THE EDITORS' WEEKLY

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James Harbeck

A Whole Nother Thing

May 17, 2016 by James Harbeck | 1 Comment on A Whole Nother Thing

As editors, we pay attention to the written form of our language. Its relation to the spoken form is a whole other thing. The spelling is odd, we know. But even our hyphenation doesn’t really break according to pronunciation. Consider the word breaking. Where do you hyphenate it? Break-ing. But where does the syllable break […]

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Melva McLean

Film Adaptation Is Just Another Kind of Editing

May 10, 2016 by Melva McLean | 4 Comments on Film Adaptation Is Just Another Kind of Editing

Several years ago, I was a reader for a couple of book publishers, and I had the opportunity to read a collection of short stories by the late Emily Givner. Joan Givner, Emily’s mom and a writer of note on her own, wanted to publish Emily’s stories posthumously and shopped the collection around. I was […]

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Katharine O'Moore-Klopf

How to Become a Medical Editor

May 3, 2016 by Katharine O'Moore-Klopf | 17 Comments on How to Become a Medical Editor

As a medical editor, I think I have the best job in the world. While I’m getting paid to edit medical manuscripts, I get to keep up with the latest research findings and treatment practices. There is a lot of this kind of work if you know where to look. Although there is no single […]

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Dominique Fortier

Adresser

April 26, 2016 by Dominique Fortier | Leave a Comment

Le verbe adresser, en français, signifie « envoyer » (on adresse une lettre à quelqu’un) ou « émettre des paroles » (on adresse des critiques, des compliments, la parole à quelqu’un). Adresser signifie aussi « diriger quelqu’un vers la personne qui convient » (on adresse un malade à un spécialiste). L’expression pronominale s’adresser à quelqu’un signifie, pour sa part, « parler à […]

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Paul Cipywnyk

Basic Tools for Productive Editing

April 19, 2016 by Paul Cipywnyk | 1 Comment on Basic Tools for Productive Editing

Your computer set-up can determine whether you have a smooth editing experience or suffer headache after IT-related headache, so let’s look at some of the tools that help editors succeed. Hardware Buy a computer with lots of memory (RAM), a minimum of 8 GB and preferably 16 GB. Having lots of memory enables you to keep many […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: Quarrelling With Pronouns

April 12, 2016 by Wilf Popoff | 8 Comments on Wasted Words: Quarrelling With Pronouns

Around the time the Great Flood started to recede I was taught to write, “Everyone must remove his shoes.” Funny how boys aren’t bothered by such preferential usage of male gender pronouns. Back then feminism was a feature of the French Revolution and the current usage of politically correct had yet to surface. Mostly the […]

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Greg Ioannou

Crowdfunding for Writers and Editors

April 5, 2016 by Greg Ioannou | 6 Comments on Crowdfunding for Writers and Editors

In 2011, I switched Iguana Books from a quasi-traditional publishing model to a hybrid model: the author (or someone who wasn’t me) paid the costs of publication, and we put out professional-quality books that were distributed worldwide as e-books and print-on-demand paperbacks. It sort of worked, but there were problems: lots of people couldn’t afford […]

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Christian Bergeron

Quand les noms perdent leur latin

March 29, 2016 by Christian Bergeron | Leave a Comment

Stégosaure, tricératops et vélociraptor : ces noms vous disent sûrement quelque chose. Si vous êtes moindrement curieux ou si, comme moi, vous avez des enfants qui ont grandi à l’époque de la fièvre du Parc jurassique, je suis sûr que vous avez des images de dinosaures dans la tête. Mais si je vous dis Brachychampsa, que […]

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Dwain Richardson

English Editing in Quebec: Avoiding Wordiness

March 22, 2016 by Dwain Richardson | 2 Comments on English Editing in Quebec: Avoiding Wordiness

Plain language communicates written messages clearly and concisely. This is true whether you’re editing stand-alone English copy or translating from other languages. In my experience as an editor and translator, I have had to work with a number of stiff and wordy texts. I usually start by asking, “What needs to be improved?” Should I focus on […]

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Rosemary Shipton

How to Become an Editor

March 15, 2016 by Rosemary Shipton | 11 Comments on How to Become an Editor

Years ago, we all became editors through a kind of apprentice system. Once you had the ticket — a university degree — you were hired by a publisher or a communications department. There, a senior person on staff whipped you into shape as you did your work, followed a manual and absorbed the atmosphere. No […]

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