Author: Rosemary Shipton

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Rosemary Shipton

An Editing Scenario for Discussion

November 24, 2022 by Rosemary Shipton | 12 Comments on An Editing Scenario for Discussion

You’re a freelance editor who has been building up your business for two years now. You’ve taken a few webinars related to copy editing, you consult the Chicago Manual of Style as needed and you’ve invested in PerfectIt. You’re excited because a prospective client has asked you to copy edit the detective novel he’s written. […]

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Editing in the Time of Covid

January 11, 2022 by Rosemary Shipton | 8 Comments on Editing in the Time of Covid

As we enter 2022, it’s time to ask how editors have fared during the pandemic and what lies ahead. When the world as we knew it suddenly shut down in March 2020, we feared for our health and our livelihoods, uncertain what might transpire. How have we done? For most editors, it seems, work continued […]

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The Editor’s Letter

July 14, 2020 by Rosemary Shipton | 5 Comments on The Editor’s Letter

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 this scenario, you’ve been hired […]

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To Retire — or Not?

January 7, 2020 by Rosemary Shipton | 9 Comments on To Retire — or Not?

Ever since compulsory staff retirement at 65 ended in Canada, the decision of whether to leave their profession voluntarily has become a conundrum for many people. Some continue working because they need the money, but for others it’s optional. The only people I know who retire “early” are teachers, civil servants and others who contributed […]

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Mentors

October 8, 2019 by Rosemary Shipton | 8 Comments on Mentors

Throughout my career, I’ve been influenced by many mentors. When I was first hired right out of graduate school, Meredith, the experienced editor I was replacing, spent six weeks working alongside me introducing me to the principles, techniques and subtleties of editing both a scholarly journal and my first book manuscript. As we reorganized the […]

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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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An Academic Rock Star’s Advice for Editors

April 17, 2018 by Rosemary Shipton | 12 Comments on An Academic Rock Star’s Advice for Editors

Recently I was asked to speak at the memorial service for Francess Halpenny — a true powerhouse in Canadian publishing. In the course of her long life, she was head of the Editorial Department at University of Toronto Press (UTP) during its “golden years,” general editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, dean of the […]

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There’s No Clarity With Editors or Authors

September 5, 2017 by Rosemary Shipton | 6 Comments on There’s No Clarity With Editors or Authors

Editors say they love words, with finding just the right phrase for the context, but, ironically, they can only fail with two terms critical to the world of publishing: “editor” and “author.” When someone says she’s an editor, you have no idea what she does. Is she the editor of a newspaper or a magazine, […]

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Editing Is Lifelong Learning

June 20, 2017 by Rosemary Shipton | 6 Comments on Editing Is Lifelong Learning

Editors enjoy their careers for various reasons — the opportunity to work in the exciting literary world or the more lucrative realms of government or business, or to specialize in particular areas of expertise. For me the major attraction is the simple fact that every project is different — I learn new things every day. […]

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Succeeding as a Freelancer

March 14, 2017 by Rosemary Shipton | 7 Comments on Succeeding as a Freelancer

The key to a successful freelance business is a steady supply of projects. First, decide how many hours a week you’d like to work — 20, 40 billable hours? — and then set out to achieve your goal. Your professional life and income will become almost predictable. Here are some suggestions. Develop a strong client […]

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Those Unpublishable Manuscripts

October 11, 2016 by Rosemary Shipton | 25 Comments on Those Unpublishable Manuscripts

We’ve all had them – those manuscripts that arrive on our desks that should not be published. They have little merit in either content or expression, and our initial impulse is to return them immediately. How do we deal with them? If the project comes from a trade publisher, the contract with the author was probably […]

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Shorten It!

August 23, 2016 by Rosemary Shipton | 13 Comments on Shorten It!

“Every word is gold,” my author said, “but I suppose you’ll have to shorten it.” Indeed I will: this book manuscript totals 180,000 words, and the trade publisher wants a 40 percent cut. That will be tough. Editors often need to reduce text. Newspapers, magazines, brochures, textbooks and reference materials have strict word limits. It […]

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Mentoring

June 7, 2016 by Rosemary Shipton | 5 Comments on Mentoring

What’s the best way to pass skills, experience and business smarts from one person to another? Mentoring tops the list. We humans have always known the value of one-on-one instruction: parents teach their trade or profession to their children, apprentices work for years with their masters and young hires look for an old hand in […]

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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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Commission of Inquiry Reports: A Special Kind of Editing

January 12, 2016 by Rosemary Shipton | 10 Comments on Commission of Inquiry Reports: A Special Kind of Editing

Most projects we editors take on involve editing only, but if you’re in the mood for a stretch and enjoy the challenge of handling many different tasks, try editing the reports of commissions of inquiry. These commissions are appointed every now and again by the federal or one of the provincial governments to investigate and […]

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Real E-Books

October 20, 2015 by Rosemary Shipton | 19 Comments on Real E-Books

E-books are everywhere these days, but how many of them are real e-books, written specifically for that medium? Not many. Most are simply traditional print books that are available on a different platform. At best, like a DVD, they have a few bonus features tacked on at the end or, in the case of children’s […]

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Should Editors Be Able to Write?

April 28, 2015 by Rosemary Shipton | 15 Comments on Should Editors Be Able to Write?

We editors talk at length about different kinds of editing and who does what, and we generally assume that we’re working on a text written by someone else. Together with the author, we massage the content, the structure and the presentation into the best possible shape for its intended readers. But should we also be […]

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Editors and Their Clients

January 13, 2015 by Rosemary Shipton | 3 Comments on Editors and Their Clients

Editors are shaped by their clients. Sure, we all share common knowledge, skills and talents, but we’re influenced by what our employers want from us. Over a period of years, that accumulated experience makes us the editors we are today. In recent posts to this site, Lori Burwash has described the challenges of writing and […]

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Twelve-Step Editing

November 4, 2014 by Rosemary Shipton | 23 Comments on Twelve-Step Editing

One project, one editor — that’s the norm in Canada today. Only a few large trade publishers and a small number of government departments still divide editing between structural/stylistic editors and copy editors, while the rapidly dwindling group of educational publishers distinguish between developmental editing and copy editing. Almost all the other publishers, institutions and […]

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What Should an Editor Be?

January 7, 2014 by Rosemary Shipton | 26 Comments on What Should an Editor Be?

We were nearing the end of a Stylistic Editing seminar — a group of about 30 people of varying ages and experience working in-house or freelance for book publishers, magazines, businesses or governments. A woman in the third row raised her hand: “In my work I’m the only editor,” she said, “so I don’t really […]

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Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

June 25, 2013 by Rosemary Shipton | 15 Comments on Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

As editors, we must break out of our anonymous shell and shout our virtues loudly and clearly for writers to hear. We’ve all heard the stories: a few authors who self-publish do extremely well, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while the majority have little success, bringing in less than $500 all told. […]

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A Changing Role for Editors

December 12, 2012 by Rosemary Shipton | 3 Comments on A Changing Role for Editors

It’s not all that long ago that editors were invisible or, if their presence was recognized, dismissed as nitpickers or as dangerous meddlers in the creative writing process. “Let’s Kill All the Copyeditors,” ran one newspaper headline. Renowned professor Jacques Barzun railed against the errors that “tone deaf” editors introduced to his texts in his […]

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