The Business of Editing: Clicking for Profit with Click List

As you know, my mantra is that every second counts and the more seconds I can save by increasing efficiency, the more profitable my editing will be. One drag on time is typing — the more typing I do, the more time is spent doing it and correcting it.

Toggle Word vs. Click List

One way I have decreased the amount of time required to edit was to devise and make extensive use of the Toggle Word macro. Toggle Word lets me replace, for example, an acronym with its full name with a single click. (Time yourself: How long does it take you to change T2D-GENES to Type 2 Diabetes Genetic Exploration by Next-generation sequencing in Ethnic Samples (T2D-GENES)? It takes me the time to select T2D-GENES and mouse click on Toggle Word — about 2 seconds.)

But Toggle Word only changes exact existing text; I can’t put my cursor in a blank space and have Toggle Word insert the correct text nor can I use Toggle Word to change a word or phrase that doesn’t exactly match what is in its dataset (e.g., if the dataset includes “about” but not “About,” Toggle will only change “about”). To remedy this omission, Click List was created. Click List is a complement to Toggle Word: Toggle Word replaces text, Click List inserts text or replaces selected text (see “An Example From a Recent Project” below).

Click List & Click List Manager

Click List and its Manager are found on the EditTools tab (A). Like other, macros in EditTools, it can be assigned to a Hotkey combination either from the EditTools ribbon (B) or by Clicking Setup Hotkey… on the Click List Manager (see #1 in the Overview below).

Click List on the Ribbon

Overviews of Click List (#10) and its Manager (#1) are shown in the below image:

The Click List overview

Like many of the macros in EditTools, Click List can be a general list that you use all of the time or it can be a specialty list, for example, one for a specific project. You either open an existing Click List file or create a new one (#2), just as with Never Spell Word, Toggle, and other EditTools macros. In fact, the Click List Manager works much the same way as the other Managers do, with a few exceptions.

Text is entered in the Text field (#3). However, in addition to the usual text insertions, you can choose to bold or color the text (#4) (for an example of text that is bold and colored, see #7 and #11). (The bolding and coloring are only for display in Click List so that there is a way to make certain items quicker to spot in a long list; the text is not inserted in your document with the formatting.) Your text and your format choices are shown in preview (#5). When you are ready, click Add or Update (#6) to add the text to Click List (#7). Be sure to Save or Save & Close. (Clicking Save saves the file but does not close the Manager.)

When you Save (or Save & Close), Click List (#10) is updated and your addition appears in the display area (#11). Click List remains open by default until you click Cancel (#12). However, you can have it automatically close after each use by dechecking the Keep open checkbox (#12).

Click List enables you to insert items into your document with a single click. It can be a word, a short phrase, or even a paragraph of text. Click List is intended to make editing a document quicker, easier, and more accurate.

You enter the text you want added to Click List in the Text box in the Click List Manager. In the example below, a sentence is being added (#13). When the text is ready to be added to Click List, click Add (#14).

Adding text to Click List via the Manager

The text appears in the Manager’s display field as shown below. Here a sentence was added, “You can write whole sentences and have them be part of a click list” (#15). However, to add the sentence to the Click List so that it can be inserted into your document, you need to click either Save or Save & Close (#16). Clicking Save saves the Click List file and makes the new text available in the Click List but also keeps the Manager open so you can add additional text later; clicking Close & Save does the same but closes the Manager. In addition, you can move text up or down the list using the Move buttons (#17); the Manager also tells you how many items there are in your Click List (#18).

Saving text

As this image shows, the sentence has been added to our Click List (blue arrow) and is ready for use in our documents:

Adding a sentence to Click List

Using Click List While Editing

To see how Click List works, we begin with the below image which shows a portion of a manuscript. Note the location of the cursor.

Note the cursor location

A single mouse click on the sentence we added to Click List (#19) inserts the sentence text into our document at the location of the cursor (#20).

Single-click insertion of sentence

As indicated earlier, you can move text up and down the list in Click List by making use of the Move option in the Manager. You may wish to move text so that it is easier to locate or because it is more frequently used, the same reasons why you might use bold or color. The image below shows the movement process. To move our example sentence (#1) up or down, click on the appropriate arrowhead in Move (#2). When the sentence is relocated where you want, click Save or Save & Close (#3) so that the movement is saved to the Click List. Once Save is clicked, the relocation will be shown in the Click List (see #1 in both the Click List and the Manager).

Reordering entries in Click List

As we have discussed many times here on AAE, the faster and more accurately we can edit, the more profitable editing can be for us. The more we have to compete for business, the more important speed becomes. The same is true as schedules become increasingly tighter. The key is to be more productive, which means more efficient, which means less typing. The more typing we do, the more errors we can introduce into a document. Consequently, the more automated we can make editing, the more accurate it will be and the greater the profit.

An Example From a Recent Project

A recent project had many peculiarities. But one thing I discovered early in the project is that the author used certain phrases and references repeatedly. (The reference style was “relatively” consistent throughout the text and although it didn’t conform to any established style, because of schedule constraints, the client decided to “follow the author’s reference style but make it consistent.”)

The problem was that the phrases and the references were not Toggle Word candidates because there was almost always an inconsistency or two from a previous use. The image below are samples I extracted from one chapter.

Samples form a Recent Project

Correcting these would be time-consuming if not for Click List. What I did was add the correct wording to Click List, as shown here:

Click List with Book References

Now to correct the incorrect, all I needed to do was select the incorrect phrasing and click on the correct phrasing in Click List, as shown here:

The Changes

By using Click List, I was able to save a significant amount of typing time (and thus increase profitability), but, more importantly, because of the unique styling used, I was able to ensure that each instance of the book and phrase was identical to every other instance. Speed and accuracy are two components of profitability and Click List improves both.

Click List on My Desktop

Click List is one of the three macros I keep open on my desktop as I edit, the other two being Bookmarks and Reference # Order Check.

Click List can save time and can increase accuracy — it is another important tool in the editor’s armory.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essays are:

• The Business of Editing: Correcting “Errors”
• The Business of Editing: Journals, References, & Dollars
• The Business of Editing: Making Search & Replace Efficient & Profitable
• The Business of Editing: Coding for Profit
• The Business of Editing: Using & Managing Bookmarks
• The Business of Editing: Managing Comments with Comment Editor
• The Business of Editing: Keeping Reference Callouts in Number Order

____________

Looking for a Deal?

You can buy EditTools in a package with PerfectIt and Editor’s Toolkit at a special savings of $78 off the price if bought individually. To purchase the package at the special deal price, click Editor’s Toolkit Ultimate.

The Proofreader’s Corner: Editorial-Business Marketing — The 4 Ps of Persuasion

by Louise Harnby

Promoting an editorial business has never been easier — and it’s never been harder. The internet provides us with access to a global marketplace; that means each of us is discoverable to a much greater number of clients. The internet also provides our clients with access to a global supply base; that means each of us has a greater number of competitors. So how do you stand out in a world where anyone can say they’re a proofreader, editor, indexer, or copywriter? How do you persuade your potential client that it would be worth their while to contact you and ask you for a quotation?

The issue is one of instilling trust. It’s about persuading the client — making them really believe — that you are who you say you are, and that you can do what you say you can do.

Trust versus truth

Trust and truth aren’t the same thing. Truth is defined by Oxford as “That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.” Trust is belief in that reality. Without evidence, potential clients can’t know the truth of the phrase “I am a professional proofreader”. The best that I can hope for is that they believe it to be the truth — that they trust it to be the truth.

Instilling trust is therefore key when we are creating our marketing messages, whether online or in print. Potential clients, who will often be complete strangers to us, are more likely to get in contact if they believe the content of our websites, brochures, and résumés.

The 4 Ps to instill belief

There are tools we can use to persuade our potential clients that we are worthy of their trust — these tools are the 4 Ps: pictures, praise, portfolios, and professional practice.

• Pictures: images of the editorial freelancer’s face
• Praise: testimonials from previous satisfied clients
• Portfolios: lists of completed projects (and/or client lists) that reflect the editorial freelancer’s experience and specialisms
• Professional practice: this includes professional-society memberships, relevant training and continuing professional development (CPD), and related educational qualifications and career history

P1: Pictures (smiley ones!)

It’s not uncommon for the new entrant to the field of editorial freelancing field to be horrified by the idea of including a mugshot of themselves on their website, brochure, or résumé. “I’m not photogenic”; “I don’t have any nice photos of myself”; “I hate having my picture taken!”

So you’re shy! Me too. Maybe you don’t have the kind of face that will have Vogue clamoring to put you on its front cover. Me neither. Do it anyway. Your client isn’t trying to hire a new sociable best friend, nor do they need a supermodel; what your client needs is a proofreader (or editor/indexer/copywriter). They don’t just want any old proofreader, though. They want someone then can trust when they hand over the manuscript they sweated over. They want a real individual, not some anonymous person they’ve never met working for a huge, faceless corporate agency whose website, while attractive, looks somewhat impersonal. “I’ve wept over this novel, literally torn hairs from my scalp as I tackled draft after draft. I needed to feel that the person I was hiring gave a damn and would treat me and my book in a way that respected that,” said one self-publishing novelist who contacted me for a proofreading quotation some time back.

One key word from the above quote is “person.” She wanted to hire a person, not an agency, not a machine. The other key words are “gave a damn.” She wanted to feel that the person she hired would care.

Providing evidence that you are a real person, one who is prepared (for a fee) to invest professional commitment (care) in your client’s project, is difficult when you don’t have a face. If you don’t include a picture of your face on your website, for example, all you have is words. Even if they’re great words, they won’t show your smile. Smiles are powerful — when you smile at people, you make them feel good. “Genuine smiles (the ones that involve the muscles surrounding the eyes) induce positive feelings among those who are smiled at” (“Want to Increase Trust in Others? Just Smile,” G. Greengross, Psychology Today, 2015). And Samuele Centorrino et al. published a study early in 2015 suggesting “that smiles perceived as honest serve as a signal that has evolved to induce cooperation in situations requiring mutual trust” (“Honest signaling in trust interactions: smiles rated as genuine induce trust and signal higher earning opportunities,” S. Centorrino et al., Emotion & Human Behavior, 2015). In other words, smiles create belief. So when you complement the great words on your website with a picture of your smiling face, you appear more trustworthy to your client. Compare that with the impact your faceless competitor is making, and then get out your camera.

P2: Praise

If you feel embarrassed by the idea of asking satisfied clients to write a few words in praise of the work you’ve done for them, consider the following points that I address in Chapter 24 of Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business:

• Testimonials provide social proof that you can do what you claim. They help the potential client to feel confident in putting their money where a previous client’s mouth is. According to Kissmetrics, “social proof is the marketing tactic for easing the minds of worried customers” (G. Ciotti, “7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts,” Kissmetrics).
• It’s standard business practice, so it won’t come as a surprise to your client when you ask. And, anyway, in my experience clients are delighted to publicly go on record and help to spread the word when they’re happy with the help you’ve provided.

Social proof builds trust — again, we’re talking about providing evidence that enables a potential client to believe that you can deliver on your promises. Testimonials from third parties provide social proof because “people tend to believe what other people believe, especially people they respect. So if you can assemble a group of people, especially opinion leaders, who rave about you, you build credibility … that’s how we humans work” (A. Neitlich, “The Importance of Testimonials,” Sitepoint, 2004).

P3: Portfolio

The third piece of evidence that helps our clients to believe what we are saying is found in the portfolio. I’ve already written a 1,500-word article about the power of the portfolio here on An American Editor. Rather than repeating myself, I’d ask you to read it in full (The Proofreader’s Corner: The Power of the Portfolio, 2015).

In summary, I argue that the portfolio instills trust because it shows the potential client not just what I say I can do, but also what I have already done. As I contend in The Power of the Portfolio, “Anyone can set up an editorial business and write (or hire someone else to write) great copy that tells the customer what they want to hear. The portfolio takes things a step further, anchoring the message in a have-done practice-based, rather than could-do promise-based, framework.”

Your portfolio shows your client that you have already practiced what you preach. It builds confidence in your client’s vision of you as a supplier who can deliver on his or her promises. That’s a powerful emotion to induce in a client because you’ve already placed your professionalism ahead of money in the client’s mind before they’ve even contacted you.

P4: Professional practice

Finally, summarize those key points that reflect your professionalism — these are the things that show that proofreading or editing isn’t a hobby. Rather, you are a skilled professional who has relevant training and qualifications that make you fit for purpose and deserving of the fees you charge for what you bring to the table.

• Educational and career backgrounds: Your target markets will determine which elements of professionalism you want to focus your customers’ attention on. I began my professional proofreading career by specializing in the social sciences. It was therefore important to communicate to clients that I was familiar with the language of the field. My degree in Political Science played a part in this; so did the fact that I’d worked for over a decade in an academic publishing house, marketing their politics, economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and research methods journals. If you want to instill trust in, for example, independent academics submitting to engineering journals, and you have an engineering background yourself, you’d be foolish not to take the opportunity to show them that you understand the discipline.
• Editorial training: Have you completed professional editorial training that demonstrates competence in your field? If so, summarize it. Anyone can set up an editing or proofreading business, but not everyone will take the time to engage in training and other forms of continuing professional development. These things help to make you stand out from the crowd and demonstrate your willingness to learn to do the job to industry-recognized standards.
• Memberships: If you used to be a member of the American Bar Association, and want to make yourself attractive to legal clients, you’ll have an advantage over me if you tell the client this! If you live in a country that has a national editorial society (in which membership requires meeting rigorous criteria), you might appear to be a better bet to some clients (such as publishers) than someone without such an affiliation. And scientific and medical clients are more likely to trust an editor with, for example, a BELS accreditation, than one without.

Finally, think, too, about what your target client groups want. Marketing materials aimed at publishers might focus on attributes that an independent fiction author isn’t interested in; for example, ability to use industry-recognized proof-correction markup language. And academic clients looking to publish in scholarly journals may be more trusting of an editor who claims she knows how to work with particular styles of referencing and citation.

Summing up

Successful marketing isn’t about truth, but about trust — telling the truth is important (though that’s beyond the scope of this article), but a nervous client who’s never worked with you before can’t possibly know whether your claims are truthful. Rather, we need to do things that will help our clients believe that our claims have truth to them. Pictures, praise, portfolios, and summaries of professional practice are four tools that will help build this belief.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

The Business of Editing: Using & Managing Bookmarks

When speaking about the editing process with colleagues, I am always amazed that they so rarely use one of the most valuable tools that Microsoft provides — bookmarks. It’s not that I don’t understand why, but rather that because the Microsoft way is so cumbersome, colleagues simply don’t make much use of bookmarks.

Bookmarking is, for me, a valuable way to navigate the long documents I edit. They enable me to pinpoint locations quickly. With EditTools’ new Bookmarks macro, which allows me to make use of easy-to-read and more logical navigation-oriented bookmarks, I make even greater use of bookmarks.

Bookmarks the Microsoft Way

Microsoft (using Word 2010 as the example) requires me to take these steps to use bookmarking:

1. Switch to the Insert ribbon.
2. Click Bookmark.
3. Type a name for the bookmark
4. Click Insert.

That doesn’t seems so bad unless you want to manage your bookmarks. The first problem is with the bookmark name. I like meaningful names, such as EMMA software 1st use. Try to use that in Word’s system; you can’t because it has spaces and mixes letters and numbers — both unacceptable to Word.

Try moving a bookmark from location A to location B using Word’s system. A bookmark I regularly use is editing stopped here to indicate where I am in a manuscript when I stop because I need to go to another section of the manuscript. I use it to tell me where I was and to give me a method for getting back to that place. In Word’s method, to move the bookmark, I need to delete the bookmark and reenter it.

The other thing I like to do is rename a bookmark. Renaming bookmarks lets me use bookmarks to track whether figures and tables are called out in order and whether I have edited a figure or table legend. In Word’s system, renaming can only be done by going to the location of the bookmark, deleting the existing bookmark, and adding a new-name bookmark in its place.

Another problem with Word’s system is that to resume editing of my document, the bookmark dialog has to be closed. To make any change to any bookmark — whether that means adding, deleting, renaming, or moving — I have to open and close the dialog. Not only does that take time, but it makes for poor management efficiency for someone who likes to use bookmarks.

Basically, Microsoft is costing me money because every second counts in editing for profit. EditTools’ new Bookmarks macro makes bookmarking much more efficient and less time-consuming, which means more profit.

EditTools’ Bookmarks

As I said, I make extensive use of bookmarks. I bookmark every figure and table, for example. Not the in-text callouts, but the located-at-the-end-of-the-document figure legends and tables that I need to edit. If a document has five figures, then I have five figure bookmarks: figure 1, figure 2, etc. Same with tables. And as I edit I add bookmarks to things I think I might need to return to from later in the chapter, such as a formula, an acronym, a particular “term of art,” or a name, whether of a person or a study. I sometimes have 50 or more bookmarks in a document — now that I have EditTools’ Bookmarks macro and can use easy-to-read-and-meaningful names.

The Bookmarks dialog looks like this (click on images to enlarge):

EditTools Bookmarks

The Bookmarks dialog shows a list of already inserted bookmarks in a document. When you open a document in Word and then open Bookmarks, Bookmarks will populate itself (#3) and list whatever bookmarks are already in the document. You can either keep them, delete specific ones, or click Delete All to delete bookmarks from the document — and it doesn’t matter whether it was you or someone else who originally inserted the bookmarks.

Inserting a bookmark

To insert a bookmark, enter its name in the Bookmark Name field (#1). As shown (#3), you can use spaces and mix letters and numbers; a name can be up to 30 characters long. After entering the name, click Add (#2) to add the bookmark to your document and to the list of bookmarks (#3).

Before editing, I go through a document and insert the “primary” bookmarks, that is, one for each figure and table legend, and one for where I want the “refs” bookmark used by Never Spell Word and other macros located. “Secondary” bookmarks are added as I edit. For example, if the author calls a software program EMMA, when I first come across it, I will insert a bookmark such as EMMA software 1st use. If I discover later that the author defines the EMMA acronym, I can easily move the definition to the first-use location. If the document is fiction, I might bookmark Jason blue eyes or Konowitz 1st use or Katydid Gorylla spelling.

Moving a bookmark

Moving a bookmark from page 3 to page 55 is easy — just two mouse clicks: select the bookmark to be moved and click Move Here (#4); the bookmark will be moved from wherever it is in the document to where your cursor is currently located in the document. Unlike with Word’s system, there is no need to delete the bookmark and retype the name and add it again. This is particularly useful for my editing stopped here bookmark. I use that bookmark to indicate my current location in the document when I need to go to another location, for example, to table 5: I move the editing stopped here bookmark to my current location, select the table 5 bookmark, and click Go To. When I am ready to return to where I had been in the document before going to table 5, I select my editing stopped here bookmark and click Go To. (A bookmarking tip: I have learned that the best way to number tables and figures is to use two digits, such as table 05, rather than the single digit shown in the image. The reason is that if there are 10 or more figures or tables, using the leading zero ensures that the tables and figures are listed in number order.)

PerfectIt users

If you are a PerfectIt user, Bookmarks offers you an easy way to set the area that PerfectIt should check: beginning and ending bookmarks (#6). Click on PSTART to insert a bookmark where PerfectIt should begin and PEND to insert an ending bookmark. When you run PerfectIt, it will search and report on the text between the two bookmarks. For more information, see PerfectIts’ Help files.

Keeping the dialog open

Another features of EditTools’ Bookmarks is the ability to keep the dialog open (#5). In Word, the bookmark dialog closes automatically. In EditTools, you have a choice (#5). I like keeping the dialog open because I am constantly accessing bookmarks (I keep the Bookmarks, Click List, and Reference # Order Check dialogs open; they fit side-by-side on my portrait-oriented monitor). But if you prefer closing and reopening the dialog as needed, you have two choices: You can click Bookmarks on the EditTools tab (black arrow below) or you can assign Bookmarks to a “hotkey” combination by clicking Hotkeys on the EditTools tab (red arrow).

Bookmarks on the EditTools Ribbon

Renaming a bookmark

I use bookmarks to track callouts of figures and tables (and anything else that needs special attention, such as formulas). With Word’s bookmark system, this was doable but time-consuming and prone to error. Of course, another way to do it is the old-fashioned paper-and-pen method, but Bookmarks is much more efficient and reduces the chance of error.

As mentioned earlier, I assign a bookmark to each figure and table legend before I begin editing. When I come to the first callout for table 1, for example, my procedure is as follows:

Renaming a Bookmark

 

 

1. I move (or insert if it hasn’t been previously created) my editing stopped here bookmark (green arrow) at the location of the callout in the text.
2. Next, I select the appropriate preassigned bookmark, table 1 (red arrow), and click Go To (blue arrow) to take me to table 1.
3. I edit table 1.
4. When I am done editing table 1, I select the table 1 bookmark (red arrow) and click Rename (black arrow) to open the Rename dialog, shown here:

 

Changing the Name

The Rename dialog shows the current name (#1) and includes that name in the To: (or rename) field (#2). I have chosen for the name to reappear in the To: field by choosing No (#3). If I had chosen Yes as my default, then the To: field would be blank.

After editing table 1, I want to rename the bookmark so that I know (a) I have edited it and (b) it has already been called out in the document. However, I may need to look at the table again, so I want table 1 to keep a bookmark. Consequently, what I do is add an x as a prefix to the current name, as shown here (#4); however, the bookmark’s renaming is not limited to the x I use — it can be anything that works for you:

 

The New Name

When I click OK (#5), the bookmark remains in place in the document but is renamed to x table 1 as shown in the image below (blue arrow). The bookmark now moves to the end of the list and from looking at the Bookmarks dialog, I can tell that table 1 has been called out in the text and has been edited, and that the next table callout in the text should be for table 2.

 

In the Bookmarks dialog

To return to where I was in the document before going to table 1, I select editing stopped here (black arrow) and click Go To (#6).

For a better idea of how I make use of the Bookmarks macro, look at the image below. I can see that the next table callout should be for table 3 (#1), that tables 1 and 2 (#2) and figures 1 to 3 (#4) have been edited and called out, and that figure 4 (#3) and tables 3 to 8 (#1) have yet to be called out.

 

Using Bookmarks to track

If the next callout I encounter is for table 5, I can see at a glance that table 5 is not being called out in number order, which allows me to renumber or query, depending on my client’s instructions. If I renumber, I can move or rename the bookmarks.

As you can see, EditTools’ Bookmarks makes bookmarking easy. Because it is an efficient way to use bookmarks, I can make more and better use of a valuable editing and navigating tool. Most importantly, because it is efficient and a timesaver, Bookmarks saves me time, which means enhanced profitability. Bookmarks is one of the three macros I keep open on my desktop as I edit, the other two being Click List and Reference # Order Check.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essays are:

• The Business of Editing: Correcting “Errors”
• The Business of Editing: Journals, References, & Dollars
• The Business of Editing: Making Search & Replace Efficient & Profitable
• The Business of Editing: Coding for Profit
• The Business of Editing: Managing Comments with Comment Editor
• The Business of Editing: Clicking for Profit with Click List
• The Business of Editing: Keeping Reference Callouts in Number Order

____________

Looking for a Deal?

You can buy EditTools in a package with PerfectIt and Editor’s Toolkit at a special savings of $78 off the price if bought individually. To purchase the package at the special deal price, click Editor’s Toolkit Ultimate.

Lyonizing Word: From Easy to Impossible — Three Variations on a Theme

by Jack Lyon

Rich Adin just keeps on escalating the difficulty of his requests. That’s okay, because I appreciate a good challenge. Here’s his latest:

Okay, Jack, you solved the problem of reducing the number of authors from more than three down to three.

To see what Rich is talking about, please see my previous posts here: Lyonizing Word: We Can Do This the Easy Way, or . . . and Lyonizing Word: The Easy Way, Not So Easy.

Rich continues:

But there is a caveat: the list of names needs to end with “et al:”. So let me pose three more variations.

Three?! Oh, all right. Here we go:

Variation 1

How do I handle instances where the ending is punctuation other than “et al:”? For example, it could be a different punctuation mark than the colon or it could end with an author name and not “et al” (e.g., “Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W:” or “Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W, Hoffnagle TTP.”)

How do we handle instances where the ending is punctuation other than “et al:”? Here are Rich’s examples, all laid out for our inspection:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W, Hoffnagle TTP.

As usual, the key is to find the “handle,” the unique elements we can grab to carry out our search. (For more on this, please see my article “What’s Your Handle?” [2003] at the Editorium Update.)

In Rich’s examples, the “handles” would have to be the colon that ends the first entry and the period that ends the second. Let’s try modifying the wildcard string from the previous post for Lyonizing Word:

([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, )[!^013]@([:.])

Here’s what that means:

Find any characters except a carriage return: [!^013]
repeated any number of times: @
followed by a comma
followed by a space
repeated three times
and enclosed in parentheses to form a “group.”
Then find any character except a carriage return: [!^013]
repeated any number of times: @
followed by [:.] (specifying a colon or a period) in parentheses to form a group.

And we can use the following in the “Replace With” box:

\1\2

Here’s what that means:

Replace everything that was found
with the text represented by group 1: \1
followed by the text represented by group 2: \2

But does that actually work? Well, sort of, Here’s what we get:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, :
Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, .

Maybe that’s close enough, as it would now be an easy matter to search for comma space colon and replace it with a colon, and to search for comma space period and replace it with a period. But if we want to refine our search string even further, we could use this:

([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@), [!^013]@([:.])

Here, we’ve placed the comma and space following the third name outside the parenthetical group, so they’re not included when the group is replaced by /1. That actually solves the problem, if you want to get precise, giving us a result like this:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO:
Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO.

Variation 2

Rich wrote:

How can I revise the string to work even if there is no consistency in punctuation of names? For example, suppose the names are: “Lyon, J, Adin R, Carter T.O., Jackson TT, Doe, J.; Smith K; Winger, W; Hoffnagle TTP.”

As given, this can’t be done. Why? Because we’ve lost the uniqueness of the comma “handles” that separate the names. For example, instead of this —

Lyon J,

— we have this:

Lyon, J,

And instead of this —

Smith K,

— we have this:

Smith K;

So again, as given, we can’t fulfill Rich’s request. But can we change the “as given”? Why, yes, we can!

We can search for a lowercase letter followed by a comma (at the end of a last name) and replace it with just the lowercase letter (and no comma):

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: \1

We can search for a semicolon (which sometimes follows initials) and replace it with a comma:

Find what: ;
Replace with: ,

Then we can use the same wildcard string we used earlier to fulfill Rich’s request:

Find what: ([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@), [!^013]@([:.])
Replace with: \1\2

You may be wondering if these wildcard strings will affect the article titles and journal names and not just the author names. The answer is, it depends. I’m assuming, for example, that the article titles and journal names don’t include commas (just for purposes of illustration). But if they do, you may have to get creative. Let’s take this as an example:

Levy, D, Ehret G, Rice K, Verwoert G, Launer L, Dehghan A, Glazer N, Morrison A, Johnson A, Aspelund T, Ganesh S, Chasman D: Genome-wide association study of blood pressure, stress, and hypertension. Nature 2009, 41(6): 677-687.

See that comma after “Levy”? Above, we got rid of it with the following strings:

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: \1

But notice that this will also remove the commas after “pressure” and “stress” in the article title, which we don’t want to do. The solution, again, comes down to handles. What do we have that sets off the article title and journal name? In this example, they’re preceded by the colon after the author names (“Chasman D:”) and followed by a carriage return (at the end of the citation). So here’s a rather sneaky solution: Search for a colon followed by anything that isn’t a carriage return until you come to a carriage return. Then replace whatever was found with itself (^&) formatted as Hidden:

Find what: :[!^013]@^013
Replace with (use Hidden formatting): ^&

If you don’t know how to replace using formatting, here’s the secret:

1. Put your cursor in the “Replace with” box.
2. Click the “More” button if it’s showing.
3. Click the “Format” button on the bottom left.
4. Click “Font.”
5. Put a check in box labeled “Hidden.”
6. Click the “OK” button.

Notice that you can replace with all kinds of formatting: styles, paragraph alignment, and so on. You can also use formatting in the “Find what” box! This is really powerful stuff, and if you didn’t know about it before, now you can add it to your bag of tricks.

At any rate, with the article titles and journal names formatted as Hidden, you can make sure they actually are hidden by clicking the “Show/Hide” button (with the pilcrow icon: ¶) on Word’s “Home” tab. Then run your find and replace to remove commas from last names:

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: \1

Finally, unhide the article titles and journal names (after using “Show/Hide” to display them):

Find what: (Hidden formatting)
Replace with: (Not Hidden formatting)

At that point, the commas will be gone from the authors’ last names but preserved in the article titles and journal names.

By the way, if you’re working on a Macintosh, you’ll find that Word doesn’t recognize the standard code for a carriage return (^013) while searching with wildcards. But never fear: you can still do what you need by “escaping” the code with a backslash and treating it as a range using square brackets. In other words, use this:

[\ˆ013]

To specify not a carriage return, use the following:

[!\ˆ013]

Variation 3

Rich wrote:

How can I adapt the wildcard string to delete those in excess of a certain number? For example, I have one client who wants up to ten author names listed and “et al” used only for names eleven and following. I would like to specify how many names I want retained and replace the excess with “et al.” For example, if there are fifteen names, delete the last five if ten are okay and replace them with “et al.”

Theoretically, we could do that as long as there’s a “handle” that marks the end of the names. Let’s take this example:

Levy D, Ehret G, Rice K, Verwoert G, Launer L, Dehghan A, Glazer N, Morrison A, Johnson A, Aspelund T, Ganesh S, Chasman D: Genome-wide association study of blood pressure and hypertension. Nature 2009, 41(6): 677-687.

There are actually twelve names there, so we want to keep the first ten and replace the last two with “et al.” What’s our handle? The colon after the last name (“Chasman D:”) and before the article’s title. So let’s try an expansion of the wildcard search string we used in the previous post for Lyonizing Word. Instead of grouping three comma-separated names, we’ll group ten:

Find what: ([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@,)[!^013]@(:)
Replace with: \1 et al.\2

That would work if Word could handle it. But if you try it, Word will complain: “The Find What text contains a Pattern Match expression which is too complex.” So now what? Honestly, I’m not sure. I tried several other possibilities, none of which were successful. So if you, Gentle Reader, have any ideas about how to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, I’d love to hear them.

Wildcard searching can’t do everything, but it can do an awful lot. As I’ve said before, after all these years of editing, wildcard searching is the tool I rely on the most. I encourage you to invest the time needed to learn to use this tool, which will repay your efforts many times over. A good place to start is my free paper “Advanced Find and Replace in Microsoft Word.”

I hope you’ll also watch for my forthcoming Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word. I’m still trying to find more real-life examples for the book, so if you have some particularly sticky problems that might be solved using a wildcard search, I hope you’ll send them my way. Maybe I can save you some work and at the same time figure out solutions that will help others in the future. Thanks for your help!

Jack Lyon (editor@editorium.com) owns and operates the Editorium, which provides macros and information to help editors and publishers do mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. He is the author of Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals and of Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.

For other Lyonizing Word essays at An American Editor, Lyonizing Word at AAE.

Worth Noting: New Macros, New Version — EditTools 6.2 Released

EditTools 6.2 has been released.

The new release has a much speedier Journals macro (thanks to a suggestion from Shmuel Gerber). Recall that in The Business of Editing: Cite Work Can Be Profitable, I mentioned how I had just finished working on a reference list of 1,827 that took the Journals macro, with my then dataset of 78,000 entries, not quite 4 hours to complete. With the improvement suggested by Mr. Gerber, it took less than 2 hours with a dataset of 98,000 entries. A more typical reference list of about 75 references takes a little less than a minute to check against the dataset.

Version 6.2 also has several new macros and one significantly improved macro.

The new macros are Bookmarks, Click List, Comment Editor, and Reference # Order Check. The Insert Query macro has received a great new addition called Categories. Categories lets you organize your standard comments for quicker access. Each macro is described at the EditTools website and will be the subject of an upcoming in-depth essay here at AAE. The AAE essays will discuss not only how the macros work but how they can increase your profitability.

The Bookmarks macro has one additional feature aimed at PerfectIt users. It provide a quick-and-easy way to insert special bookmarks in a Word document that tell PerfectIt what text you want checked.

EditTools 6.2 is a free upgrade for registered users. Go to the downloads page to obtain your copy. If you aren’t using EditTools, try it. Go to the downloads page and download the trial version.

(NOTE: EditTools 6.2 requires 32-bit Word 2007 or newer. If you are currently running EditTools 6.x, you can run version 6.2.)

Rich Adin, An American Editor

On Today’s Bookshelf (XXII)

They say summer is the time for reading. I suppose that is based on the assumption that a person has more time to read while on vacation. Personally, I do not see any difference in my reading habits or the time I spend reading for pleasure (or work, for that matter). So, my acquisition of new titles to read never ends. Here is a list of some of the hardcovers and ebooks that I am reading or acquired and added to my to-be-read pile since the last On Today’s Bookshelf post:

Nonfiction –

• The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne
• Napoleon’s Poisoned Chalice: The Emperor and His Doctors on St Helena by Martin Howard
• A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris
• The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England’s Self-Made King by Ian Mortimer
• The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327-1330 by Ian Mortimer
• The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville by Clare Mulley
• Treacherous Women: Sex, Temptation and Betrayal by Gordon Kerr
• Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson
• The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England by John Cooper
• The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism by Deborah Baker
• The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon
• Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford
• The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg
• Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
• Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen
• Monster by Allan Hall
• The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone
• The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War and His Decision That Changed American History by Jonathan Horner
• The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones by Thomas Asbridge
• KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann
• Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna & Benjamin Shapell
• The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal by Hubert Wolf

Fiction –

• The Darkest Hour by Tony Schumacher
• Blood Song and Tower Lord by Ryan Anthony (2 books)
• Critical Error by Murray McDonald
• A Maiden’s Grave by Jeffrey Deaver
• The Defenders of Shannara: The Darkling Child by Terry Brooks
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Dreamfever by Karen Marie Moning

Nonfiction Books I’m Thinking About –

These books I am but a keyboard away from ordering. Some are from authors I have previously read, but others are just ones that keep drawing me back.

• The Story of Science by Susan Wise Bauer
• The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe by E.M. Rose
• The Paradox of Liberation by Michael Walzer
• Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography by Sara Lipton
• The Last Slave Market: Dr, John Kirk and the Struggle to End the African Slave Trade by Alastair Hazell
• Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed

What are you reading this summer?

Rich Adin, An American Editor

The Keys to High-Quality Editing

The one thing every professional editor strives to produce is a high-quality edit. This is more difficult today than it was 30 years ago; client demands have made production of high-quality editing increasingly difficult.

Yet there are “keys” to producing high-quality editing.

Accept or reject a project

The keys begin with the decision whether to take on a particular project. A few days ago, I turned on my computer to find five job offers waiting for me. I only accepted one. The one I accepted came with much less onerous demands than the others, which means that I will be able to provide a high-quality edit.

The job I accepted asked me to suggest a schedule based on what the client wanted and the manuscript needed; the others gave me a fixed schedule. After reviewing the manuscript for the accepted job, I suggested that a nine-week schedule was reasonable. The other jobs were for much shorter manuscripts but still required at least a two-week and more likely a three-week schedule; the schedule on offer was one week with no flexibility.

However, there were still problems that had to be addressed with what ultimately became the accepted job. For example, the references and how they were to be formatted. The author used what is for me a rarely seen style for the references: American Chemical Society style. If the manuscript had a handful of references, changing them to Harvard style would not be a problem, but the manuscript has a lot of references and there are a lot of stylistic differences between Harvard and ACS. The client wants the manuscript sooner rather than later, and so it was decided that because the author was consistent, we would use ACS style for the references.

In contrast, a couple of the manuscripts that I rejected didn’t have a single reference style, but the predominant style would have required many hours of work to restyle to conform to the client’s style. Yet the client was unwilling to compromise.

The keys to high-quality editing begin with the decision whether to take on a project or not. Many editors are simply thankful to be offered work and accept jobs without vetting them. This approach leads to a low effective hourly rate and questionable editing quality because it can be a struggle to meet short schedules — especially if the manuscript is not well written.

Effective hourly rate

Another key is ensuring that a project leads to a decent effective hourly rate and a profit. I have noted over the years that many colleagues take on a new project expecting it to go smoothly only to find that it does not. And when it does not, they are faced with the dilemma of ensuring a decent effective hourly rate versus the high quality of editing they prefer to provide. This is the eternal struggle — what to do when the compensation is inadequate.

Of course, it is difficult to know in advance, even if you sample a manuscript, how easy or hard a manuscript will be to edit. But there are certain things one can look for as clues. I have found that authors who very inconsistent and sloppy with references are often the same with the main text, which means more editing work. I have also found that if I see a lot of Word’s squiggly red lines, which indicate possible misspellings, that a manuscript may be problematic. In this case, however, because much of what I edit is medical, I recognize that the built-in spellchecker will mischaracterize a word, indicating it is misspelled when it isn’t. This clue requires familiarity with the subject matter.

Subject-matter familiarity

Which brings us to yet another key: knowledge of the subject matter. It is not that the editor needs to be an expert in the subject matter, it is that the editor needs to be comfortable with the subject matter. In my case, for example, I stopped editing fiction after about 6 months of editing — more than 31 years ago. I stopped for several reasons, including to provide a high-quality edit I had to be able to keep a sharp focus on the novel’s text. What I found was that when faced with a poorly written manuscript, my focus would begin drifting and I would have to reread the same paragraphs perhaps multiple times. I also discovered that for me, nonfiction was both more interesting and more profitable.

Fiction editing is difficult because it requires familiarity with a wide range of topics that I am not normally either interested in nor familiar with. I have never been particularly interested, for example, whether Bucharest’s weather is closer to that of London or New York City, but that could bin important in a novel whose action takes place in Bucharest. As a fiction editor, it was my responsibility to know whether or not the author’s description of Bucharest was plausible (actually, accurate). My fiction reading has always been limited; I tend to read vast amounts of nonfiction. Consequently, I was better “educated” about things that the nonfiction I was editing was concerned with than the fiction editing needed.

Pattern recognition

The ability to recognize writing patterns is another key. Every author has a writing pattern and in a group of collaborating authors, one pattern dominates. Identifying early in the editing process this pattern leads to greater consistency and accuracy in editing, which can lead to higher-quality editing. When you can identify these patterns, you can take advantage of tools such as EditTools. These types of tools, if properly used, lead to higher-quality editing.

Resources

The final key to be discussed in this essay is resources. Having the right resources available is important. For example, knowing that Garner’s Modern American Usage is the leading usage guide for American English is not enough; you need to have it available. Similarly, being told to follow a particular style manual by the client is of little use is you are not familiar with it and have it readily available. It does no good for a client to ask you to follow AMA style if the only style guide you can access and are familiar with is Chicago.

It should be clear that many things go into producing a high-quality edit; consequently, a lot of things need to come together. Yet an editor’s skill is not just objective things such as available resources; the skillset an editor needs to meet client limitations and still produce high-quality editing is sharpened over years of education and editing. Knowing one’s current limitations is an important part of providing high-quality editing. The professional editor works diligently to minimize those limitations, and one way to do so is to knowingly evaluate an offered job by the keys to high-quality editing.

What do you think?

Rich Adin, An American Editor

The Commandments: Thou Shall be Businesslike

by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

The value of presenting an editorial services entity as a business has been discussed here several times. A dreary, rainy day of doing more business tasks than actual editing, writing, or proofreading led me to think about what it means to be, and be seen as, a business.

As has, again, been said before, many freelance editors see ourselves as individuals providing services to clients and value our image as individual, independent, freelance workers. We see ourselves as professionals in terms of our training, experience, skill level, and ability to do what our clients need to make their publishing activities better. Many — maybe even most — of us, though, don’t want to be seen as companies or even formally as businesses. There’s a sense that our individualness is something to cherish and that it doesn’t quite fit with the idea of being “a business.”

But being an individual freelancer doesn’t have to mean appearing to be unbusinesslike. And being businesslike, or presenting ourselves as businesses, doesn’t have to mean being a company with employees or subcontractors. You can be an individual editor and still have a businesslike image.

Rich Adin, An American Editor, has laid out several of the factors he considers essential to being seen as a business: regular work and access hours, a formal phone greeting, etc. (For additional views, see the list of select related AAE essays at the end of this essay.) Here are some of the factors I see as helping an individual, whether freelance writer, editor, proofreader, indexer, whatever, present a businesslike front to the world.

• Business name: Even if you function as a sole proprietor, it probably looks better to have a company name. I’ve been doing this so long as an individual that I can usually get away with being seen simply as Ruth Thaler-Carter, Freelance Writer/Editor, especially because I started out more as a writer than an editor or proofreader. If I were to start out today, though, I’d use something other than my own name as the identity of my business. I have had a couple of clients request that I provide a business name, so my business checking account has one so I can deposit checks regardless of how they’re made out.
  Your business name should say something about what you do. Poetic names like “Blue Horizons” are all very well, but they don’t tell prospective clients what services you offer, so they won’t help you gain new projects or be visible on the Internet. Blue Horizons Editorial Services, sure.
  Opinions vary on what to call ourselves. I have no problem with being called a freelancer, but some colleagues prefer to use consultant, contractor, entrepreneur, or even (business) owner.
  Opinions also vary about whether to incorporate. This is something worth discussing with an accountant or tax professional.
• Website: A businesslike editor will have a website, and it will look polished and professional. No amateur snapshots of the editor with kids, cats or dogs, messy desks; no photos of someone other than yourself pretending to be you. No irrelevant information. Easily navigable. Information about your background, training, experience, skills, and why someone should hire you. Whenever possible, examples of your work or, if that isn’t doable, strong testimonials from clients.
• Work samples: A businesslike freelancer will have a way to present work samples to potential clients without violating the confidentiality or egos of past and present clients. This is more of an issue with editing and proofreading services than with writing; after all, most writing work is meant to be published and seen, while much editing or proofreading work is meant to be invisible. The finished product is what matters, and most clients don’t want the world to see what a mess their original versions were before we made our improvements. Always ask before making editing/proofreading samples accessible; use only excerpts that don’t identify the client; look for other ways to present your skills, such as testimonials and references from clients who have been happy with your work.
• E-mail address: A businesslike editor will have a domain-based e-mail address. Using Ruth@writerruth.com or owner@FreelanceWhatever.com looks more professional and more businesslike than Ruth@gmail.com or FreelanceWhatever@aol.com. Sending e-mail from your domain-based account also might get messages through when major servers like AOL, Hotmail, Juno, etc., experience blockages for some reason. Having such an e-mail address also means you can change service providers every other day without having to notify dozens, if not hundreds, of colleagues and clients of a new address.
• E-mail signature: Every e-mail message you send should include a signature (sigline). Opinions vary about what it should include; mine has my full name, business name, e-mail address, website URL, Twitter handle, reference to a booklet I’ve written and self-published, and a separate line with the name of the business through which I host an annual conference for freelancers. My e-mail program includes it automatically in every message I send. The only time I have to think about it is when I want to use variants, also stashed in the appropriate area of my e-mail program, that relate to my roles with organizations or clients/projects. Some colleagues include phone numbers in their siglines; I don’t do that much phone contact with clients, so I don’t include my number, but it is on my website and in directory information (yes, I still have a landline), so it’s easy to find when needed.
• Phone: A businesslike freelancer can have either a landline or a cellphone/smartphone, but whichever you use, will answer it in a businesslike manner. I usually say “Good morning/Good afternoon, this is Ruth,” but some colleagues swear by “I can write about anything^®, this is Ruth. How may I help you?” Either way, go beyond a plain “Hi” or “Hello” to let callers know whom they’ve reached when they call you. A businesslike editor also makes sure that their adorable five-year-olds or clueless spouses don’t answer their business phones; that callers don’t have to strain to hear them against background noise of barking dogs, loud TVs, clinking dishes being washed, or intrusive music.
• Queries, job-listing responses, proposals, and pitches: A businesslike freelancer takes a little extra time to make every query, response to job-list opportunities, proposal, and pitch as perfect as possible. That starts with doing at least nominal research on the publication or potential client before pitching/querying ideas for articles so all are relevant to that publication, and only responding to job listings for which the freelancer actually is qualified. It also includes proofreading all such items before sending them; if necessary, having a friend or colleague take a look at them first.
• Tools: We’ve talked here several times about the importance of having the right, and many times the most-current, tools for the freelance or editing job. This includes soft- and hardware; backup systems; style manuals to back up editing decisions; even business cards that go with you everywhere. Backup in the sense of equipment or files is one thing, by the way; in terms of coping with a crisis is another. A businesslike editor has colleagues to turn to if illness or injury — your own or that of a child, spouse, sibling, parent, or good friend — interferes with meeting a deadline.
• Finances: The businesslike editor sets rates appropriate to the editor’s experience and skill level; has a business checking account and credit card for business-related expenses and payments; and has a savings cushion so the editor doesn’t have to beg to be paid earlier than usual or accept projects at rates well below the norm. It’s also important to present requests to resolve late payments in terms of being paid because of having done the work, not needing the money to pay the mortgage.
• Invoices: A businesslike editor will have invoices that look official and go out promptly on completing a project. They will have all the necessary information to make it easy to get paid — an invoice number; your name; your mailing address and e-mail address so clients can choose between sending checks or paying online; your payment terms; any late fee terms you choose to use; perhaps a statement that the edited version of the work belongs to you until you’ve been paid.
• Memberships: The businesslike editor will belong to associations or organizations that offer useful benefits such as job opportunities, educational programs, interaction with colleagues, and more — all aspects of being a lifelong learner and professional.

What all this boils down to is that, regardless of whether you want to be a sole-proprietor freelance editor or the owner of an editing company, Thou Shall Be Businesslike in all you do. What else do you do to present a businesslike persona?

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is an award-winning freelance writer, editor, proofreader, desktop publisher, and speaker whose motto is “I can write about anything!”® She is also the owner of Communication Central, author of the Freelance Basics blog for the Society for Technical Communication, and a regular contributor to An American Editor.

Select Related An American Editor Essays:

• The Commandments: Thou Shall Know the Basics or Don’t Edit
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Establish the Rules of Engagement Before Beginning a Project
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Treat Editors as Partners
• The Commandments: Thou Shall be Efficient
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Use a Professional Editor
• The Commandments: Thou Shall be Profitable
• The Business of Editing: The Key to Success
• The Business of Editing: Why a Company?
• The Business of Editing: Domains & E-mail
• The Business of Editing: Thinking About Invoices
• It’s Fundamental & Professional, Too
• What? The Fundamental Question

Thinking About Charleston

It’s July 4, Independence Day, and I am still thinking about Charleston. It isn’t as if Charleston hasn’t happened before; it has. I guess I am wondering why it still happens.

Part of what keeps Charleston in my mind is that I recently watched the Kevin Costner movie, “Black or White.” The movie was well acted, but could have been better written. The movie’s topic is important, but it fails to resonate because the neither the black nor the white families that are the focus are representative.

But the courtroom scene does contain something very important. Costner’s character is asked about his racial prejudice, and he replies that yes, when he sees a black person the very first thing he sees is that they are black, just as the very first thing a black person sees when looking at a white person is that the person is white. What matters, Costner’s character says, is not that first thought but the second and third thoughts and how fleeting the first thought is. I think Costner’s character has it right.

No matter what we look at, our first thought is to characterize/classify it; when it comes to people, as opposed to objects,what matters is the fleetingness of that characterization/classification and what our second and third thoughts are.

Perhaps I am an oddity in today’s America. I do not understand why so many of us get stuck on that first thought, that characterization/classification. I live in what is perhaps the best neighborhood in all of America. The street is U-shaped, which means no through traffic, which also means that the neighborhood is readily identifiable, and residents have a sense of community.

In my neighborhood live all sorts of people. We have single, cohabiting, and married;  blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Indians; young, old, and elderly; blue collar and white collar; furniture movers, physicians, lawyers, college professors, school teachers, stay-at-home mothers, real estate agents, plumbers, stone masons, laborers, government employees, truck drivers, and more. We also have military, nurses, police, and LGTB. We have Sikhs, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, atheists, and probably some other religions in the mix. The list goes on.

The point is that I live in what I consider to be the ideal neighborhood — a mix of all that makes America great. We speak to each other; we visit each others’ homes and share meals; when we walk our dogs, the pack gets larger as additional neighbors join the walk and the camaraderie. My wife, who walks the neighborhood more than I, knows all but the newest members, and it is difficult to walk the 1-mile circuit in less than 90 minutes because people always want to stop and chat. We even exchange house keys so that access is readily achieved in case of emergency.

I look at my neighborhood and think this is the type of neighborhood that every child should grow up in because it is the kind of neighborhood that teaches we are all the same.

Perhaps that is what is missing in America’s Charlestons — that opportunity to learn that we are all the same. To learn that the first thought should be a fleeting thought; to learn that it is the second and third thoughts that really matter. I guess that is what bothers me — the need to constantly fight the Civil War and the war against racism and the war against segregation and the war against poverty. We seem to not be gaining ground; we seem to be refighting the same battles that we were fighting decades and generations ago.

Why do we need, in the 21st century, to refight the battles of the 20th century? It is because we have yet to digest the idea that the first thought should be fleeting.

I mourn for the victims of Charleston and I mourn for the America that cannot move forward when it comes to civil rights. On my block, in my neighborhood, in my world, we are one, we are Americans.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Worth Noting: Fowler’s 4th Is Here

I know that many of my colleagues swear by Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 3rd edition. Although I own it and occasionally use it, the number 1 usage book for American English is Garner’s Modern American Usage, Third Edition.

But, as of this past June 1, Garner’s has some new competition — the updated fourth edition of Fowler: Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage edited by Jeremy Butterfield, or Fowler’s 4th.

I received my copy yesterday, so I am not yet ready to give an opinion, but I plan to use it each time I use my Garner’s 3rd. One of the things I like about Garner’s, which is lacking in Fowler’s 4th, is the “Language-Change Index,” which gives me a clue as to how usage is trending.

Both books are published by Oxford, so I suspect a new edition of Garner’s may be in process.

For those of you who are like me and “collect” usage guides, it is interesting not only to compare entries in current versions of the guides, but also to look at past editions and see how usage has evolved.

In any event, it is important for professional editors to remember that these are guides. Their opinion should weigh in your decision-making process, but should not dictate your decision. See, for example, “Editors & “Professional” Resources: A Questionable Reliance” and “The Makings of an Unprofessional Editor” for additional discussion.

Richard Adin, An American Editor