Tag Archives: training

Forum matters: Creating and editing web content

This feature comes from the band of CIEP members who serve as forum moderators. You will only be able to access links to the posts if you’re a forum user and logged in. Find out how to register.

Posts on this topic that are more than a year old might be of only historical interest, given how fast technology changes. The threads referred to in this article have been selected because they link pretty directly to work on websites, but don’t forget that issues of accessibility also apply to (or can be found in relation to) other media, such as PDFs.

Your own website

Although many editors and proofreaders rely on social media to network and expand their business, there is no doubt that having your own website helps establish your professionalism and is a good place for information about you that may get lost on Facebook and Instagram, or when LinkedIn and Twitter revamp their algorithms, or a newcomer takes people up another highway. One member’s request, Advice needed: moving from self-publishing to traditional fiction editing, ranged far and wide and pointed to just that conclusion.

Even if you’ve embraced the idea of developing a website it can be a slog, and a quick reach-out via the forums has kept members on track (‘How best to prioritise?’). After deciding to use a website design company, forum members have asked for recommendations, in threads entitled ‘website’ and ‘Web hosting and domain registrars’. Even that tricky sub-subject of emails has been covered in Email hosting recommendations.

Many CIEP members create and manage their own websites and have shared hard-earned advice on sites and specifics. You may already have chosen a provider, but if you are thinking of managing your own website then maybe you should have a look first at: Squarespace help; Creating a website then Websites again; Portfolio on WordPress website and New member & request for advice.

Members have asked each other for a quick review of their new or revamped websites (see Quid (I proofread your website) pro quo (you proofread mine) and quick website check) and for help on specifics such as T&Cs and Domain Name Extensions, or about the principles of Pricing and its absence on editor websites and the Use of first-person in freelance websites. The number of replies does vary, and sometimes the first one nails the answer, while at other times the discussion ranges so far you feel you’ve attended a mini-course in the subject – see Struggling to be competitive.

There are some topics that apply to more than websites but will certainly add a professional gloss, such as a source to spruce up the background of your profile pic in Useful website to create/edit profile pics or useful advice on accessibility in Text colours and backgrounds – best and worst for legibility? and Q about hyperlinks in Forum signature.

Working on other websites

You don’t have to have created a website to be able to work on one (although it does help), but it is worth doing some training on the subject. CIEP offers two specific courses: Editing Digital Content and Web editing. But the forums are also up there when it comes to learning. We’ve all had an itch when we’ve spotted some bad practice and asked ourselves, should I say something? Read the thread and then decide.

You’d think a business would see editing their website as a no-brainer, but sometimes getting at the content can be tricky. Copyediting of websites and general advice on editing a website offer some useful insights and links.

SEO and accessibility are two aspects that you really need to get to grips with if you are going to offer a good service to website clients, and the forums are full of good advice on: best font/typeface for emails; quote marks and other punctuation for easy reading and accessibility; Rewording a bullet list for a website; Should numbers be spelled out in Websites?; Providing hyperlinks: best practice?

Good luck with your own and other websites. And don’t hold back on developing your skills and sharing your experiences through the CIEP forums.

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.

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Photo credit: laptops by Louise Viallesoubranne, notebook and laptop by Marissa Grootes, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Resources round-up: Copyright

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Welcome to this round-up of resources from the CIEP. This time, our subject is copyright.

How much you need to know about copyright as a publishing professional will vary according to the role you have within the publishing process. The resources in this round-up should get you started in understanding the basics, and at the end we’ll point you towards three courses that will teach you the principles of copyright in more detail.

An overview of copyright

Before launching into the details of copyright, it’s worth taking some time to understand what it is and does. The CIEP’s new fact sheet ‘Copyright’, by Pippa Smart, is a great start here. It covers what copyright is and who owns it, how copyright works can be used, moral rights, and instances where you don’t need permission, plus details like copyright layers and the Berne three-step test, all from a UK perspective. Soon this fact sheet will be available to members only, but it’s currently available for a limited time to non-members too.

Detailed guidance

Once you’re ready to look at copyright in more detail you can find information on the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) website, with links to the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office and other official guidance. The UK government is a good source of detailed information on copyright, including a list of exceptions to copyright.

Check out these fact sheets from the UK Copyright Service, too: UK copyright law, using the work of others, understanding fair use and obtaining permission to use copyright material.

Resources by publishers and authors

It can be especially useful to look at copyright from the point of view of publishers and authors. The Publishers Association has produced guidance, as has the Society of Authors. As far as self-publishing goes, Pippa Smart recommends this blog post from the ALLi website about one independent author’s use of song lyrics. Resources by US-based Helen Sedwick on lyrics and images are also useful for self-published authors.

Copyright by the book

A book that many editors will already own is Butcher’s Copy-editing, and Section 3.7 is devoted to copyright permissions and acknowledgements. There are also chapters about copyright within other books about the wider publishing process:

Inside Book Publishing by Giles Clark and Angus Phillips (Routledge, 2019) – Chapter 12 is on rights sales.
The Professionals’ Guide to Publishing by Gill Davies and Richard Balkwill (Kogan Page, 2011) – Chapter 8 is about understanding how rights and permissions work.

If you want to delve deeper, try:

Copyright Law for Writers, Editors and Publishers by Gillian Davies in association with Ian Bloom (A & C Black, 2011), reviewed on the CIEP website.
Publishing Law by Hugh Jones and Christopher Benson (Routledge, 2016).

Courses on copyright

If you’d like more confidence in understanding and working with copyright, a training course may be a good option. The CIEP offers Copyright for Editorial Professionals, an online self-study course of around 30 hours, and the PTC offers Copyright – the basics, an online, half-day course, and Essential copyright for publishers, an e-learning module.

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Photo credits: Laptop and notebook by Maya Maceka, bookshop sign by César Viteri, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

The CPD in the work we do

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In this post, Abi Saffrey thinks about the ways in which we develop our professional selves while doing the job we do – an often overlooked form of CPD.

This article considers:

Informal conversations and guidance
Seeing a task from a different perspective
Observing colleagues and peers
Procrastinating on the internet
Teaching others
Writing an article
Continuing professional development

It’s highly likely that most of the people reading this post have put some formal training on their professional development plan for 2022. I certainly have every intention of signing up for the CIEP’s Plain English for Editors online course, or perhaps the References one. I also have some of the Publishing Training Centre’s e-Learning modules to work through.

When building our development plans, we often dismiss or forget the informal learning that we do every day while working. There are so many ways to learn new skills, adapt current ones, deepen our understanding, broaden our experiences – these are perhaps harder to label than a training course, but equally important in keeping our careers, and businesses, on track.

Informal conversations and guidance

Whether working for an organisation or ourselves, we have networks of people that we talk to. In an office or via an instant messaging tool, we can ask colleagues quick questions, or perhaps jump on a video call to discuss an idea.

Even a more formal meeting can be a learning opportunity, not just about how to carry out a task but how to communicate about it, finance it or improve it.

For those of us who work at home alone, having conversations with peers can remind us of our professional sense of self, and I find that after one of those conversations, I’m more proactive and productive.

Seeing a task from a different perspective

It’s very easy to focus on how we race through a task that we do often, and I suspect we’re all a bit prone to forgetting the actions that sit around that task. With my editorial project management work, I can gain insights into how copyeditors and proofreaders work, into what designers and typesetters need to know, into the priorities of the publisher – and I can take that and apply it to my own editing or proofreading (as well as future project management).

Taking a step back and thinking holistically about a project can be informative and rewarding, remind us of the bigger picture, and perhaps help us identify areas for more formal CPD.

Observing colleagues and peers

This is easier when working in an office with someone, clearly. I learnt so much from those around me as an employee, and when working in a client’s office as a contractor.

I’m in an accountability group, and on one of our professional retreats we spent a session looking at how we’d edit different types of texts – we all had different approaches and talked about which approach worked best for each text. With a bit of planning, this could work well over a video call or even in an online chat forum.

Talking of online chat forums, the CIEP member forums are full of gems covering every aspect of editing and running an editing business.

Procrastinating on the internet

Twitter, hey? It’s a right time-sink. How about that Wordle game? At least you can only play it once a day, but then did you read the articles about how to get better at it?

This may be the wrong thing to say, BUT there is value in procrastinating on the internet. So many of us scold ourselves for spending a bit too long on social media platforms, but there are great things in among the pyramid scheme promotions, political despair and, of course, cats. There are relevant blog posts, discussions, contacts being made, creativity being sparked, unknown terminology being discovered, different approaches to the same problem and the worldwide #StetWalk movement.

Teaching others

Teaching someone else how to do something that we know how to do is a fabulous way to reinforce our own knowledge. It can help us to realise how much we do know, and often highlights what we still don’t know. There is a lot of value in rewinding our understanding and trying to build up that understanding in someone else. That word you use all the time? They don’t know it. Those who learn from us can ask questions that we might never have thought of, and finding out you didn’t know what you didn’t know will be a revelation.

Writing an article

Write about what you know. Tailoring an article to the intended audience is a skill, and writing has the same benefits as teaching. For editors, writing also has the added value of building empathy towards those whose words we work with. When this article comes back from its proofreader, I will be nervous about what corrections may have been made. And once this is published, I’ll wonder about what kind of reception it will have. Receiving feedback help us to better give feedback (and give better feedback).

Continuing professional development

The skills that we need change and evolve, as do the industries we work in. Let’s welcome informal professional development into our work lives, and acknowledge that which already exists. I’ve covered the kinds of learning I’ve benefited from throughout my career – share yours in the comments.

About Abi Saffrey

Abi Saffrey is an editorial project manager, copyeditor and the CIEP’s information director. In 2022, lots of her informal CPD will come from working with her CIEP Council and information team colleagues.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: snowdrop by Kiwihug; Toronto perspective by Nadine Shaabana, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

The 2021 CIEP conference: Don’t get left behind: Career development for freelancers

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This year’s CIEP conference was held online, from 12 to 14 September. Attendees from all over the world logged on to learn and socialise with their fellow editors and proofreaders, and a number of delegates kindly volunteered to write up the sessions for us. Umber Khairi reviewed Don’t get left behind: Career development for freelancers, presented by Suzanne Collier.

Suzanne Collier is both a Careers Adviser as well as somebody with many years of experience in book publishing, so this was a very useful conference session for CIEP members – particularly those who are new to freelance work or who have recently set up their own businesses.

Suzanne said that most of the freelancers who contact her for career advice have one main question: how can we keep up to date? She said that this is a major concern because of the ‘overwhelming speed’ with which the industry is changing and technology is advancing: ‘Publishing almost got dragged into the twentieth century and is now sort of speeding through the twenty-first.’

She pointed out that freelancers can often feel isolated and invisible, so it’s easy for them to feel hard done by and get left behind. However, the key thing is to remind yourself that this is a job, your job, and you have to make an effort to update skills and keep abreast of developments within the industry. Suzanne emphasised the importance of taking responsibility for your development, and with the availability of many free resources, this does not have to be an expensive proposition.

She said that social media – despite sometimes being a ‘cesspit of hell’ – is a great resource, adding that you need to make it work for your business by finding the right people or organisations to link to. Suzanne advised that you follow publishers, individuals and organisations who are relevant to your business and then stay informed of what they talk about or do.

Suzanne also spoke about the importance of LinkedIn and gave some very clear advice on things that do not work on this platform. These include what you write in your bio: for example, she said you should not put in vague terms like ‘publishing professional’ or write ‘I help people to …’ but instead be specific and focus on keywords and skills. And don’t just wait around till people contact you via LinkedIn, but engage with others on the platform.

Suzanne reminded freelancers that they need to make an active effort to remain connected to their industry by joining networks and by knowing what is happening in their field. She recommended signing up for free news updates relating to their relevant industry, so for example, for book publishing she mentioned Bookseller, BookBrunch, Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch.

Another way of keeping abreast of what’s happening in your field is by attending events; this, she said, you should regard as CPD. At this point in the talk, we learned that many years ago Suzanne was a certified aerobics instructor and she cited the example of being required to have a certain number of hours of training/teaching to keep her aerobics accreditation updated. Freelancers, she said, should use this same logic and invest the time and money needed to attend events like book fairs or conferences – in other words, treat this as part of keeping their ‘accreditation’ current. She said book fairs were a great place to see ‘what was going on and who’s who’ and to meet people in the profession. She mentioned that the Frankfurt Book Fair might be partly virtual this year, so that may be a good opportunity for many people who might otherwise not be able to attend.

Suzanne also pointed out that being thorough in one’s work should extend to researching potential clients as well as industry trends. She said freelancers need to know what is happening in, say, a particular publishing house or genre and suggested making regular visits to bookshops and libraries to see what’s being produced, what it looks like in the finished form and how it’s being marketed.

In terms of free resources, Suzanne mentioned Google Digital Garage (where you can get free online certification for Google products), Codecademy and Coursera and said it was a good idea to check what was available in terms of Adobe training and also to check out the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) Skills Hub. Here, she also said that although the LinkedIn training, Lynda is paid-for training, free trials of this are often available so it’s worth checking on this.

The main thing that Suzanne stressed throughout this conference session was that keeping up to date is not just about updating your tech skills, it is about keeping informed and aware of what is happening in your industry – of the trends (whether in terms of tech or genre), debates, products and other developments – and looking for resources and networks that can inform and educate you. She also identified podcasts as a very useful resource and gave the example of the Extraordinary Business Book Club as one such podcast. Suzanne herself has a weekly careers podcast on her website Bookcareers.com and she recommended that, as an editing and proofreading professional, you should look for, and identify, podcasts that are relevant to your work.

Later on in the session, she answered a question many of us ponder: ‘How important is having a niche area to one’s career progression and opportunities?’ Suzanne’s view was that while this could help you in some ways it could also hinder you and that it was probably better to ‘have some niche areas but also to keep editorial skills transferable’.

This was an inspiring session as it was a reminder of the many advantages of being a freelancer – you get to design and direct your CPD and develop your networks with no office politics or annoying boss being involved! However, as Suzanne Collier made clear in her talk, you do need to be proactive in this and not let yourself become complacent.

Umber Khairi is a new CIEP member and has a background in journalism (print, then news websites, then radio). She took early retirement from the BBC in 2018 and she is co-founder of the independent, journalist-owned magazine, Newsline, in Pakistan. She is a compulsive proofreader. Areas of interest include South Asia, Islamic culture, the news media, current affairs, new fiction and health and nutrition.

About the CIEP

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Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

The 2021 CIEP conference: The editing educator

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This year’s CIEP conference was held online, from 12 to 14 September. Attendees from all over the world logged on to learn and socialise with their fellow editors and proofreaders, and a number of delegates kindly volunteered to write up the sessions for us. Sheila Korol reviewed The editing educator: What you need to know about teaching editors, presented by Erin Brenner.

Feedback, kindness and humility

Feedback, kindness, and humility were just a few of the keywords that stood out in Erin Brenner’s session on what you need to know about teaching editors.

Having started her own business, Right Touch Editing, in 2005, Erin has been training other editors since 2012. So, speaking from ample first-hand experience, she presented on how teaching can lead to both more income and a deeper understanding of our own editing craft through building relationships with students.

Who’s the best editing instructor?

The first part of Erin’s session addressed knowing whether we’re ready to teach. Since editing takes time to learn, her advice was that editors should have at least two to three years of solid experience first in order to consolidate their understanding of editing procedures, tools, and publishing processes.

Since public speaking is also likely to be a skill we don’t use much in our editing lives, Erin advised on ways to gain experience and confidence in this area. This might be through recording and reviewing your presentation style, joining a group like Toastmasters, or giving short and free talks to small local groups.

A point Erin stressed early on was what she viewed as the ‘right traits’ helpful to both editing and teaching. These include:

Humility: accepting we will never be perfect and we will make mistakes
Kindness and patience: giving our students time and space to struggle and learn
Firmness: setting deadlines and teaching students to be accountable
Open-mindedness: accepting that multiple solutions exist and recognising all good work.

How do we teach?

In the second part of her session, Erin explained the importance of editors knowing not only the right content to share with students but also the means of elaborating on and organising information in a way that will help students better retain knowledge in their long-term memory. Some of the key techniques she shared for accomplishing this knowledge transfer include:

Low-stakes testing: breaking down knowledge into frequent, smaller tasks such as quizzes, skills practice, and participation to reduce student anxiety
Modelling: anonymously sharing both right and wrong work produced in the class
Giving detailed feedback: identifying and explaining problems and how to solve them
Praising: always encouraging, motivating, and building students’ confidence by frequently pointing out their correct answers.

Where to find teaching opportunities?

Compared to a few decades ago when few options existed, editors today have a multitude of teaching opportunities through several different teaching platforms, timelines, and institutions. Teaching turnover tends to be high in many regular programmes, so the demand is certainly there for interested editors. Places to look for work include colleges and universities, professional training programmes, and editing organisations. Other ideas include searching job boards, cold-calling editing programmes, or networking with instructors. Additionally, more and more editors are now creating and marketing their own individual programmes. It’s worth noting, too, that editors can always reach out to a wider range of language-related fields such as communications, journalism, and marketing.

Overall, if you’re an editor thinking of branching out into teaching, Erin’s presentation was filled with thoughtful and practical ideas to start you on your way.

Sheila Korol is from Canada and an Intermediate Member of the CIEP. An experienced English literature teacher, she lives in Hong Kong where she has set up shop as a freelance proofreader and copyeditor for independent authors, academics, and educational publishers.

Find her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Meet our members: Leona Skene

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We want you to meet our members, so we’ve asked some of them a few questions, and have found out how they started their editing career, and what they love about their work. In this post, Intermediate Member Leona Skene tells all.

Why did you choose an editorial career, and how did you get into it?

I’ve always known that I wanted to work with words and language. As a child, I was an enthusiastic reader, and I chose to study English & Scottish literature at university. I then went on to gain a certificate in Creative Writing.

It became apparent that I wasn’t ever going to become a famous novelist, and so I went on to work in unrelated fields for a number of years. After a career break to have my children, I realised that my strengths actually lay in editing and polishing other people’s work, not in creating my own.

I undertook training with the CIEP (then SfEP) in 2015. I then worked on ad hoc freelance projects, along with a regular gig as sub-editor of an events magazine, until January 2021, when I launched my own business, Intuitive Editing.

What training have you done to get your editorial career up and running?

I completed the CIEP’s Proofreading 1 and Copyediting 1 courses, and I’ve attended several useful webinars through ACES: The Society for Editing. I’m committed to further CPD through the CIEP: I completed Word for Practical Editing earlier this year, and am looking at Efficient Editing: Strategies and Tactics as my next step.

What work are you most proud of?

I take pride in all my editorial jobs, but I’ve worked on a few projects where I’ve been able to give specific advice on the Scots language, along with Scottish culture and identity. I do feel really proud of that.

What do you do if you’re struggling on a job?

I usually step back, have a bit of a breather, and try to regain perspective. I often ask for advice from colleagues in the Editors of Earth Facebook group; they’re a great bunch, with many CIEP members involved. And the editing community on Twitter is very helpful.

What does being a member of the CIEP mean to you?

Being a CIEP member is immensely important to me. Becoming a freelancer essentially means you’ve magicked up a career for yourself out of thin air – this can be wonderful, but the flip side is that it’s easy to let imposter syndrome get the better of you. There’s no line manager to provide feedback; nobody to tell you if your decisions are good ones or bad. The CIEP provides that all-important backbone of training, support and professional accreditation. I couldn’t have started my business without that.

Which editorial tasks do you enjoy the most, and why?

I love doing the first pass of an editorial job: getting the feel of the text, absorbing the author’s voice, making notes of any immediate issues that jump out. There’s a little thrill in entering the ‘world’ of a book for the first time and seeing the difference you can make to it.

Do you have any editorial pet hates?

Comma splices. My editing style is quite relaxed, but there’s something about those cheeky little baddies that rubs me up the wrong way. All comma splices are annihilated with extreme prejudice.

What has most surprised you about your editorial career?

The variety. As a relatively new editor, I’m still in the process of finding my niche and deciding which area to specialise in. I’ve been lucky enough to work on historical fiction, children’s fiction and YA, sci-fi and fantasy, and creative non-fiction. I’ve learned so much along the way, and I’m still learning!

What’s the best career advice you’ve received?

‘Under-promise and over-deliver.’ Don’t promise the world; be conservative and realistic about the service you can provide within a specific timeframe. It’s quite likely that you’ll deliver the project a little earlier than stated, which is always a nice thing for the client.

What advice do you have for people starting out on an editorial career?

I’d say that professional training is a must. It’s great to have a natural talent for spotting typos, but there’s stuff you just won’t learn unless you study it properly. Or possibly you will learn it, but it’ll take much longer.

I would recommend looking at the CIEP’s course directory or that of another recognised provider, such as the PTC. If you’re not at the stage where you want to commit to training, it’s worth joining a few Facebook or other social media-based editing groups – these can give you a general feel for the type of work editors do on a day-to-day basis. Another fantastic resource for newbie editors is Louise Harnby’s website – Louise has loads of information and how-to guides for both editors and writers.

Do you ever stop editing?

Absolutely never. I’m editing in my sleep at this point!

Finally, tell us one thing about you not related to editing

I lived in Italy for two years, and although my spoken Italian is now woeful, I still have strong feelings about pasta, pizza and the proper time of day to order a cappuccino. It’s a morning drink!

Want to meet more of our members? Head over to the Meet our members page.

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Photo credits: open books by lil_foot_; Scotland by bummelhummel; cappuccino by gadost0, all on Pixabay.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

What editors need to know when asking authors questions

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The Art of Querying, a new CIEP course, is on its way. Its creator, Gerard M-F Hill, gives
us a speedy tour through questions and queries, and what the course offers editors
and proofreaders.

Is the current King of France bald?

Questions are of many kinds, and not all of them are good questions – or even answerable.

Whatever you edit – advert, magazine, novel or research paper – you soon start asking yourself questions. What does this mean? Where did those come from? How am I supposed to know that? Is that all? Or even just: why? Of course queries should be clear and concise, but it’s good to be constructive too. What makes a good query?

Before you fire off a query, ask yourself what the problem is. You need to have a reason for asking, because the author may not think it is a problem at all. You first identify the problem by analysing what is bothering you. As a result, you will craft a better question and often you will identify an answer (or answers); then the author just needs to say yes (or no, not exactly … more like this).

Might I suggest?

As queries take up the author’s time (as well as yours), it is only common courtesy to keep them as few and as short as possible. So you need criteria to decide when to ask a question, and you also need a range of suitable formulas that you can adapt for each situation. Good questions will help to ensure that you get a usable answer.

Queries can be short, but they don’t have to be abrupt. It pays to be diplomatic. There are good ways to approach an author, to frame a question and to follow up an incomplete answer – and there are some even better ways.

Does it match the brief/blurb?

Who is this publication for? What will readers want to know? What will they expect to find? What are they expected to know already? Will they know all these facts, names, words, idioms, allusions or connections? Will they resent the presentation as either patronising or trivialising?

As an editor, you ask yourself such questions because they are a big part of the expertise that you offer and that your client is paying for. A publisher does not wish to hear of such defects from unimpressed reviewers or disenchanted readers.

Does it make sense?

What is the writer trying to say? Are they getting their message across? Does it make sense? Why is this different from that? You ask yourself such questions on behalf of the reader, who should not be left to wonder and has no way of asking the author to explain.

If it doesn’t make sense, if the plot or proposition doesn’t add up, if defective grammar is stuffed with malapropisms or other unsuitable words, the reader will soon drift off and never return. The editor aims to prevent any such crisis by smoothing the reader’s path so they can be informed, educated or entertained without being tripped up, distracted or misled.

Are you happy with this?

Where possible, make it easy for the author by presenting your query as a simple choice: A or B? This, that or the other? Would this [rewritten sentence] represent what you are saying?

Have forgotten something?

It’s easy to see that ‘you’ is missing in that sentence. It’s not so easy to spot when a whole topic or aspect of a piece, or the dénouement of a subplot, has been overlooked. The questioning editor keeps a lookout for content that the reader may be expecting, but which is not there.

Easy questions

Why is water wet? This penetrating question from a thoughtful child nonetheless demonstrates that ‘the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer’, though children are not fools. The saying is often attributed to King James I and VI.

In checking the reference (as all good authors should) I found to my surprise that the aphorism did not come from the wisest fool in Christendom, but from Charles Caleb Colton’s Lacon, published in 1820. In non-fiction, references – inadequate, unconvincing, mangled or missing – usually generate half your queries.

Here’s the answer!

Between 2010 and 2019 I regularly ran a session at the SfEP conference on The Art of Querying, and since then I have been expanding this workshop into an online course. It begins with the whole question of questions. For a start, what do you need to ask yourself? Can your author query be answered at all? Is there only one way to answer it? Could it be misinterpreted? Does the text assume the answer to an unspoken question?

The course next looks at questions to ask the project manager, with a checklist, and how and when to approach the author, with examples of how to do it and what not to do. This section discusses practicalities, from typefaces to time zones, alongside the principles and professional ethics that underlie all editorial queries. It Looks Funny examines your five options before you ask anything, followed by advice on formulating queries and notes, with six rules to help you.

Readers struggle with four major problems – inconsistency, ambiguity, omission and error – and each of these topics has a whole section of the course to itself. Different types of content have their own pitfalls, so there are sections devoted to prelims, narrative and argument, vocabulary and terminology, references, tables and artwork.

The Art of Querying is meant to be instructive, stimulating and enjoyable while extending your editing knowledge and skills, with lots of questions (and answers), well over a hundred real-life examples, copious but concise study notes and a variety of exercises to let you think through different solutions, along with a decision tool to determine whether and what to query, six rules you can follow and a dozen checklists for you to download and use. The Art of Querying is also (I hope) a good read and good fun!

Find out more about The Art of Querying

About Gerard M-F Hill

After several years teaching and 16 years driving heavy lorries, Gerard retrained as an indexer and copyeditor. Since 1990 he has worked on over 500 books and mentored over 100 proofreaders.

As a director of SfEP (2007–16) he devised the basic editorial test used by CIEP and as chartership adviser (2016–20) he worked with the chair, Sabine Citron, to obtain the institute’s Royal Charter.

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Photo credits: question mark by Emily Morter; Answers 1km by Hadija Saidi, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

The CIEP Curriculum for Professional Development

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The CIEP’s training director, Jane Moody, has been working closely with directors, tutors and the wider membership to create a curriculum for professional development. In this post, Jane explains:

why we need a curriculum
what that curriculum covers
how the curriculum works.

Do we need a curriculum?

Yes, we do! Most professional organisations have a set of skills and knowledge that you need to understand or at least know something about to call yourself a professional in their area. Some test their members on this set of skills (physiotherapists and accountants, for example) before they can call themselves members of their professional body. All expect their members to refresh their skills and learning against this skill set periodically. Continuing professional development, CPD, is expected of all members, no matter their status in the organisation, and this is true of copyeditors and proofreaders as well.

We, as editors and proofreaders, now also have a framework of study – the CIEP Curriculum for Professional Development.

What does it cover?

At first glance, you might think that you won’t need to know about everything in the curriculum. Have a closer look, though. Any publishing professional needs a basic grounding in publishing ethics and law – even if you only scratch the surface, you should at least know something about the moral rights of authors, plagiarism and copyright. If you work as a freelance editor/proofreader, you are running your own business, so you need to know something about keeping records, what HMRC needs to know about you, and how to work efficiently. You will have your own equipment, so a basic knowledge of how to manage your files and keep them secure is essential for your own and your clients’ peace of mind. That takes you to the end of Domain 1 of the curriculum: Working as a professional.

You may be working in-house in a company and, if so, there will be some aspects of business management and practice that may not be immediately relevant to you. The knowledge in this area will, however, be useful to most members working in our profession today.

Even if you never work for a ‘traditional’ publisher with an editorial department, a production department and a marketing department, you will need to understand the basics of a publishing workflow. There are good reasons why some tasks are done before or after others. The more you understand about the industry and its processes, the wider your client base can be and the more useful you can be to your clients.

Working with words means that you need a good knowledge of the English language and its mechanics, and how different people, groups and organisations use the language. You need to be able to judge whether something makes sense, is clear and appropriate for the audience, and to be able to raise queries with an author or client in a concise and sensitive manner.

How you work is critical to getting repeat business – do a good job and you may pick up a regular client; do what you think you need to without learning about how and why and you are not likely to be asked for a second date. The nuts and bolts of copyediting and proofreading processes have been refined over many decades and, no matter who you work for, understanding what you are doing, who for and why matters if you want to do the best job you can. And now you are at the end of Domain 2.

Not all editors/proofreaders will use all the skills and knowledge included in these two domains of the curriculum in their day-to-day work. Nevertheless, as you grow in skills and experience, you are likely to want to broaden your awareness of publishing processes and the breadth of publishing outside your initial comfort zone. Developing your knowledge and acquiring a broad range of skills are essential CPD.

Some people prefer to remain as ‘generalists’, working for many different clients in several genres and subject areas. If this is true for you, you may never need to consult Domain 3. Others like to specialise, some in traditional areas where there is a body of specialist publishing, such as medicine, music, fiction or the law. Each of these specialist areas has its own conventions, specialist knowledge and terminology. Domain 3 covers a few of these specialisms and others will be added – if there is a specialism that you think should be included, copy the template at the start of Domain 3 (page 28), fill it in and send it to the training director.

How it works

Each domain of the curriculum is set out in columns. The first column divides the domain into detailed topics. The second column shows the competencies, professional skills and attitudes expected of a professional copyeditor/proofreader for this topic, and the third lists some resources to support learning in this area. Eventually, there will be a fourth column, which will list the ways in which a copyeditor/proofreader can demonstrate their competency in this area – a test pass or other kind of assessment, perhaps. This is an aspiration for the future.

We hope that you will contribute to keeping the curriculum alive. Have you taken a course that helped to expand your knowledge and skills? Have you come across a book or other resource that is really useful to you in your practice? Do tell the training director about it.

Download the curriculum now

About Jane Moody

Jane has worked with books for all her working life (which is rather more years than she cares to admit), having started life as a librarian. She started a freelance editing business while at home with her two children, which she maintained for 15 years before going back into full-time employment as head of publishing for a medical Royal College.

Now retired, she has resurrected her editorial business, but has less time for work these days as she spends much time with her four grandchildren and in her garden.

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Photo credits: book stacks by by Lysander Yuen on Unsplash; cogs by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

Forum matters: Developing as a professional

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This feature comes from the band of CIEP members who volunteer as forum moderators. You will only be able to access links to the posts if you’re a forum user and logged in. Find out how to register.

In this article, one CIEP forum moderator looks at how we can improve our professional practice by:

networking
learning
reading
communicating
relaxing.

Start with networking

We all know the basic things we need to be an effective editor:

Training? Check.
Membership of a professional organisation? Check.
A sparkling website? Check.
Social media profiles? Check.

But there’s another, more nebulous side to improving our professional practice. Learning, reading and communicating are all ways to develop, although they may not be measurable on a balance sheet. The CIEP forums offer various suggestions, once again underlining the value of networking. If you have a question, however obscure it is, post it on the forum. You can bet that someone will know something (while others will offer a different perspective), and you will learn a lot from the helpful, supportive and knowledgeable answers posted by CIEP members.

Learn

You could consider mentoring – see ‘Advice on website and mentoring’. This doesn’t have to be editorial mentoring. Do you want to learn how to raise your rates and have more time to do things other than work, but you’re not sure how to go about it? Then business mentoring could be for you.

Form an accountability group – the blog ‘Accountability groups: What? Where? Why?’ talks about finding like-minded colleagues for support and encouragement.

Take up voluntary work – this could be related to your editing business, but it doesn’t have to be. CIEP members responded to ‘Tell us about your volunteer work!’ with their experiences of a wide range of organisations, including a church, a zoo and a nature reserve. You can make a genuine difference to a charity or not-for-profit organisation by, for example, removing typos, errors or repetition from their website, or by rewriting a funding letter. Volunteering doesn’t just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling; it also helps your communication skills, as you may be working with people who don’t usually use editorial professionals.

Read

I know, right? We spend all day reading other people’s words, but reading is the best way to find out more and to make yourself more attractive to clients (see the suggestions all over the forums).

You can go at your own speed and choose what you want to read. If you’re thinking about branching out into fiction editing, how about How Not to Write a Novel (Mittelmark and Newman, Penguin, 2009) or John Yorke’s Into the Woods (Penguin, 2014)? If you work on children’s books, then how about Cheryl B. Klein’s The Magic Words (W. W. Norton & Co., 2016)? Want to find out about self-editing tools to help your fiction authors? Then Self-editing for Fiction Writers (Browne and King, Harper Resource, 2004) ticks the box. History, with a feminist slant? A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray (Oneworld, 2016). To generally improve your writing style: Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style (Penguin, 2015). Whatever you’d like to know, there will be a book – or hundreds – to help, and I bet that everything you learn will come in handy during editing – one day.

Still on the topic of reading, if you don’t have time for a book, then how about a blog post? Almost a year ago, Melanie Thompson started ‘Blog post corner’, which includes links to some great blogs all about the softer side of professionalism, such as Hazel Bird’s ‘How to be a trustworthy freelancer’. Some of Hazel’s top tips are: ask sensible questions; offer solutions, not problems; admit your fallibility; don’t overreach; anticipate surprises; check in without being asked; and build on the past.

Want to know what the best time-tracking software is? Then read ‘Keeping track of time worked’. Want to make notes and save paper? Check out ‘Paperless notes’.

Communicate

Communication is an essential ‘soft’ skill. Editors are generally good communicators, but lockdown has been stressful for many, perhaps making us a bit snappier than usual, and we should be mindful of this when we’re communicating with clients and other editors. We’d all rather do business with someone who’s pleasant, happy and upbeat than someone who is snappy, rude and downbeat. Perusing the forums is a good lesson in supportive communication (with the odd tutorial in soft diplomacy, if you look carefully enough!).

After all that, relax

Exercise is essential for physical and mental health. If we sit at our desk all day, we get sleepy, cross and lethargic. If we take a break, we return to work invigorated and energised. ‘Self-care ideas’ contains fantastic suggestions to help us wind down and relax, including meditation, mindfulness and getting out in nature. For a virtual breath of fresh air, keep up with the ever-popular ‘Wildlife distraction of the day’.

On that note, I’ve been sitting at my desk all day, the sun is shining and I can hear birds tweeting outside. Time for a walk. It’s good for my professional development.

Networking; learning; reading; communicating; relaxing. What will you try?

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Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

A week in the life of a development editor

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Harriet Power gives us an insight into her typical working week, with a focus on development editing.

This article covers:

what the job of a development editor involves
the typical process for a textbook
the typical process for a professional development book
marketing and professional development.

I began my editorial career in-house, and very much learned how to development edit on the job. I was never given any formal training; instead I learned through a mix of instinct and informal guidance over the course of eight years working for educational publishers like OUP and Pearson. My last in-house position was as a development editor for OUP, where I mainly developed GCSE humanities textbooks.

I went freelance in 2017. Since then most of my work has been for educational publishers, though I’ve also started to work on prescriptive non-fiction over the past year or so.

I really enjoy development editing. I love getting stuck into a manuscript to make sure it really works. I love that combination of creativity and logic needed to solve any problems. I love working closely with authors and feeling like I’ve made a real difference.

What my job involves

For non-fiction, development editing all comes down to the simple question of does this book deliver what the reader wants? In this way I think it’s actually quite objective.

I developed my first book a few months into my first job as an editorial assistant. (This was for a small publisher where editorial assistants basically did everything and you really had to hit the ground running.) I was given minimal guidance and hardly had a clue what I was doing … except instinct meant that I did. Because we all know what makes a good textbook, having relied on them over six or so years of schooling. So I started asking questions like, ‘Does this chapter give enough detail to answer an exam question on this?’, ‘Is this explanation too difficult for GCSE students to understand?’ and ‘Are these checkpoint questions unambiguous and answerable?’

It turns out these were the right sorts of questions to ask, and I still rely on them today.

When a textbook lands on my desk

When I’m asked to develop a textbook manuscript, it typically arrives with a whole host of extra documents: my brief, the author brief, the syllabus, a sample design, a sensitivity checklist, etc. So I spend a bit of time reading through all of this, trying to get the project clear in my head, and then make a list of things I need to check for each chapter (or even each double-page spread). The main purpose of this checklist is to make sure the author’s done what the author brief asks of them. (Which in turn implies the book delivers what the reader wants.)

The checklist might cover things like:

word count (is there too much material or not enough?)
spec match (does the book cover everything on the syllabus?)
features (has the author included the right number of features – like exam tips, discussion points, etc – and are they treated consistently?)
activity questions (are they answerable; have answers been provided, and do they actually answer the questions?)
artworks/images (are they appropriate, relevant, varied; are there the right number?).

Then I’ll work through each spread or chapter checking everything off. I might also do a fair bit of line editing, particularly where the text is unclear or unobjective. I’ll probably end up doing some fact-checking (even though it’s not an official part of the job), and I’ll keep an eye out for anything that could potentially cause offence and flag this up (even though there might also be a separate sensitivity review).

The development edits I do for publishers always include querying the author and taking in their revisions as part of the job. On some days, it feels like quite a lot of my time is spent wording diplomatic queries. Sometimes I have to ask an author to do a lot of work (without the publisher paying them any more for it), and they can’t simply say ‘no thank you I’d rather not’ in the same way an indie client can.

So even though it slows me down, I’m always careful in explaining why a major edit is important. I try to provide solutions/suggested rewrites, because I know the authors are busy (most of them are practising teachers). And the more help and direction I give, the more likely the author won’t go off-piste. That’s important when I have to take in their responses. I’ve found over the years that being really clear about what you want, and giving specific examples of what’s needed, helps to mean the revisions you get back are more likely to be on target.

One thing I really enjoy about development editing textbooks is trying to make sure controversial topics are covered in a balanced, objective way. This might mean being very careful over the wording of a spread on euthanasia, for example. So even though development editing is largely about ‘bigger picture’ stuff, I still have to focus on individual sentences or even words. For example, to make sure the wording of a list of arguments for and against euthanasia doesn’t accidentally make it look as if we’re favouring one side over the other.

When a professional development book lands on my desk

Another week, one of my publishers might hand me a professional development book where the brief is much less detailed (often amounting to little more than ‘can you edit this one please?’). This might easily turn into a combined development edit and copyedit. Basically, I’ll do a copyedit but if a manuscript has bigger issues then I’ll also point these out and help the author to fix them. So here I don’t have a prescribed checklist, as such, but I’ll ask questions like:

Is there enough detail to be able to take this advice away and act on it yourself? (One book I worked on almost doubled in size to make sure we’d answered that question.)
Does the book answer the question it sets out to solve? (One book ended up with a different title as a result.)
Does this book explain everything in a way that a beginner can understand?
Is the overall argument logical and persuasive?

I find development editing to be the most ‘thinky’ work that I do. You have to hold the whole book in your head in a way that isn’t so necessary with copyediting or proofreading. Edits can be more complex (and explaining why they’re so necessary can require careful thought). So I’m happy when I get weeks where I can switch it up with a bit of copyediting or proofreading or something else for light relief.

Marketing and professional development

Until the pandemic hit, I’m ashamed to say I put minimal effort into marketing and not much more into professional development. But that’s changed over the past six months or so. Now I try to set aside an hour a day for one or the other.

Last year I decided it might be a good idea to do some proper training in development editing (better late than never, right?). I couldn’t find much on offer but did sign up to EFA’s 8-week course on non-fiction development editing, which was really great. I also bought Scott Norton’s classic, Developmental Editing (which I still need to finish).

This year I’ve been working my way through a small pile of craft books on how to write non-fiction. I’d definitely recommend reading craft books if you want to get into development editing – they really help you to understand how good books work and what they should contain. Three I’d particularly recommend for non-fiction are:

Rob Fitzpatrick’s Write Useful Books. (This really changed my mindset on how to write great prescriptive non-fiction, and I’ve got quite evangelical about it.)
Ginny Carter’s Your Business, Your Book. (This’ll give you a really solid grounding in the elements that make up a strong professional development book.)
Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato’s Thinking Like Your Editor. (Twenty years old but full of interesting, still relevant ‘insider’ advice on what publishers are looking for from ‘serious’ trade non-fiction.)

Summing up

This article has covered:

training and career paths to development editing
typical working processes
marketing and professional development for development editors.

About Harriet Power

Harriet Power is an education and non-fiction editor, a Professional Member of the CIEP, and co-author of four GCSE Religious Studies revision guides (this last one was a surprise even to her). She worked in-house for eight years before going freelance in 2017.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: handdrawn lightbulb by Mark Fletcher-Brown; Together, we create! by “My Life Through A Lens”, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.