Every act of communication is an act of translation. Gregory Rabassa, translator of Spanish and Portuguese fiction The translation of public health information is critical in emergency situations, particularly in a country like Canada that welcomes thousands of immigrants every year whose mother tongue is not English or French. A …
Oh, for those pre-pandemic days when “zoom” was just another word. For me, it mostly conjured up the “zoom-zoom” of that catchy Mazda ad. Once in a while, it was a video platform I used for teaching webinars or meeting authors about book projects. Now it’s a fatigue. In the …
The editor’s letter — the first substantive communication you have with a client — is the most important task in any editorial project. It provides the opportunity to give your assessment, raise questions and establish a relationship. If this exchange is successful, the myriad other tasks should follow seamlessly. In …
If someone says, “How about some music,” and you say, “Sure — Beethoven’s Fifth?” do you think they’ll be happy if you just hand them a printed copy of the score? A musical score is intended to be performed, and you don’t have a performance without musicians, a conductor, and …
Is writing art? And if it is, what is editing? If we say writing is “artful,” or “artistic” or “an art,” we mean that we appreciate it aesthetically and admire it for the skill it evinces. But if we say not “writing is an art” but “writing is art” — …
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 …
The voting is in, and the American Dialect Society’s Slang Word of the Year is… yeet. Yeet is not so well known to oldsters, but it is in vogue among the youth. Its popularity demonstrates a central fact of how vocabulary spreads. It also leads us to Bugs Bunny, Clark …
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 …
As editors, we rely more than most on our communication skills. Whether we’re conversing with clients, sharing knowledge within the editing community or sculpting a client’s words to help them shine their brightest, our communication skills impact the success of our work and relationships. Nearly all the time, we use …
On Facebook recently, a colleague reported being the victim of a phone hijacking. You might recognize the feeling. A potential client calls to ask about editing services and then spends the better part of an hour telling her story with barely a breath between sentences, leaving you with no room …