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    The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)
    The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)
    The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)
    Ebook131 pages2 hours

    The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)

    By Carol Saller

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Each year writers and editors submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Some are arcane, some simply hilarious—and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one of them. All too often she notes a classic author-editor standoff, wherein both parties refuse to compromise on the "rights" and "wrongs" of prose styling: "This author is giving me a fit." "I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma at all times." "My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face."

    In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller casts aside this adversarial view and suggests new strategies for keeping the peace. Emphasizing habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility, she shows copy editors how to build an environment of trust and cooperation. One chapter takes on the difficult author; another speaks to writers themselves. Throughout, the focus is on serving the reader, even if it means breaking "rules" along the way. Saller’s own foibles and misadventures provide ample material: "I mess up all the time," she confesses. "It’s how I know things."

    Writers, Saller acknowledges, are only half the challenge, as copy editors can also make trouble for themselves. (Does any other book have an index entry that says "terrorists. See copy editors"?) The book includes helpful sections on e-mail etiquette, work-flow management, prioritizing, and organizing computer files. One chapter even addresses the special concerns of freelance editors.

    Saller’s emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many copy editors who have absorbed, along with the dos and don’ts of their stylebooks, an attitude that their way is the right way. In encouraging copy editors to banish their ignorance and disorganization, insecurities and compulsions, the Chicago Q&A presents itself as a kind of alter ego to the comparatively staid Manual of Style. In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller continues her mission with audacity and good humor.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateAug 1, 2009
    ISBN9780226734101
    The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)

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    Reviews for The Subversive Copy Editor

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      So, I am in the middle of copyediting--for remuneration!--a first book. Although I think I can do it (having done it before on a volunteer basis), my confidence is waning. It is taking longer than I expected. The author is rebelling over using what I consider "standard English." Like every sentence should generally, though not always, contain subject, object, and a verb.Suddenly I find this book. It tells me I'm not alone. It tells me I'm in good company. It gives great web site addresses. I want to send a copy to "my" author!Thank you Ms. Saller!
    • 4/5
      I'd been following this blog via Facebook, and decided to get the book that went with it. I'm glad I did. It is a book of advice for copy editors and those who would be copy editors, rather than advice about how to edit a specific piece. Each chapter opens with one or more of the questions that are sent to the Chicago Manual of Style's question blog, and closes with the answer to the questions. Between the question and the answer is the substance of the chapter, about how to attack problems with manuscripts, colleagues, authors, and yourself. A lot of the advice works well for pretty much any desk job, though it is clearly focussed on the special challenges of being a copy editor. Am I a copy editor? No, but I read friends' manuscripts and offer corrections, and also read my own to see what can be done to improve it. This had good advice on those fronts. This is a slim volume, a quick read, but full of good advice about this career, and about an attitude towards balancing work and the rest of your life. Enjoyable!
    • 5/5
      A fabulous guide for anyone who works with words, authors, manuscripts, and other types of copy. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Both amusing and useful.
    • 5/5
      Highly recommended for all of us who work with words.

      This book is a great read on a topic important to wordsmiths (or it ought to be, especially for those who've never understood what editors do to their copy).

      This book is perhaps the most useful books on editing I've encountered (and I have read or owned at least half the books in the bibiliography). Written by a staffer at the University of Chicago, it looks at all the myriad problems and tasks of copy editing with a very light sense of humor. I enjoyed this book from the start, as the cover treatment apes a raw manuscript as it would have hit my desk when I was an editor.
    • 4/5
      For a copyeditor or for someone looking to become one, this little book has a wealth of handy information about the work, systems, processes, and people involved in most putting out almost any kind of publication. It is a book about taking the best approach to the inherent problems in the work of copyediting, and how to avoid the common pitfalls. I skipped most of the second half of the book, because I simply don't work at that level of editing anymore, and while I can see the value in the kinds of things the author discusses, they don't need to be read carefully by anyone who does not plan to put them to practical use. The first half of the book, however, provides many general tips that can be used by editor and writers and most levels. I particularly liked her advice on promoting one's edits in an effective manner, avoiding dogmatic approaches to style, and working in a manner that inspires trust in one's authors.
    • 4/5
      A fun and educational read, even for a marketing person. Recommended for anyone in publishing or interested in publishing.

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