Re: using a slogan on a resume (really copyeditors)

[Paul DuBois <paul -at- kitebird -dot- com>]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2003 at 09:53:02AM -0700, Peter Swisher wrote:
> I used to work at a larger company that had all kinds of publication
> support: 2 copyeditors, schedulers, layout artists, templates, style
> guides and so forth.  It was a great experience, but I spent a lot of
> time arguing with the copyeditors.  The line you draw really depends on
> the audience and how you can most efficiently help them complete their
> task.  
> 
> My current company has no copyeditors and their published documentation
> shows it.  I have found 3 out of 6 brochures that had blatant errors:
> the types you commonly find in instant messages or e-mails.  When I find
> grammatical errors, something is obviously wrong!  I am hoping to
> convince them to outsource a copyediting service.  

My experience with copyeditors is that they improve my writing in
some ways, but they have to be watched closely. :-)

Copyeditors are helpful to me in the sense that they know more grammar
than I do (which is none; I no speaka The Good English).  The grammatical
changes they make in most cases thus are an improvement on the original
writing.

Problems comes about when copyeditors start changing things such as
voice or tone.  If I'm using conversational tone with a lot of you's and
I's, and the copyeditor starts making the writing more formal, then
it begins to no longer sound like me.  In such cases, I've had to ask
the copyeditor to revert such changes, or, if necessary, ask a higher-level
editor to step in and instruct the copyeditor to do so.  But it's rarely
been necessary to get into a fight about it.  The editors I've worked
with generally have been pretty accommodating if you can make the case
why you don't like certain changes.

I find it instructive to compare my original files with the submitted
files after the copyeditor has been through them.  This helps me to see
just where changes were made and learn from them.  For example, if a
particular type of change gets made many places in an earlier chapter,
that's a change that I incorporate into my writing so that the copyeditor
need not find and make as many corrections in later chapters.

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