Shortcuts in editing may be frowned upon, but when it comes to word processing, editing shortcuts are not only allowed, they’re essential. If you’re still fumbling around in the pull-down menus, fighting with features that won’t leave you alone, and wasting time on tasks that could
If you could design the perfect app for writers or editors, what would it be? What chore would you love to be automated with a tap on your keyboard or phone?
If your company produces any kind of writing, there’s a good chance you can benefit from using a style guide—even if you’re not in a field immediately associated with publishing. The best practice for any company is for everyone to use the same guide for spelling, punctuation, and a multitude of other style matters.
This workout is the first in a series of dozens of workouts at Shop Talk, each of which has now been updated to refer and link to the 18th edition of CMOS. Whether you’re a beginner or an old pro, these interactive quizzes should help you build and maintain your editorial muscles.
Anyone who has something to sell faces a dilemma when it comes to deciding on a price: ask too much and no one will buy; ask too little and you won’t earn enough money. In freelance editing, the second option carries an added danger: ask too little and you could be swamped with competing deadlines.
In my view, the most regrettable copyediting disasters come in the form of errors introduced by the editor. Letting a writer’s original mistake survive is certainly cause for regret, but nothing’s worse than knowing that the work was correct until you messed it up!
The most mind-numbing job I ever had was in an insurance company filing papers—carts full of policies to put in numerical order, hour after hour, 1064952, 2586027, 1943902, 1064951. The only thing that kept me awake was the occasional paper cut. I’m sure they’re still looking for some of the policies I misfiled in my stupor.
Every writer or editor is faced with a mindless task now and then: alphabetizing, renumbering, abbreviating . . .
Here’s a secret we’ve been trying hard not to keep: you can use the online edition to find things in the print edition even if you don’t subscribe online. Here are three ways to do that.
Merriam-Webster.com defines “work-to-rule” as “the practice by workers of refusing to do any work that is not strictly required as a part of their jobs in order to protest something (such as unfair working conditions).” Well, that’s too harsh for my purposes. But it hints
CMOS: You teach classes on chapbooks/small presses at the University of Chicago. How do you convey to your students what a chapbook is and why it’s important? SA: Chapbooks are incredibly variable and various, so we begin by . . .
