The Craft of Editing

This companion to The Craft of Scientific Writing discusses the common problems encountered by teachers, editors, reviewers, and managers who are called upon to improve, evaluate, or approve the writings of others. It discusses not only the specifics of editing for content, style, and presentation, but also the dynamics of the author-editor relationship, and the problems that frequently arise when manuscripts must be edited and approved by several layers of management.

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You are a hired gun of sorts: a manager, scientist, or en­ gineer called upon to edit a document. Perhaps you are overseeing a long report or thesis, reviewing a journal article, or providing comments on a proposal. For the document before you, what changes do you suggest? How do you clearly and efficiently communicate those changes to the author? How do you convince the author and the other editors that those changes are needed? The answers to these questions define how you edit someone's writing. In business, engineering, and science, the process of editing causes much strife. In fact, my experience in teach­ ing professional writing over the past fifteen years has been that editing is the number one complaint that pro­ fessionals have about the process of documenting their work. Many professionals complain that this editing seems to arise more from whim than from logic-that what flies in one document is often shot down in another. Others complain that editors change too much, essentially inserting their own individual styles. Still others complain that the sign-off process is so inefficient and taxing that they sometimes do not document work they know should viii Preface be documented. While in many cases these complaints are unfounded, in many others they are legitimate. This book addresses those complaints that are legitimate by showing managers, scientists, and engineers how to make their editing both more effective and more efficient.

Contenu
1 Editing: Where Do You Begin?.- Knowing Your Goals.- Knowing Your Constraints.- 2 When the Pencils Are Blue.- Editing for Content.- Editing for Style.- Editing for Form.- 3 When the Rules Are Gray.- Gray with Respect to Time.- Gray with Respect to Position.- Gray with Respect to Person.- 4 Common Types of Edits.- Writing a Review.- Performing a Copyedit on Paper.- Performing a Copyedit Online.- Proofreading.- 5 Reducing the Friction of Editing.- Agreeing upon the Constraints.- Recognizing Your Own Idiosyncrasies.- Keeping the Writing on Schedule.- Providing Spoken and Written Feedback.- 6 Editing: The Big Picture.- At What Writing Stages Should Editing Occur?.- Who Shall Edit First and Who Shall Edit Last?.- What Role Should Each Editor Play?.- Appendix One Hundred Problems of Style.- Glossary of Editing Terms.- References.