The newest issue of The New Yorker has a wonderful article about commas and copyediting by the magazine’s own copyeditor, Mary Norris. “Holy Writ: Learning to Love the House Style” is a must read for editors and authors. You might also want to read an earlier article by Mary Norris, “Don’t Try to Hone In On a Copy Editor.” It is another well-written insight into editing. From The Economist comes this editorial by Schumpeter: “Authorpreneurship: To Succeed These Days, Authors Must Be More Businesslike Than Ever,” which is also true of editors.
Richard Adin, An American Editor
An American Editor 
I particularly like this bit from Mary Norris’s piece: “One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, Midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience. The popular image of the copy editor is of someone who favors rigid consistency. I don’t usually think of myself that way. But, when pressed, I do find I have strong views about commas.”
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Comment by Carolyn — February 20, 2015 @ 6:39 am |
For that second article mentioned – is it May Norris or Mary Norris? Just checking.
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Comment by zeepolly — February 20, 2015 @ 6:58 pm |
It’s Mary and it has been fixed.
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Comment by americaneditor — February 21, 2015 @ 4:11 am |