Tag: editing

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: The Risks of Reading

May 21, 2019 by Wilf Popoff | 3 Comments on Wasted Words: The Risks of Reading

Because I was a confirmed reading addict when television appeared, it failed to dislodge my teenage obsession. Like Groucho Marx I found the idiot box “very educating”:­ “Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” It’s been a relentless dependency. I still find it difficult to […]

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Marianne Grier

Editing: An Essentialist Craft?

April 30, 2019 by Marianne Grier | 2 Comments on Editing: An Essentialist Craft?

The new “essentialism” is having a moment. While many of us have been trying to cram in more — to fill every unfilled moment so that we’re more productive — some are starting to scale things back. To amble through life more slowly, focus on what’s important, take time to breathe. The new year brought […]

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Christina Vasilevski

Usability Testing From an Editor’s Perspective

April 23, 2019 by Christina Vasilevski | Leave a Comment

This post is part of a new series of case studies by and for in-house editors. The focus of this series is on the personal experiences and various roles of in-house editors. A post will appear on the Editors’ Weekly every other month. If you’re interested in writing a post for this series, please email the Member Services Committee.  […]

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Anita Jenkins

Getting Paid a Living Wage: The Editor’s Constant Challenge

April 16, 2019 by Anita Jenkins | 3 Comments on Getting Paid a Living Wage: The Editor’s Constant Challenge

I have been retired, or semi-retired, for almost a decade now. My career as a freelance writer and editor has gradually given way to new and different pursuits. But recently, a couple of projects for pay showed up in my inbox, and I succumbed. One was related to local history, a lifelong passion of mine. […]

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Katharine O'Moore-Klopf

Editorial Self-Care: Managing Life Changes

April 2, 2019 by Katharine O'Moore-Klopf | 10 Comments on Editorial Self-Care: Managing Life Changes

As editors, we tend to comfort ourselves by thinking that we have everything under control, because what is editing? It’s controlling the words. But control is an illusion. Style guides change. Our lives change. Life changes greatly affect the quality of our editing and our lives. What life changes might you expect? Your financial situation […]

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Kate Johnson

No Perfection Unless You’re a Sunset

March 26, 2019 by Kate Johnson | 7 Comments on No Perfection Unless You’re a Sunset

Those who read are an exacting bunch. We grew up with professionally proofread books, back when publishers could still afford to pay someone to make sure no spelling mistake got by, no errant comma, sneaky typo, sloppy grammar or lazy punctuation. We had high expectations of our reading material. Now we tend to notice when […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: The Torments of Editing

March 19, 2019 by Wilf Popoff | 3 Comments on Wasted Words: The Torments of Editing

When I began writing this article I knew, like most of you, that editing is an unhealthy occupation. It’s so fraught with hazards it’s a wonder anyone will sell us health or life insurance. We sit long hours, our work is mentally taxing, we stare at monitors, our physical effort amounts to repetitive flexing of […]

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John Cords

Reflections of a Managing Editor

March 12, 2019 by John Cords | 10 Comments on Reflections of a Managing Editor

When I started my current job managing a team of editors, I panicked. I had no idea what a manager did. Seven years on, I’ve learned a few things. Some days I feel like I’m still stumbling along, but I’d like to share some tips I’ve picked up along the way. Personality When I took […]

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Nancy Flight

40 Years: An Editor’s Perspective

March 5, 2019 by Nancy Flight | 3 Comments on 40 Years: An Editor’s Perspective

Forty-six years ago, when I embarked on my editing career, my first assignment was to edit a 500-page novel, which the publisher plunked onto my desk along with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style and a dictionary. “Here, edit this,” he said. That was my instruction in its entirety. There were no courses […]

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Frances Peck

Freedom to Read, Willingness to Edit

February 26, 2019 by Frances Peck | 13 Comments on Freedom to Read, Willingness to Edit

Good stories, for me, have never been treacly. My father, an RCMP officer, put people in jail; my mother, a halfway house director, put them back into society. My childhood was one of sensational publications and limited adult supervision. By age 11 I’d read Jaws, Helter Skelter and The Eden Express, a memoir of schizophrenia. […]

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Brendan O’Brien

My Network

February 12, 2019 by Brendan O'Brien | Leave a Comment

I went freelance at the start of 1993, working from my house in Dublin. I didn’t have a computer till midway through that year — work arrived at first by courier or in the mail, on paper. I had some reference books and, if I was lucky, a publisher’s style guide to consult. For many […]

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Anna Williams

Quick Topics: Born or Made

February 5, 2019 by Anna Williams | 23 Comments on Quick Topics: Born or Made

Many of us started out in other careers and came to editing via circuitous routes. Some of us were teachers; some were engineers; some were writers who drifted into the editing side of the industry. In some cases, we had jobs that required us to fix other people’s work on a regular basis, and that’s […]

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Tilman Lewis

Professional Editorial Standards: What Does an Editor Do Today?

January 29, 2019 by Tilman Lewis | Leave a Comment

Editors Canada’s Professional Editorial Standards (PES) describe the responsibilities of an editor. The scope of PES is broad; this series explores how the standards apply to a variety of editing contexts. I’ve always found the granularity of PES daunting; I’m more inclined to “find the voice and let it sing.” But comparing the 2016 revision […]

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Virginia Durksen

Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

November 27, 2018 by Virginia Durksen | 3 Comments on Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

Part 3: Suzanne Steele, Librettist and Multimedia Artist In 2012, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and One Yellow Rabbit theatre company commissioned Suzanne Steele to write the libretto for Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation. Suzanne’s work with composer Jeffrey Ryan is one example of the collaboration she has pursued in her career, between artists and across […]

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General EAC Standards Communication Task Force

Standards at Work: Technical Editing

November 20, 2018 by Shelley Egan, Standards Communication Task Force | Leave a Comment

Editors Canada’s Professional Editorial Standards (PES) describe the responsibilities of an editor. The scope of PES is broad; this series explores how the standards apply to a variety of editing contexts. Ellen Lupu has been a technical editor for 12 years. Her current project involves writing and editing training material for an oil and gas […]

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Brendan O’Brien

Winning in the Freelance Game

November 13, 2018 by Brendan O'Brien | 6 Comments on Winning in the Freelance Game

Being a freelancer is hard. When clients don’t have work for you, you cease to exist for them even though your livelihood depends on them or on people like them. You need to be a team player, but often you will be dropped from the team abruptly when a project ends. This demands resilience. Here […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Working With Authors

November 6, 2018 by Rosemary Shipton | 8 Comments on Working With Authors

Editors make decisions all the time as they edit, but the most important judgment call of all is how to work best with each individual author. No one-size-fits-all solution will do. Most commonly, editors make their corrections with track changes, write questions and comments for the author in the margins, and describe their overall approach […]

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Lindsay Vermeulen

One Step at a Time: Journey to a Dream Job

October 23, 2018 by Lindsay Vermeulen | 10 Comments on One Step at a Time: Journey to a Dream Job

I was shepherded to my first Editors BC meeting by the editing instructor from my publishing diploma, who suggested I join Editors Canada. Maybe “suggested” isn’t the right word — when she heard I hadn’t joined yet, she had the college pay my student affiliate fee, told me which meeting we were attending and went […]

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Marianne Grier

Pink, Blue and the Singular “They”

October 16, 2018 by Marianne Grier | 14 Comments on Pink, Blue and the Singular “They”

I was a late adopter of the singular “they,” once thinking its usage was down to laziness or ignorance. I’ve recently changed my tune. The singular “they” helps streamline sentences, is considerate of those who don’t identify with a gender, and can help avoid the gender-charged language that can be our default. This last strength […]

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Trish Morgan

Lifelong Learning for Mentors and Mentees

August 28, 2018 by Trish Morgan | 6 Comments on Lifelong Learning for Mentors and Mentees

Editors Canada launched the John Eerkes-Medrano Mentorship Program in the spring of 2017. For information about how you can become a mentor or a mentee, click here. Let’s begin with three playful suppositions. First, the best kinds of editing involve learning. Second, the best editors have learned from mentors. Third, the best mentors keep on learning. […]

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Brendan O’Brien

Is It All About the Author?

August 21, 2018 by Brendan O'Brien | 23 Comments on Is It All About the Author?

The prevailing orthodoxy in online editors’ groups, I have noticed, is one of huge respect for, and empathy with, the author. The author is king/queen. We, as editors, primarily serve the author’s vision, the author’s voice. However, in my own work (both in-house and freelance, primarily as a copyeditor of non-fiction), the emphasis has generally […]

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Heidi Waechtler

On Community and Citizenship: How the Claudette Upton Scholarship Helped Bring My Career Into Focus

August 7, 2018 by Heidi Waechtler | 4 Comments on On Community and Citizenship: How the Claudette Upton Scholarship Helped Bring My Career Into Focus

I received the Claudette Upton Scholarship* in 2012 at a critical point in my career path: I was nearing the completion of my Master of Publishing coursework at Simon Fraser University and preparing to move from Vancouver to Toronto to take on a summer editorial internship at McClelland & Stewart. Looking back, six years later, […]

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Anita Jenkins

Conferences Are for Everyone

July 10, 2018 by Anita Jenkins | 5 Comments on Conferences Are for Everyone

I had a lot of reasons not to attend the Editors Canada 2018 conference, held in Saskatoon on May 25-27. I was struggling with low energy and caregiving duties (spouse). Also, I have been retired — or at least semi-retired — for a decade. But since Saskatoon is so close to my home in Edmonton […]

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Anna Williams

PerfectIt for Mac

June 26, 2018 by Anna Williams | 6 Comments on PerfectIt for Mac

As a Mac user, I’ve often read Twitter and Facebook feeds enviously where other editors enthused about Intelligent Editing’s proofreading software, PerfectIt. Adrienne Montgomerie’s review of PerfectIt 3 in 2015 particularly made me drool. Well, my drooling days are over! Intelligent Editing has just released PerfectIt Cloud, the first version of PerfectIt available for Mac […]

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