I do developmental editing. That means I edit text for everything from meaning and connotation to rhetorical consistency to subject-verb agreement. Obviously (he wrote arrogantly) that requires judgment, and cannot be replaced by a machine. But what about copy editors (or as they are known in the UK, subeditors)? Copy editors check text for spelling…
I dedicate this horror story to all the copy editors I’ve ever worked with. I died on a grey Thursday morning in late October. On that day I awoke precisely at dawn, as I do every day. I took note that my lower back pain, a dull constant for the last few decades, was gone….
Benjamin Dreyer is a master copy editor. He wrote a book on correct English. You might find it amusing. Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style is currently at No. 12 on the Amazon bestseller list. That is absurd (and based on Dreyer’s comment’s on Twitter, he agrees with me). Here’s what…
Writing a book is hard enough. Adding another person makes it twice as hard. Collaboration only makes sense if it’s asymmetrical — if you have complementary skills and different jobs. I’ve written three books with coauthors, edited a few more, and am currently ghostwriting parts of books with other authors. Coauthoring sounds like it’s going…
The New York Times is trying to decrease the number of editors at the paper, including cutting the copy editing desk by about half. With the world awash in fake and dubious news, this is no time to cut back on the last line of defense on quality and factual accuracy. But more to the…