tool's particularities and the needs of the client. You'll get specific tips for producing more legible and helpful markup while working around some of the quirks and limitations, including managing the differences between inserting and moving text, avoiding excessive formatting markup, and making "silent" changes where appropriate.
Maximize Your Productivity with Macros: Insights from the 2024 Global Editors Survey
with Jennifer Yankopolus and Paul Beverley
Which macros should I use? That is a common question editors have about the 1,200+ macros in Paul Beverley's free Word Macro Tools library. In our 2024 macro survey, we asked editors from various fields and experience levels about their favorites. Join us as we reveal the top 10 most popular macros — which help you fact-check, copyedit, check for consistency, and apply global style and usage conventions — and demonstrate how they work. Whether you're a macro novice looking to boost your productivity or a seasoned pro seeking to enhance your workflow, this session has something for you. We'll explore real-world examples, best practices, and practical demonstrations that will empower you to harness the full potential of macros in your editing work. Paul will also be on hand to answer your questions. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from the collective wisdom of your peers and take your editing skills to the next level.
Math? Precisely
with Neil Holdway
In this update of my longtime math webinar, I focus on the importance of the precision of numbers, or that of the precision of the words surrounding numbers, or even the pitfalls of the precision of numbers. We'll cover percentages, of course (because portions or rises or falls are so commonly reported), but also how to pay attention to the precise use of numbers in such things as interpretation of laws or even tax code, to say nothing of metric conversion. We won't be doing complex formulas, but we might nerd out just a little. That includes drawing on a few neat lessons from the old math books collected by the late ACES leader, editing mentor, and math enthusiast Henry Fuhrmann.
Equity and Inclusion in Data Editing
with Jenny Lass and Anvita Desai
This session will review the basics of equity and inclusion, as well as the types of data that tend not to meet equity and inclusion standards. The presentation will provide tips on how to edit reports with these data in a way that creates an inclusive space for all readers, while staying true to how the data were collected. This presentation is perfect for editors who work with materials that include data on age, gender, health, socioeconomics, and race.
Let's Talk About Sex: On Editing Sex Scenes
with Molly Rookwood and Brenna Bailey-Davies
Sex scenes occur most often in romance and erotica, but as editors, we might encounter sex scenes in all sorts of books. It's essential, therefore, that we can edit sex scenes as well as we edit anything else. In this presentation, we will discuss the purpose and effect of sex scenes, how to help writers use their sex scenes to develop characters and relationships, how to handle sensitive language and wording regarding anatomy, and how to emphasize consent and safety so that the editor, the writer, and readers all feel comfortable and safe within the scene. This presentation will help you gain the confidence to talk to writers about sex in a professional and sensitive manner, since such an important topic deserves nothing less.
Abbreviations: Navigating the Maze
with Yateendra Joshi
In my short article titled "Abbreviation frustration", published in the September 2020 issue of Tracking Changes, I touched on only one, and trivial, aspect of handling abbreviations, namely whether it is acceptable to put the abbreviation first and follow it with its explanation, or fully spelled-out version, within parentheses. However, abbreviations attract so many points of style that they can be a minefield for copyeditors:
And the list goes on. The session suggests how to deal with these points, shows what different style guides recommend, and hopes to encourage discussion when definitive recommendations are not on offer.
Transforming Organizational Culture: A Case Study of Plain Language in Local Government
with Kristen Clark
The Denver Auditor’s Office takes pride in producing high-quality audit reports. But making those reports clear, compelling, and user-friendly for all intended audiences has been a journey of transformation over the past six years. Hear from senior communication specialist and editor Kristen Clark as she shares the obstacles the Denver Auditor’s Office faced in adopting a plain-language mindset in writing and editing its communications and how the office overcame those challenges to set a gold standard for the local government auditing profession.
Authentic Partnerships: How Editors Can Partner With Authenticity Readers
with Brittany Yost
Creating inclusive and diverse content remains a pivotal goal within the publishing industry, utilizing authenticity or sensitivity readers among the various strategies. Despite the increasing prominence of authenticity reading, many editors encounter challenges in optimizing their collaborations with these readers. This session aims to explore optimal practices for editors when engaging with authenticity and sensitivity readers, emphasizing how feedback can enhance the developmental editing process.
Leveraging LinkedIn to Build Your Personal Brand
with Anna Kendall and Emily Redington
Personal branding is important for all editors (whether they work for an organization or as freelancers), and LinkedIn is an important tool for building a personal brand. To fully benefit from this social channel, it’s important to understand the LinkedIn algorithm and how to attract recruiters and potential clients, as well as best practices for connecting with other professionals and posting relevant content, which help increase visibility.These aspects of LinkedIn will be discussed in the session, including the latest LinkedIn algorithm changes. Editor, writer, and coach Anna Kendall will share her research and experience using the platform to build her personal brand. She will be joined by recruiter, coach, and LinkedIn power user Emily Redington, who will share insights and tips from her many years working as a recruiter and using the LinkedIn Recruiter platform. Session attendees will learn about the following:
Exploring a Career in Standardized Tests: The Editor’s Role in Developing High-Quality Test Questions
with Cindy Wheeler, Rivka Revivo, and Sachi Phillips
Most people have taken standardized tests for school or to qualify for a job. However, few people know how carefully crafted these questions must be. These responsibilities fall in large part on assessment editors, who provide valuable input in contexts such as K–12 standardized testing, professional licensure and certification exams, and employment assessments. An assessment editor is critical to the development of questions for standardized tests because there are many ways a question can be flawed. While ambiguous wording, lack of clarity or conciseness, biased language, or lack of adherence to style guides apply to editing in general, these flaws that ordinarily diminish writing quality can actually jeopardize the validity of a standardized test. If a question is worded ambiguously, then the examinee must interpret it before selecting a response. This weakens the question as an instrument of measure because if different examinees interpret the question differently, they are essentially answering different questions, thus weakening the validity of the assessment results. This panel will target the following learning outcomes:
Creating an Annual Report for Your Editing Business
with James Gallagher
An annual report for your editing business can increase your sense of accomplishment, improve your business mindset, and enable better strategic planning. In this presentation I will lay out the main categories for the report and show how it can be used to capture every aspect of your business. Editors wear many hats and often work alone, so we have to maintain good processes and use all the tools at our disposal to make our businesses thrive. An annual report ties directly into the important mindset of thinking of your business as a business. This report can give you high-level and up-close views of your business, capturing such information as your yearly overview, goals for the coming year, major accomplishments, income, clients, time allocation, training, conferences attended, equipment, tools, subscriptions, marketing, and social media. Creating an annual report can be a tremendous help in mapping all these areas, assessing strengths and weaknesses, and creating a history for the future you. Appropriate for both solo business owners and for those running editing agencies, the annual report can be an important — and fun — new part of your business.
Personal Branding for Neurodivergent Editors
with Shannon Scott
Modern business and personal branding are two aspects of being a freelancer that seem insurmountable. It requires two things that neurodivergent folx often fear most: vulnerability and fearless confidence. There is no one Right Way to create a personal brand. But there are tested methods that can smooth that path for all freelance editors, no matter where you fall on the neurodivergent spectrum.
In this session, my fellow neurodivergent editors will get a glimpse into how to make the branding process work for you. You'll come out of the session with a few tools and references that will get you started on your inner journey to outwardly expressing your unique personal brand.
And of course, neurotypical editors will learn how they can support their fellow neurodivergent editors in their branding journeys.
Using Contracts to Clarify Expectations, Get Paid, and Protect Yourself
with Suzy Bills
Contracts are an important part of a freelance business because they lay out the plan for how and when you’ll get paid and help ensure that you and your clients are on the same page. Contracts also give you protection if something goes awry with a client. This session will cover the reasons to use a contract, the elements you should include in a contract, and what to do if clients don’t fulfill their contractual responsibilities.
Build Your Freelance Editing Website: Finding Inspiration from Fellow Editors
with Erin Brenner
Your business website should represent your unique editing business. Whatever you put on your website, though, you know you're going to create some standard pages: the home, about, services, and contact pages. But what should you put on those pages? In this session, we'll look at a lot of examples and chat about what makes them stand out. We'll discuss decisions like whether to put testimonials on one web page or sprinkle them throughout your website. And we'll ask that trickiest of questions: Should you put your prices on your website? You'll leave this session with a lot of ideas of how to approach your own website.
Disclosure and Beyond: Developing Responsible AI Content Policies
with Amy Frushour Kelly
As generative AI tools grow more mainstream, editors face new practical and ethical challenges. This session will focus on developing effective AI content policies from a few basic policy elements to full statements of practice that can be modified to share with clients, include in contracts, or serve as internal guidelines. Attendees will learn the foundations of clear, comprehensible disclosures and citations that acknowledge the role of artificial intelligence in the creative process and ensure proper attribution. We will cover best practices for responsible AI usage, prioritization of transparency, protection of intellectual property, and preserving data security. The AI content policy is not a boilerplate document. Because it is both a clear statement of usage and practices and an action plan to prevent or mitigate the risks inherent in AI tool use, a policy is most effective when written to fit the specific needs of the individual editor or organization. We will cover the range of affected and involved parties and advisors whose input may be required at different sizes and types of organizations. By the end of the session, editors will have the tools and knowledge necessary to design functional AI content policies that promote responsible usage, preserve editorial integrity, and maintain reader trust.
Systems & Shortcuts: Supercharge Your Efficiency
With Lori Paximadis
Running a freelance business involves more than simply doing what your clients hire you to do. You must also nurture your client relationships, find new clients, manage your overall workflow and individual projects, keep on top of your invoices and finances, and so much more — all without letting anything fall through the cracks. This session will explore how to use systems to save time, increase productivity, bring flow to your business, and ultimately make more money.
10 Ideas to Enliven Your Established Freelance Business
with Natalie Silver
This presentation will explore how to grow your established freelance editorial services business. I include ideas for you to explore if you are feeling burned out, complacent, or nervous about AI or the shifting freelance market. Personally, I experienced a lull in enthusiasm for my editorial business in fall 2023 after a decade as a successful freelancer. I wasn’t sure what my next steps were, but I engaged in a months-long path to figure out how I wanted to move forward. To begin, I will explore professional languishing and resetting your business strategy. The rest of the presentation will focus on remaining in freelancing. I will outline 10 ideas that worked for me as I tried to reshape a decade-old business to suit my current needs. As I implemented these ideas over several months, I was better able to clarify my “why” as well as new goals for my business. Since January 2024, my revenue is up, I am offering new services and I am much better at explaining what I do professionally to the wider world. I have new enthusiasm for freelancing, and I look forward to sharing what I learned and applied to my business.
Finding and Creating Editorial Community
with Eliot West and Laura Burge
Editorial communities can be amazing! From national organizations to tiny accountability groups, they're vital sources of informational, social, and emotional support in our often-isolating work. Yet finding good-fit editorial community can be daunting. This session will offer tools for locating existing communities, strategies for creating the spaces and events of our dreams, and perspectives on accessibility, inclusivity, what active participation in a community can look like, and how we can connect in real, mutual ways with colleagues near and far. Our aim is to broaden attendees' sense of the possibilities and increase everybody's confidence so you can go out and build wonderful connections for yourself and for all of us!
The Art of Manuscript Evaluations: A Game Changer for Your Business
with Nadia Pupa
There’s an art to drafting, managing, and providing in-depth manuscript evaluations for authors. Most editors who have included this service adjacent to copyediting, have never turned back. It quickly becomes a game changer for any editor’s business — especially if they work primarily with authors. In this session, Nadia will share the best methods for identifying the strengths and weaknesses in a writer’s work, and how to provide suggestions for the author to improve their writing. She will share real examples of how to make an impact by creating an annotated manuscript and how to draft an in-depth report that isn’t overwhelming for the author. In doing so, attendees will learn how to identify plot holes, major gaps in information, and other general writing flaws for fiction and nonfiction works. The session concludes with how to conduct a debrief with the author once they’ve read the report. The value of providing manuscript evaluations is so high that editors have built trust and formed strong professional relationships with authors. It’s a win-win scenario that keeps writers happy, attracts more clients, and adds ease to the copyediting process.
Moving Into Management
with Lee Davidson
For many editors at organizations, advancing in one's career means taking on a management role. These roles may involve management of processes, management of content, and/or management of people. Since many editors are not trained in management, this session aims to provide some expectations for, and lessons learned from, the managerial transition. We will explore three key areas: streamlining processes, adopting a strategic lens, and leading people. Based on my experiences in co-creating a new content platform, inheriting two long-time contract editors, hiring a support associate, and guiding the strategic direction of my organization's thought leadership, I will discuss the many bumps along my journey and ways I've learned to smooth the path.
Navigating Ethical Storytelling
Heather Lang, Jess Jelsma Masterton, and Monica Prince
As editors, we inevitably encounter sensitive subject matter. How do we offer feedback on difficult topics both within and outside our personal lived experiences? In this panel, we will discuss different approaches to editing historic and contemporary manuscripts, with a focus on respecting each author’s original intentions and fostering a sense of empowerment. We’ll examine four separate case studies, including the digitization of one of the first Native American novels, then offer a set of concrete best practices for navigating ethical storytelling.
Editing Disabled Characters and Stories
with Ashley Nyaley, Lauren Appelbaum, and Lawon Exum
More than 60 million people live with some form of physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, or other disability in America, but they are often excluded and underrepresented in media. Furthermore, even though disability affects people from all backgrounds, there often is a lack of intersectional representation. Learn from disabled communications experts and editors on how to ensure your overall storytelling is inclusive of disabled people. We will offer a practical guide to common issues you may encounter, including tropes, motifs, and stereotypes; evolving language; sensitivity reads; ableism; and the intersectionality of disabled and other marginalized communities.
The Academic Editor’s Toolkit: Essential Skills & Techniques
with Cara Jordan, Leslie Castro-Woodhouse, Maria Snyder, and Tess Rankin
This panel will address the essential skills and techniques needed to be an academic editor, with an emphasis on copyediting, line editing, and developmental editing. The panelists are all experts in this niche with years of experience and certificates; each will describe their own pathway to becoming an academic editor, discuss the training and temperament necessary for their respective specialties, and provide tips and tricks to navigating the editing process. The panel is intended not only for established academic editors as a means of sharing resources but also for those seeking to enter this field who would like to both network and learn from seasoned professionals. All of the panelists are contributing authors to The Art of Academic Editing: A Guide for Authors and Editors.
Editing for the Culture
with CaTyra Polland, Erica James, Jazmine Jules, and Monique Franz
Panelists will share their experiences as Black editors, how they maintain the voice of Black authors and writers, and why it's important to edit for the culture instead of solely focusing on editing for "standard English" purposes.