Tag Archives: CIEP resources

Resources round-up: Style

Welcome to this round-up of resources compiled by the CIEP. This time, we look at style – specifically, style sheets and style guides. We have divided our picks into:

  • General advice on style
  • CIEP guides
  • From style sheet to language guide
  • Academic publishing
  • Faith-based publishing
  • Fiction
  • Non-traditional publishing
  • Changing styles

General advice on style

If you possess a general handbook about editing, it’s a good place to start when considering style. Chapter 6 of Butcher’s Copy-editing (Cambridge University Press, 2014) covers house style; Part II of Einsohn and Schwartz’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook (University of California Press, 2019) is dedicated to editorial style, and style sheets are covered in its section on basic procedures. If you’d like to consider style in a more holistic way, it’s covered sensibly by Carol Fisher Saller, who was chief copyeditor of the Chicago Manual of Style’s 16th edition, in her essay ‘What copyeditors do’ (in What Editors Do, edited by Peter Ginna, Chicago University Press, 2017), and in her own book The Subversive Copy Editor (Chicago University Press, 2016).

CIEP guides

Style is a thread that runs through editing and proofreading, which is why it’s covered in many CIEP guides. Editing Scientific and Medical Research Articles dedicates a chapter to scientific style, from terminology to capitalisation and abbreviation. The chapter on copyediting in Getting Started in Fiction Editing covers style sheets and the importance of consistency. How to Edit Cookery Books is a great illustration of how defining style is integral to editing specialist texts: in cookery books, for example, keeping to one style for measurements is particularly important. Editing for Communications Professionals, on editing for businesses and other organisations, gives tips on defining a house style, and the Your House Style guide is entirely dedicated to creating a house style. Remember, if you’re a CIEP member you can access these guides for free.

From style sheet to language guide

Certain key style guides have become widely used as sources of advice on language and grammar too. New Hart’s Rules (Oxford University Press, 2014), the Oxford style guide, is one example, as is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). Now in its 17th edition, the CMOS can be purchased in thumpingly large hard copy (University of Chicago, 2017), or as an online version.

It’s worth noting the origins of such giants of style and language advice. As you can read in the preface of New Hart’s Rules, Horace Henry Hart, after whom Hart’s Rules and then New Hart’s Rules were named, was the head of Oxford University Press for many decades until 1915. The first Hart’s Rules was intended for the press’s staff and was only 24 pages long. In ‘What copyeditors do’, Carol Fisher Saller writes about how the Chicago Manual of Style began:

A single style sheet might also be developed for a series of related projects. A successful style sheet might evolve into a company style manual. (The now thousand-page Chicago Manual of Style got its start in exactly that way at the University of Chicago Press.)

Academic publishing

The Chicago Manual of Style and New Hart’s Rules can be useful when defining style in academic texts; however, you may need a more specialised guide. The resources section of Editing Scientific and Medical Research Articles lists guides from such organisations as the American Institute of Physics (AIP Style Manual), the American Mathematical Society (AMS Author Handbook), the American Medical Association (AMA Manual of Style, whose website includes quizzes), the American Psychological Association (APA Style) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Editorial Style Manual). If you’re editing in the humanities, the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA Style Guide) also provides advice, as does the Modern Language Association (MLA Handbook).

By the way, if you’re editing journal articles, the very best place to go is the website of the journal itself, which is likely to include notes for authors and editors. Similarly, with academic books, it’s likely that the publisher will have a style guide, so if you don’t already have it, ask for it.

If you’re looking for advice on styling citations and references, Cite Them Right by Richard Pears and Graham Shields (Red Globe Press, 2019) gives the rules on a number of academic styles, from Harvard, APA and Chicago to IEEE, MHRA, MLA and Vancouver. The current 11th edition covers how to cite some unusual sources, from Snapchat to sewing patterns.

woman studying with books

Faith-based publishing

Sometimes academic publishing, sometimes non-traditional publishing, faith-based texts also need a clear style on elements like capitalisation of key terms and how to cite scripture. Erin Brenner’s 2021 article on the ACES blog ‘Dealing with religious terms: One faith’ includes links to religious style guides.

Fiction

Style in fiction covers the consistency of the fictional world the author has created, including characters, geography and timelines, so there’s a lot to consider. Crystal Shelley provides a useful introduction in ‘Style sheets: What they are and how to use them’. This blog includes a template adapted from Louise Harnby’s style sheet template for fiction. Fiction editor Kristen Tate’s recent blog ‘What is a style sheet?’ is also worth a read.

If you’re a fiction editor, it may well be worth getting your hands on Amy J Schneider’s Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (Chicago University Press, 2023) – its entire Part II is dedicated to building your fiction style sheet.

Non-traditional publishing

When you’re building a style guide for a non-traditional publisher like a business or another organisation, you can learn a lot from a simple trawl of the websites of your colleagues, stakeholders, associates and competitors. What do they capitalise? How do they present numbers and statistics? Larger organisations like the Local Government Association and Shelter may even have a section on their website dedicated to house style. The UK Government’s style guide is free to view online, and includes details of updates so you can see what’s changed between visits.

Many news organisations make their style guides available, from the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook to the BBC’s and The Guardian’s A–Z guidelines, free on the web. If you want your style to follow that of The Economist or The Times, you can buy their style guides in book form, in the Economist Style Guide, 12th edition (Economist Books, 2018) and The Times Style Guide: A practical guide to English usage (Times Books, 2022).

Changing styles

Finally, take a look at ‘Chicago Style Then and Now’ which describes Chicago style as it was in 1906. This first-edition Chicago style included an em space (three times a single space) between sentences; apostrophes with plurals; and semicolons inside quote marks. A useful reminder that style is always evolving, so make sure you arm yourself with the latest guidelines.

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.

Find out more about:

 

Photo credits: header image by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash, woman studying with books by SHVETS production on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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

Resources round-up: Self-publishing

Welcome to this round-up of resources compiled by the CIEP. This time, we look at self-publishing and working with independent authors. We have divided our picks into:

  • websites
  • blogs
  • a book and some guides.

Websites

This is a great time to be looking into working in self-publishing and with independent authors because of the sheer number of resources in this area that have built up in the last few years. The website of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is almost unbelievably useful. ALLi offers a regular podcast that covers a wide range of topics, and two web pages – ‘AskALLi: Self-Publishing Advice You Can Trust’ and the ALLi blog – that are a goldmine for anyone working, or hoping to work, in self-publishing. The blog is divided into 16 categories, including editorial, design and formatting, production and distribution, international insights, and writing.

Another useful website is Jane Friedman’s. Friedman commissions colleagues to write regular blogs on topics that are mostly relevant to self-publishing writers, but that editorial professionals working with these writers will want to dive into as well. These blogs are particularly strong on bigger-picture aspects of fiction like narrative arc and viewpoint, as well as the business aspects of being an independent writer, such as promotion. One particularly useful, and long, resource on this website is ‘The Comprehensive Guide to Finding, Hiring, and Working with an Editor’ by Chantel Hamilton, a non-fiction developmental editor.

Blogs

Blogs offer glimpses into different perspectives, and this is particularly true of blogs about self-publishing which aim to help different people at different stages of a complex process. Fiction editor Sophie Playle covers self-publishing from the viewpoint of writers on her own blog (‘Preparing your novel for self-publishing’) and of editors on the CIEP blog (‘Working with self-publishing authors: Expectations and implementation’). Also on the CIEP blog, Helen Jones considers the benefits of using an editor if you’re writing a business book, and Averill Buchanan writes from the perspective of a book production specialist.

On the AFEPI blog, Louise Harnby suggests 4 ways to get noticed by indie crime fiction and thriller writers if you’re an editorial professional, and Laura Bontje for the Editors Canada blog covers editing for authors on a budget, which can be a useful skill in the self-publishing world. Finally, Siobhán Prendergast at Dingle Publishing Services offers a completely different perspective – self-publishing as an act of defiance – reminding us that writers from Jane Austen to Walt Whitman self-published their work.

A book and some guides

At first glance, Richard Bradburn’s Self-Editing for Self-Publishers would seem to be doing editorial professionals out of a job, but many editors have found it useful, including Sophie Playle, who has reviewed it on her website. Playle says that Bradburn, a professional editor, ‘makes an excellent case as to why the best method for self-publishing authors would be to take their manuscript as far as they can on their own, then hire a professional’. She actively recommends the book to fiction editors ‘as it provides such an excellent overview of how a manuscript should be treated during the publication process, as well as giving the editor a wider understanding of the author’s role in shaping their work’.

What helps the writer helps the editor, which in turn helps the writer. So ALLi’s seven publishing guides for indie authors, including 150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered, based on AskALLi’s gathered advice, are also a help and resource for the editing community. Finally, Alison Shakspeare’s CIEP guide, How to Work with Self-Publishers: Editing, proofreading and other considerations, ‘for practising editors who want to develop their support of self-publishing authors, in fiction and non-fiction’ empowers editorial professionals with the skills and knowledge to guide authors to self-publishing success.

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.
Find out more about:

 

Photo credits: kindle by felipepelaquim on Unsplash, Jane Austen books by Leah Kelley on Pexels.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

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

Resources round-up: Non-book formats

Welcome to this round-up of resources compiled by the CIEP. This time, we look at working with non-book formats, from board games to corporate communications. We have divided our picks into:

  • free CIEP resources
  • one great book
  • blogs and websites.

Free CIEP resources

A dive into the archives of the CIEP blog gives you a taste of the strange and wonderful formats that can be edited, including multiple-choice questions (there’s even a new free fact sheet about this) and puzzles.

We all learn from applying editorial principles to content beyond books, and this enriches our editing if and when we edit books again – although who would blame us for deciding to edit puzzles forever? Rachel Lapidow, who wrote for us about how creating style sheets for role-playing games (RPGs) could shed light on fiction editing, describes how she used a style sheet from her own editorial training at the University of California, San Diego, as a basis for the style sheets she developed for the games she worked on. She recalls how her knowledge and practice came full circle: ‘One of my instructors from UC San Diego asked me to share one of my RPG style sheets for her to use in her class. It’s a bit surreal to imagine future copyeditors looking at a style sheet I created while they’re learning how to utilise this tool. But it’s also pretty darn cool.’

Corporate communications can be cool, too, of course. The CIEP blog has articles about corporate editing, business content, brand voice and how to work with SEO if you’re an editor or a proofreader.

One great book

Unlike the CIEP blog, our book pick isn’t free; however, it’s well worth its £30 price tag. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A guide for book publishing and corporate communications by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz (read the CIEP review of this handbook and the accompanying workbook) is packed with useful information about what copyediting is and how to do it. It’s as relevant for copyediting business content as it is for copyediting traditional books, as the authors make clear in the introduction: ‘Copyediting is one step in the iterative process by which a manuscript is turned into a final published document (e.g., a book, an annual corporate report, a newsletter, a web document).’

The Copyeditor’s Handbook is written from a US perspective, but wherever you are in the world, if you’re working on corporate content it will help you. Just break out the sticky notes and spend time familiarising yourself with which of its chapters and sections you’ll need, as it’s dense and detailed.

Book marked with sticky notes

Blogs and websites

Words pop up everywhere, and where there are words, there is editing and proofreading (or there should be, for best results). Blogs from editing associations and dictionaries have covered formats as diverse as comic strips, association magazines and surveys.

More useful, sometimes, are articles on issues that are likely to come up when editing and proofreading non-book formats. For editors of websites and other formats that cite URLs, there’s practical advice on taming messy URLs from the Chicago Manual of Style, and information on how web design and branding choices can affect a reader’s ability to access text from ProCopywriters.

Working with contributing writers can be a challenge in business editing. Alison Harmer offers ten tips for keeping corporate communications on track; and June Casagrande makes a convincing case for using plain language, just in case you’re dealing with contributors who are fond of writing in a flowery manner.

As a general principle, if you’re editing beyond traditional books, make sure you look beyond traditional editing blogs. The Web Accessibility Initiative is excellent. The extensive ProCopywriters blog is absolutely free, written by people who write for a living and want to showcase their skills, and gives great tips on areas such as structuring online content, cutting fillers in writing and tone of voice that will be particularly useful if you’re editing business content.

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.

Find out more about:

 

Photo credits: comic books by Eric Mclean on Unsplash, book marked with sticky notes by cottonbro studio on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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

What resources does the CIEP offer?

The CIEP offers a wide range of support and professional development material on proofreading and copyediting. In this post the Institute’s information team summarises the resources available to our members and to the public.

Here’s what we’ll be looking at in this post.

  • CIEP resources
  • guides
  • fact sheets
  • focus papers
  • the CIEP blog
  • newsletters and
  • what’s coming up in 2022

CIEP resources

Our information team works with experienced editorial professionals and industry leaders to provide trusted advice and practical knowhow on working with English language texts. These range from tips on getting started, gleaned from practitioners’ years of experience, to the fine details of editorial markup and proofreading etiquette, plus insights into evolving usage and when to recognise it’s an ‘it depends’ situation rather than a rule of grammar.

Guides

Our guides provide a basic introduction to the various skills and knowledge needed to work as an editorial professional. Digital versions of all the guides are free for CIEP members. They encompass such diverse subjects as editing cookery books, pricing freelance projects, working with self-publishers, and editing scientific research articles.

 

 

Fact sheets

Fact sheets are brief introductions to a topic or issue related to practical aspects of editing or proofreading, or working as an editor or proofreader. They aren’t comprehensive but give tips related to the topic and a list of further resources. There are currently over 20 factsheets and the number is growing; topics range from macros and gendered language to scope creep and emotional wellbeing.

Editors work on all kinds of text, from marketing materials, theses and reports to blogs and websites. However, a core area of work for many editors is still books, for print or online publication. All books are different, but many adhere to a standard basic structure. This helps the author and the publisher order the information, but more importantly it helps the reader navigate the finished book, making it a truly useful and accessible resource.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Anatomy of a book

As soon as you agree to take on work for a client, or to complete a task for a colleague, you are under an obligation to ensure the work is completed as agreed. But whether you are a business owner or an employee you will always have other tasks on your to-do list: juggling expectations and moving deadlines, managing yourself and others, chasing invoices and marketing your services, as well as coping with personal matters that may have an impact on your capacity to work. Do you have a plan for how to cope if disaster strikes?

MEMBER RESOURCE: Building a business resilience and disaster plan

Focus papers

Focus papers explore an aspect of the English language or editorial practice that:

  • challenges assumptions
  • offers a new perspective on, illuminates or addresses a problem
  • helps readers better understand the value of professional editing, either their own practice or as potential users of editorial services (or both!).

They are written by well-known and expert names in their field, including CIEP honorary president David Crystal, linguist Rob Drummond and editor Sarah Grey.

If only the whole world had a language in common, war could be avoided. Thatʼs what LL Zamenhof thought when he developed Esperanto in 1887. Esperanto wasnʼt meant to replace anyoneʼs home language, but it would create a common ground for people from different backgrounds. It would make communication easier and more direct, reducing the need for go-betweens like translators and interpreters.

FREE RESOURCE: In a globalised world, should we retain different Englishes? by Lynne Murphy

Serendipitously, just hours after the CIEP asked me to write about whom, an email landed in my inbox. It included this: ‘Patients whom have already received notification …’.

MEMBER RESOURCE: To whom it may concern, by Jeremy Butterfield

 

The CIEP blog

The CIEP blog aims to provide useful and entertaining articles for anyone interested in editing, proofreading, the English language, starting and managing an editorial business, and publishing more widely.

Editorial judgement calls for an understanding of context, for knowing your stuff when it comes to technical matters (whether that’s the finer points of grammar or the finer points of Word or the finer points of inorganic chemistry, if that’s your niche), for knowing when to press ahead and when to leave well alone, and for knowing what resources you need and how to use them. Each of these skills can also be applied to the way you run your business.

How can we apply editorial judgement to our businesses?, by Sue Littleford

Newsletters

We produce two bi-monthly newsletters: The Edit for members, and Editorial Excellence for anyone who wishes to subscribe. Both highlight new resources and blog posts on a particular topic or theme.

Coming in 2022 …

And there’s more to come … In 2022 we hope to publish guides on developmental editing, legal editing, and corporate and marketing communications. There will be fact sheets on keyboard shortcuts, editing LGBT+ content and medical editing, and focus papers by Laura Summers and other well-known names. No doubt the wise owls will appear more than once on the blog, alongside regular contributors including Sue Littleford and Andy Coulson.

Wrapping up: CIEP resources

Now you know what CIEP resources are available, have a look at the ones that are relevant to you. Don’t forget:

  • You can download free fact sheets and focus papers (and even more if you are a CIEP member).
  • Guides provide handy introductions to the skills and knowledge needed to work as an editorial professional.
  • The CIEP blog is updated with new content regularly.

Which CIEP resource has been most useful to you so far? Which one are you planning to read next? Let us know in the comments. If you don’t already receive our Editorial Excellence newsletter, click on the button below to subscribe.

I’D LIKE THE NEWSLETTER

About the CIEP information team

Liz Dalby, Cathy Tingle, Julia Sandford-Cooke and Harriet Power are the CIEP’s information commissioning editors. If there’s a topic that you think could be covered in a blog post, fact sheet, focus paper or guide, drop the team a line at infoteam@ciep.uk.

 

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.

Find out more about:

 

Photo credit: man reading by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash