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A Rival Copyeditor

5/11/2016

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Proofreading Handbook, The Copyeditor's Handbook
I snagged a new day job a year ago, and my editing since then has been mostly limited to the small amount of freelance work my schedule allows. I was a catalog proofreader; now I’m a content manager for an account at a creative agency. Content manager may be one of the most vague job titles I’ve ever heard. For me, it means I make sure client feedback is implemented correctly across a whole slew of Word and Excel documents. There's a lot of copying and pasting, a lot of critical thinking and memory, a lot of diplomacy and collaboration, a little bit of proofreading. What there’s not a lot of is editing.

Not being the final say in matters of style and adherence to editorial guidelines was a new and uncomfortable position for me. I found myself on the other side, the writers’ side, passing off documents to the agency’s copyeditors and hoping for the best. At first, I couldn’t help but glare at every edit, my mind whirling with thoughts like, Why is this capitalized? Why isn’t this hyphenated? I wouldn’t have done that. Intensifying matters was the fact that I’d also interviewed for a copyeditor position at this same agency and been passed up.

I realized that I had to check myself before I wrecked myself. I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone; editing wasn’t my job anymore, and I needed to respect the knowledge and experience of the copyeditor I was working with. More useful than a competitive spirit would be a collaborative one, one eager to learn from others with the same passions. I soon found that this copyeditor knew rules, guidelines, and history that I didn’t, and that she was the best person to go to when we were both trying to work through a tricky style decision.

Working in solitude can fuel an instinctual competitive drive when a challenger appears in the arena. But the important lesson I’ve learned is that the person I want to see as competition can turn out to be my greatest ally.


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A Year of Editing, as Told by Google

2/17/2015

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Yesterday, while editing, I was chuckling at how diverse and strange my Google search history must be. My full-time job triggers lots of searches about food and plants, while my freelance work raises questions about everything from '90s bands to current U.S. medical crises. Just for fun, I took a look through my search history from 2014 and found some major categories (and representative screenshots thereof) into which most of my searches fell.
Fact Checks and Proper Names
Screenshot: Searched for how many people in the us have diabetes
Screenshot: Searched for nsync
Screenshot: Searched for michael hutchence
Capitalization
Screenshot: Searched for should northern be capitalized
Screenshot: Searched for capitalize south of france
Screenshot: Searched for capitalize counties
Spelling and Terminology
Screenshot: Searched for mri scanner
Screenshot: Searched for chaise longue
Screenshot: Searched for sycophantic
Screenshot: Searched for re-use or reuse
Screenshot: Searched for breastmilk
Screenshot: Searched for didgeridoo
Screenshot: Searched for beignet
Screenshot: Searched for is bathtime one word
Screenshot: Searched for pot belly pig
Screenshot: Searched for ob-gyn or ob/gyn
Screenshot: Searched for seasonal affected disorder
Screenshot: Searched for glamour vs glamor
Screenshot: Searched for pest repellent
Screenshot: Searched for difference between liqueur and liquor
Screenshot: Searched for pasamaquoddy
Screenshot: Searched for quonset barn
Style and General Grammar
Screenshot: Searched for space after ellipses chicago
Screenshot: Searched for past tense of pet
Screenshot: Searched for comma before such as
Screenshot: Searched for comma before including
Screenshot: Searched for especially surrounded by commas
Screenshot: Searched for when to use whereas
Screenshot: Searched for hyphenate well
Screenshot: Searched for hyphenate superlative
Screenshot: Searched for ensure or ensure that
Screenshot: Searched for hyphenate adverb
Lie vs. Lay
Screenshot: Searched for lay or laid
Screenshot: Searched for lay or lie
Screenshot: Searched for lie vs lay (three times)
Next on my to-do list: Get a "lie vs. lay" chart tattoo. Just kidding. Maybe.
If you're curious, you can find your Google search history here. 
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    Melody's Musings

    Here, Melody will ponder editing, grammar, punctuation, and the text she encounters in the world.

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