You might be a copy editor if . . .
Our upcoming Beginning Copyediting for Fiction class will educate anyone wanting to fix the errors seen on a daily basis in the real world!
Over the past week or so, I’ve caught the following typos and grammatical awkwardness in major news media:
USA Today: “publically released”
USA Today: “could cause driver’s to crash”
USA Today: “exasperating the problem” (should be “exacerbating the problem”)
Yahoo Entertainment: “Affleck has three children with whom Lopez has become the stepmother to.”
People: “A college student is dead after falling to his death.”
CNN: “Crossed first paths”
ABC News: “preventing recruiters from meting with students”
If you, like me, have a tendency to spot errors like this, then you, too, are either a copy editor or could be one.
Tips for Editors & Writers
Making Your Offer Clear
There’s a fast-casual restaurant I walk by every day that has a sign in the window: Pick Any 3, Get 1 Free! That sounds clear enough, right? But below the offer, they list what you can pick from: – 1 dinner (grilled chicken, burger, ham-and-cheese sandwich) – 3 large drinks (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Dad’s…
Effective Copyediting
How can I provide effective copyediting to authors? The most effective copyediting must include an improvement and be intended to address an important issue. Sometimes when you’re copyediting a novel, you’re asked to do a medium- or heavy-level copyedit, which means you’ll be doing more than just the basics of ensuring the ms conforms to…
Solving a Common Coaching Problem
In my inbox: “I’ve coached a first time writer from outline to first draft completion. Along the way, I explained concepts like show vs. tell and point of view. Last month, I helped him to draft questions to solicit objective feedback about his story and recommended some beta readers. Now he has lots of feedback…
