Tag Archives: CPD

An interview with Paul Beverley: the man behind the macros

Paul Beverley is well known in the editing community as the ‘king of macros’. He has not only devised and developed such indispensable free tools as FRedit, but also provides training via Zoom, on YouTube and in person. Paul talked to the CIEP Information Team about his ‘total and utter obsession’ with macros, and his plans for the future.

How (and why) did you get started with macros?

I joined SfEP (as it was then) 17 years ago after editing and typesetting my own monthly computer magazine for 20 years. The magazine was dying and I was heavily in debt, so I had to find freelance editing work and needed to do that work fast.

For the previous 15 years, I had used a FRedit-like computer program with a Mac, so I got someone to write a version of it in Visual Basic for Word, and from there I set about learning to program my own macros. But I also had to learn to use Word, which I had never used before!

What are your favourite macros? (e.g. the ones you think are most helpful)

Number 1 has to be FRedit. You give it a list of words, phrases or punctuation that you want highlighting and/or changing globally, and FRedit does it in seconds. I simply wouldn’t bother editing without it.

Next it has to be analysis macros such as DocAlyse, ProperNounAlyse and HyphenAlyse, because I love spotting inconsistencies, even before I’ve read a word.

What’s motivated you to be so generous in putting together and sharing all your macros?

Putting together? See question 1 – a selfish desire to earn more quickly.

Sharing? Why not? What have I got to lose by letting others benefit?

Sharing for free? Easy! If I sold them I’d need to employ a team of technical support personnel (there are well over 1,100 macros to support). As it is, people are really grateful when I help them and, if I’m honest, I like it when people say they appreciate me.

Do you have any tips for overcoming a fear of using/reluctance to use macros?

It can all sound rather daunting but if you can get going with just two or three macros, or maybe half a dozen, you’ll save yourself time and that will motivate you to pick up a few more.

That’s the approach in our self-learning offering: ‘Macros from Square One’ (Mac or PC), where you learn how to install a macro into Visual Basic and then you use it, and then you load another one and so on.

Or another low-tech approach is that you can put a special Word file into a folder on your computer, and suddenly, without ever seeing the inside of a computer program, you will have a dozen or more macros ready to use. This is called ‘Macros Free Trial’.

Also, there’s Jennifer Yankopolus’s ‘Macro of the month’, with hints and tips as well as a suggested macro to try each month.

But to really get yourself launched there’s a paid six-session training course run by Jennifer Yankopolus for the EFA: ‘Macros A to Z’. It gets booked up quickly but if you sign up for ‘Macro of the month’ you’ll get the dates of the next course.

What question are you asked most often about macros (and what is the answer)?

Apart from ‘How do I get started?’ (see above), there’s ‘Are macros safe?’ If you are worried about viruses, there’s no need. In Word’s File–Options–Trust Center Settings, keep your setting as ‘Disable all macros without notification’.

If people are worried about messing up a document by using macros, then, yes, this can happen, but only if you misuse a given macro. Any tool needs to be used with care, so follow the instructions and don’t take on something too complicated too soon.

What is the most unusual/interesting request for a macro you’ve had?

Maybe checking, for a PR agency, the length of tweets – 140 characters max (they can be longer now).

Or, in a book about the card game bridge, changing all the special symbols (icons for clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades); the client wanted text: cx, dx, hx, sx.

In another example, someone had to check the totals at the bottoms of columns of figures in a document, and they didn’t fancy typing all the figures into a calculator. One click for each, and the macro checked the addition instantaneously.

Is there any request/need you’ve not been able to make a macro for?

Yes, occasionally, but it’s usually because the request would take too much of my limited available development time for what is perhaps a rather niche application.

The problem is more often the other way around. People want a specific macro, and within the 1,000 macros there is probably one already, but how do you find it? To help, we’ve provided an electronically searchable ‘Macro Menu’.

Have you ever tried to create macros in Google Docs? Would you?

My answers are ‘no’ and ‘no’, in that order. Again, it’s not a matter of pride or principle, just that I’ve got my work cut out trying to support the existing macros and develop new ones that people ask for.

Paul demonstrating his macros at the 2022 CIEP conference

You train people to use your macros. Where in the world has this taken you?

Physically, only to Spain and Canada, but the Spanish editors are so keen on using macros that they have translated some of the macros and some of the documentation for Spain and Central and South America.

When the pandemic hit, I discovered Zoom and so I have been able to train people all over the world. At one stage, I taught people in eight different countries inside five days. And I know of 56 different countries where my macros are being used – and not all for editing in English; there are specific macros on my website for editing in Dutch, German and Spanish, none of which I speak!

And (as a rough estimate) how many people do you think you’ve trained?

I’ve no way of knowing, actually. My YouTube channel has over 1,300 subscribers, if that’s any indication.

You’re now approaching retirement. Will you continue to create and explain macros?

As long as I can, I’ll keep creating macros – it’s a total and utter obsession. But training is not really my forte because I tend to bombard people with all the exciting and time-saving things they could do with macros. Not helpful!

When I’m gone, my macros will still be available, but I became concerned, a few years ago, that all the programming techniques I use to create new macros are locked in my brain. I managed to document many of them in my book’s Appendix 13 – ‘Word Macro Techniques’, and demonstrated some in YouTube videos.

However, in the past few years Word has become even more ‘feature-bloated’ and therefore VBA [Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language used for Word macros], has got slower. I have had to work out tricks to regain the lost speed of some of the more complex macros. These techniques are largely undocumented.

I get a kick from creating new macros but documenting the techniques is a real slog. So if anyone could offer help or inspiration on the documentation front, that would be much appreciated. It would be a shame to lose those tricks when I’m gone. Thanks.

How else will you spend your retirement?

I am now more or less retired from paid editing, but my lovely wife Sue has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so I’m guessing that I’ll have less and less time for macros (and documentation) as the years roll by, and we’re also involved in an Alzheimer’s drugs trial.

Also, please be warned that I’m planning to do another sponsored Land’s End to John O’Groats bike ride, but this time for the Alzheimer’s Society. It will have to be a local ride as I don’t like leaving Sue for too long. I can do the required 1,000 miles plus 38,000 feet of climb by cycling 200 times around Taverham, where I live outside Norwich – it’s actually quite hilly here.

I hope you’ll support me – you might say it’s 1,000 miles for 1,000 macros. Thank you, in advance.

Find Paul’s macro resources

Discover Paul’s Macro Menu.
Word files for macros from Square One (in Mac and PC versions) and Free Trial Macros instructions are also available from Paul’s website.
See Paul’s demonstrations on his YouTube channel.

About Paul Beverley

Starting in 2005, Paul Beverley’s freelance editing + SfEP + macros got him out of a massive financial hole. Now fully pensioned, he is very fortunate to be able to give the macros back to CIEP and the wider editing world. It’s great fun!

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: Bicycle by Deniz Anttila from Pixabay

Posted by Julia Sandford-Cooke, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Being open to editing in Google Docs

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Are you considering taking on an editing project in Google Docs? Hetty Marx describes her experience of development editing in Google Docs and explains why, despite her initial doubts, it has opened up welcome opportunities.

Agreeing to edit in Google Docs

The first time I was offered a project that involved editing in Google Docs, my gut reaction was a clear ‘no’. I’d had a very busy few months, with a long and complex project, plus I’d been home-schooling my children through the first Covid lockdown. The idea of having to learn how to edit in a different program (one I’d not heard good things about) seemed too much.

But I was really intrigued by the project and was keen on the idea of working with this new client. I wondered if it would seem manageable once I was under less time pressure. The client agreed a later deadline, and a few weeks later I got started.

And … it really wasn’t that bad. Google Docs feels familiar to someone used to working in Word, so it was possible to get started editing and pick things up as I went along. There were some irritations but overall it wasn’t as dreadful as I’d feared. And the client and project were even better than I’d hoped. I continued working with them and edited around another 25 documents in Google Docs over the following two years. I’m now a third of the way through editing a 20-chapter, 400,000+-word textbook for the same client, again in Google Docs.

I still prefer editing in Word, but being open to editing in Google Docs has given me the opportunity to work with some wonderful authors and edit what have turned out to be some of my favourite projects to work on.

In this blog post, I’ll cover a few of the techniques that have helped me adapt to editing in Google Docs. Note that as I am a development editor, my edits involve a heavy use of comments, plus amending sentences using tracked changes/suggesting mode; copyeditors may face different challenges when editing in Google Docs.

1. Use Word alongside Google Docs

Consider using Word alongside Google Docs during your edit, to make use of the various features and functionality that are not available in Google Docs. I download the file as a Word document and keep it open on my second screen.

I find this invaluable for things like ‘Find’ (there are more extensive searching options), using macros (for analysing or finding things, rather than making changes), viewing changes and comments (I think some of the options in Word provide a clearer view) and checking word counts of a particular section.

2. Agree a workflow with authors

The biggest worry about editing in Google Docs for many editors is that the author can make changes while you are editing. There are solutions within Google Docs for this, like restricting others from editing the file during your edit (using the ‘Sharing’ options) but an upfront discussion about the workflow may be more appropriate.

Agree with the authors which of you will be working on the document at each point and make sure there are clear handovers. With Word, this is clear-cut as you need to send the file to the next person; in Google Docs you could tag someone in the document or email them so they know the file is ready.

Be open to a different workflow. Could the author finish the conclusion or work on a standalone aspect (like exercises) while you start editing the chapter? I’ve found this doesn’t cause any issues and it’s helped to keep to the schedule. But I also agree that other revisions during my edit would make the editing process significantly more complicated and less effective, so clear communication about what will work – and what won’t – is important.

3. Understand who can see your comments and edits and when

Some editors don’t like the feeling of having their editing watched in real time. While that doesn’t worry me, I do miss the chance for a final check-through of my comments before sending them to the author.

There are a few things to remember when commenting in Google Docs:

Once you click ‘Comment’, that comment is visible to anyone who has access to the document.
If a user has email notifications set up, they will receive the comment and may see it even if you delete it later.
If you or your client ‘Resolve’ comments (rather than delete them), they disappear from view but are still available and might be read by anyone who currently has access (or who is later given access) to the document.

In Google Docs, I only post comments that are ready for the authors to see. This means I need to spend a little longer during the edit to make sure my comments are clearly phrased and free of typos (a process I’d usually do at the end of an edit). But I still recommend that the authors wait until I’ve completed my edit before reading the comments, as I will sometimes amend or delete comments based on what I read later in the chapter.

4. Allow for more time

I find editing in Google Docs takes longer than editing in Word. I don’t have all my usual shortcuts, I spend time flipping between the Google Doc and Word document, some of the navigation is more clunky, etc. It doesn’t necessarily add a lot of time, but it certainly adds some (and it may be more for a copyeditor who uses more macros or programs like PerfectIt).

Wrapping up: Why I’m open to editing in Google Docs

I would still choose Word over Google Docs for development editing. But I’m glad I took on that first project. Being open to editing in Google Docs has led to two years of a steady stream of interesting work from a delightful client.

About Hetty Marx

Hetty Marx is a textbook development editor. She has nearly 20 years of publishing experience, including in-house as a commissioning editor at Cambridge University Press and as a development editor at Pearson. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and author of the forthcoming CIEP guide Editing Textbooks.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: Lights by Enrique from Pixabay; desk by Olena Sergienko on Unsplash.

Posted by Julia Sandford-Cooke, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Making time for marketing and CPD

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One of those age-old questions for freelance editors and proofreaders is how to find time for marketing and continuing professional development (CPD) when other work keeps getting in the way. In this post, Philippa Lewis brings together some approaches that have helped her and other CIEP members.

When I started freelancing, I had no idea how much extra work would be involved on top of actual editing work. Words are my love and joy, and I’m more than happy to spend hours deliberating over every tiny aspect of punctuation, but I found myself completely unprepared for how much time marketing and CPD would take up.

Marketing in particular has been a challenge for me; I find the thought of promoting myself very uncomfortable, and marketing takes up time which I could be spending editing. And I would much, much rather be editing. It’s easy to convince myself that marketing is a waste of time when I could be spending that time completing paid work instead, so most of my attempts at marketing have been squeezed in out of slight desperation when I haven’t had any work booked in.

At the recent CIEP conference, Kia Thomas did an excellent talk about marketing. I really appreciated how matter-of-fact she was about it: as a freelancer, you have no choice but to market your business, so you might as well get on with it. Whether or not you enjoy doing marketing isn’t really relevant, because you still have to do it.

This was a bit of a wake-up call for me, and since then I’ve tried to come up with a system for regularly building marketing and CPD into my working week.

Find what works for you

Editors often talk about setting aside one morning or day a week for CPD and marketing. Having a specific slot for these tasks sounds like an excellent approach, but I always find that when I reach the time I’ve set aside, my latest editing deadline inevitably feels like a higher priority.

I’ve finally realised that a more flexible approach works better for me. I start my week by identifying the CPD and marketing tasks that I want to accomplish. These get written on a post-it and stuck onto my computer monitor; keeping them visible means I can’t forget to do them. I try to identify a mix of quick jobs (like sending a CV to a publisher) and longer ones (like drafting a blog post) for each week. I try to break tasks into smaller units where needed: ‘check pricing page on website’ feels more manageable than ‘re-do website’.

These tasks then got slotted in throughout the week. I find it useful to do them whenever I need a break from editing – often at the end of a work day, or before lunch. I might not have the mental capacity to edit another paragraph, but I can still manage to do a marketing task or read a blog post. Cycling through tasks like this means I’m more productive, as I’m ticking something off my list despite not feeling up to completing work for a client.

At the moment, this approach is working really well and allowing me to consistently complete CPD and marketing goals. But it’s freeing to remember that this might not be a strategy that works for me long term – I’ve found it really helpful to keep an open mind rather than trying to stick to a set routine that doesn’t feel like it’s working any more. We all work in different ways; don’t be afraid to try different approaches until you find a method that works for you.

Prioritise

Marketing and CPD both sometimes feel overwhelming: the list of things I could be doing can feel endless, and when the list is so long, sometimes it’s difficult to get started on working through it.

I’ve now got a list of CPD and marketing tasks that I want to complete, with the more pressing ones near the top, and I use this list to help me identify my tasks for each week.

CIEP member Eleanor Bolton has found it helpful to think about her long-term goals, then select CPD options that relate to this. She says ‘I had quite a long list of courses that all sounded interesting and potentially useful, but there was no way I could fit them all in. Over the summer I spent some time thinking about who my preferred clients were and ended up niching quite considerably. As a result, quite a few of those courses were no longer relevant.’

Be flexible

I’m currently doing a developmental editing course, and it wouldn’t be possible to complete the assignments for this in short bursts of time, or at the end of a day when I’m already tired. Likewise, if I’ve got a complex edit booked in, sometimes setting aside a chunk of time for CPD and marketing is more effective than trying to slot in extra tasks each day. On a different week with a different workload, a different approach might work better. It’s important to stay flexible, and to work with whatever your current circumstances are.

Anything is better than nothing

I’m aware that I could improve my editing speed if I improved my knowledge of using Word. I don’t have time to do a full course on it at the moment, so instead I’ve bought a book on the subject and I’m taking ten minutes every couple of days to work through a few pages. I’m not learning as much (or as quickly) as I would on a course, but I’m still learning something. Each tip I pick up is improving my editing speed.

Maybe you don’t have time to do a course at the moment, but could you listen to a podcast while doing the washing up or when you’re in the car? Again, this comes down to taking a step back and being willing to be flexible: what would be achievable with how your working week looks right now?

I regularly have to remind myself that anything is better than nothing. It’s really easy to get caught up in thinking all your marketing materials have to be perfect, which can lead to never finishing anything – but an imperfect website will reach more clients than a non-existent one.

Get something finished and sent off or published, even if you’re not completely happy with it: send a CV out to publishers even if you’re still completing a training course that you wanted to add to it; publish that blog post even though you’re not completely happy with one paragraph in it.

Reflect

And finally, set a moment aside to think about whether your current approach is working for you.

CIEP member Anna Baildon finds monthly reflections helpful to keep her CPD and marketing on track: ‘Each month I think about what’s gone well, what’s been more challenging and what I’ve learned. A brief look through my diary and my Trello board is usually enough to prompt my thoughts and form some analysis. It’s surprising how much insight this simple task provides. It’s like having a monthly meeting with my boss to bring clarity and focus to my work.’

There’s no ‘right’ way to tackle CPD and marketing; it’s just about finding an approach that works for you, sticking to it when you’re able to, and taking small but consistent steps forward.

About Philippa Lewis

Philippa Lewis is a freelance developmental editor, copyeditor and proofreader. She works on a mix of speculative fiction and outdoors literature, and lives in North Wales.

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Definite articles: Working with websites

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Welcome to ‘Definite articles’, a column devoted to the CIEP’s top internet picks, most of which are definitely articles. This time, our theme is working with websites – for clients and for yourself. The CIEP has recently published its own articles on working in digital formats, in ‘Flying solo: Focusing your website on your ideal client’, and ‘Talking tech: Web editors – WYSIWIG or code?’ If you’re a CIEP forum user, you can access our website-related forum wisdom in ‘Forum matters: Creating and editing web content’.

In this issue:

Client websites: Learn from the experts
Planning and creating your own website
Refreshing your site
Other platforms
If it all goes wrong

Client websites: Learn from the experts

Marketing tips

Websites act as shop windows. So when you’re editing what is essentially marketing copy, it’s worth learning from people who know about marketing. Copywriter Karri Stover, in ‘11 steps to effective website copywriting’, reminds us of the importance of plain language, understanding the reader, including essential information, and readability. On that last point, Stover links to a useful 2013 article by Carrie Cousins at Design Shack, ‘The importance of designing for readability’, which talks about design elements, from subheads (which should be simple, direct and frequent) to how hyphens can break readers’ concentration.

Understanding accessibility and SEO

If you’re working with websites, you should always have at least one tab open at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This advises on web accessibility and is recommended as a resource on the CIEP’s Editing Digital Content course. Get started with ‘Easy checks – a first review of web accessibility’ and ‘Introduction to web accessibility’.

It’s also essential to have an understanding of SEO (search engine optimisation). Michelle Bourbonniere gives a useful overview of what it is and how to do it. Marieke van de Rakt of Yoast has also written a long blog about the importance of content in SEO. Trickery with links is long gone as a way to improve rankings. These days, SEO is firmly about quality content, as Marieke testifies.

Planning and creating your own website

Every website needs to be planned, and Malini Devadas’s podcast episode ‘How to create a client-focused business’ is a good start in working out how the elements of your offering, including your website, fit together. John Espirian adds to this by taking the long view with a 30-month mindset.

Whether you create your own website or outsource that process is a big decision. A blog by Startups explores the options. If you’re keen on doing it yourself, John Espirian discusses setting up your own website in an article from the archives that includes plenty of useful tips and links. However, as Michelle Waltzman suggests in ‘Stressed about your to-do list? 5 times you should outsource tasks’, if you keep putting it off, you don’t know where to start, or you’ve tried it and it’s gone very wrong, it might be worth considering asking someone else to help you.

Even if you outsource the creation of your website, you’ll have to write it. Apply the same marketing, accessibility and SEO principles that we covered in the ‘Client websites’ section above. You might also commission some photography. Sophie Playle describes how she did this in ‘Branding my editorial business: Working with a photographer’. If you’re working with images that are already created, take a look at Chicago Shop Talk’s article ‘Crediting images at an author website’ for principles and tips.

Once you’ve covered the broad brushwork of development, content and images, make sure the little things also look great, including any URLs.

Refreshing your site

If you created your website some time ago, it’s important to interrogate it every so often to ensure it’s working as hard as it can. Luckily, if we forget, ACES, the society for editing in America, keeps us on our toes with articles like ‘Is your website referral-worthy?’ by Molly McCowan and ‘When was the last time you updated your website?’ by Nate Hoffelder. Nate also wrote the helpful ‘18 questions to ask when refreshing your editor website’. If 18 questions are too many, Annie Deakins suggests six website features you should check.

One editor, Letitia Henville, recently went beyond checking and fixing to supplementing her current site with a digital tool for academics, which received 4,000 views in its first three days. Not everyone has the time or resources to do this, but Letitia includes a list of less ambitious alternatives: ‘blog post, webinar, infographic, video, app, tin-can phone or whatever other medium may reach your client population’. As tempting as the tin-can phone is, many editors find that their digital resource of choice is the humble blog, and if yours is ailing Louise Harnby has four ideas to fix it. Recently on Twitter, Lynne Murphy (@lynneguist) recommended a piece about how to keep online readers engaged in long articles. If your blogs are on the lengthy side, take a look.

Other platforms

Don’t forget Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook as part of a digital content strategy. You can see Instagram at its best in ‘The 15 most Instagrammed bookstores in the world’. TikTok has recently been credited with changing the publishing industry as high-profile book lovers share their favourite reads with users. But if all these options make you feel dizzy, Mel Edits has some sage words about timelessness in ‘5 rules of content that will never change’.

If it all goes wrong

Finally, Chicago Shop Talk has helpfully published an article on how to ‘take back’ an online error that could be useful if you’re working with websites or on other digital platforms. One advantage of the internet is that amendment can be instant. In certain circumstances, though, amendments have to be acknowledged and explained, for example if a vital word like ‘not’ has been omitted in a prominent place in the original text, giving entirely the wrong impression and alarming people.

We’ll leave you to think up your own examples.

Thank you for reading. Why not follow the CIEP on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for more useful content for editors and proofreaders?

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

A Finer Point: About that

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It’s flexible, helpful and often loaded with meaning. Cathy Tingle explores the magic in the simple word ‘that’.

I love that; that is, I love the word that is ‘that’. Why’s that? Context and clarity. And Kate Bush.

‘That’ can be magical in its use of context

‘That’ is ‘a multifaceted word’ according to Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, which lists it as a demonstrative pronoun, a demonstrative adjective, a demonstrative adverb, a conjunction and a relative pronoun. Five functions, none of which we are likely to consciously assign to the word as we use it unless we are linguists; we will just know, from context, what this ‘that’ is for. Now that’s magic.

‘That’ also often needs a context wider than the sentence in which it appears, which can make it indispensable in communication and creativity. In terms of communication, we’ve all felt the power after a long introduction of a conclusive ‘That’s why …’ that brings together all that has gone before. That’s probably why we hear it a lot from politicians.

One of the facets of ‘that’ described in Fowler’s is that ‘the simple demonstrative adjective that is distinguished from the definite article the in that it points out something as distinct from merely singling out something’. So in terms of pointing out something to a greater and greater extent, we might go, say, from ‘hills’ to ‘a hill’ to ‘the hill’ to ‘that hill’, the sort that Kate Bush describes running up, in a song that has now become part of the soundtrack of not one but two generations, decades apart. The poet Philip Larkin, in ‘Home is so sad’ (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), ends a description of a mournful-looking room with a pointed two-word sentence: ‘That vase.’

‘Running up a hill’, ‘Running up the hill’, ‘A vase’ and ‘The vase’ simply don’t create the same effect. In each of these works, ‘that’ is loaded with a meaning that the narrator entirely understands and that we get a revelatory glimpse of, simply by seeing its significance to them.

‘That’ directs the reader

The inclusion of ‘that’ is often necessary to make meaning clear. As Lynne Murphy described in her 2022 CIEP Conference session ‘Are editors changing the English language?’, as language gets densified we lose the small, common words. ‘The’ and ‘of’ have been major casualties. However, the 1959 publication and wide dissemination of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, cited by Murphy as a key event in the decline of ‘the’ and ‘of’, is also identified in excellent articles by Stan Carey and Carol Saller as a factor in the incorrect deletion of ‘that’ by people who edit text. Specifically, by trying to ‘omit needless words’, as Strunk and White advised we should, we sometimes mistakenly identify ‘that’ as one of them.

How do we know whether ‘that’ is needless? As Stan Carey describes, we do it by assessing whether we’re being led up a garden path if it’s not there. Have we misunderstood the meaning on the first reading of a sentence and had to retrace our steps? Carol Saller points out that this is more likely with certain constructions: ‘Retain [“that”] after verbs like “believe,” “declare,” and “see”’. All right: let’s see what happens if we don’t.

I believe elves who claim to make footwear throughout the night are imaginary.

They declared an interest in ponies at the age of eight was common.

She could see a unicorn-riding, fire-eating headteacher existed in the minds of the children.

Welcome back after all those garden-path trips prompted by the omission of ‘that’ after ‘believe’, ‘declared’ and ‘see’. If you avoided these misunderstandings, well done! But a busy, perhaps preoccupied, reader might not. Saller quotes the AP Stylebook on ‘that’: ‘Omission can hurt. Inclusion never does.’ Carey quotes John E. McIntyre’s Bad Advice: ‘When that is there and does no harm, take your hands off the keyboard.’

That, that and that

‘That’ isn’t all creativity and clarification, however. It can be a source of puzzlement to authors, editors and proofreaders. Here’s some quick guidance on that/which, that/who and ‘that is’.

That/which: which?

For a comprehensive and entertaining look at this common problem, head to Riffat Yusuf’s ‘That which we call a relative clause’. For basic principles, read on.

In the UK in particular, we sometimes use constructions like ‘the pencil which is red is mine’. ‘Which’ here is used in the same way as ‘that’ – ‘for critical information’ (Ellen Jovin, Rebel with a Clause, p294). Whether ‘that’ or ‘which’ is used isn’t as important as whether we include a comma before it. As Butcher’s Copy-editing says: ‘The punctuation distinction is the crucial one’ (p164). So we could write any of the following:

The pencil that is red is mine (mine is the red one)

The pencil which is red is mine (mine is the red one)

The pencil, which is red, is mine (there’s one pencil. It’s mine. It happens to be red)

‘The pencil, that is red, is mine’ is not something we could write, because ‘that’ can’t herald the sort of optional information that we convey by including pairing, or parenthetical, commas.

That/who

‘A person can be a “that”.’ (Dreyer’s English, p18) ‘That refers to a human, animal, or thing, and it can be used in the first, second, or third person.’ (Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, 5.56) So it’s possible to use ‘that’ for a person (‘the designer that did great things with my text’), although ‘who’ is often the first choice of people who work with words.

‘That is’

‘That is’ is a construction we often see, alongside equivalents like ‘namely’, in general non-fiction or academic text, and it’s a tricky one to punctuate. Some authors place a comma before it and nothing afterwards, or put it in parenthetical commas. What should we do? Chicago gives good advice: to precede it with a dash or semicolon and follow it with a comma (CMOS, section 6.51). I’ve given an example in the introduction to this article, so go and have a look at that.

Resources

Bush, K (1985). Running up that hill (A deal with God). EMI.

Butcher, J, C Drake and M Leach (2006). Butcher’s Copy-editing, 4th edition. Cambridge University Press.

Carey, S (2020). That puzzling omission. Blog. stancarey.wordpress.com/2020/05/31/that-puzzling-omission/

Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (2017). University of Chicago Press.

Dreyer, B (2019). Dreyer’s English. Century.

Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern Usage (2015), ed. by Jeremy Butterfield. Oxford University Press.

Jovin, E (2022). Rebel with a Clause. Chambers.

Larkin, P (2012). The Complete Poems, ed. by Archie Burnett. Faber & Faber.

Saller, C (2021). When to delete ‘that’. CMOS Shop Talk blog. cmosshoptalk.com/2021/08/12/when-to-delete-that/

Yusuf, R (2021). That which we call a relative clause. CIEP blog. blog.ciep.uk/relative-clause/

About Cathy Tingle

Cathy Tingle, an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, is a copyeditor, proofreader, tutor and CIEP information team member.

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Core business documentation for freelance proofreaders and editors

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In this post, Hazel Bird takes a look at the documentation that can help freelance proofreaders and editors to keep on top of the business side of things – from scheduling and accounting to thinking about CPD and business strategy.

Your style sheets are slicker than a greased exclamation mark and your handover notes template is perfectly balanced between conciseness and comprehensiveness. Your macros are practically doing the editing for you (well, not quite …) and you have shortcuts set up with author queries to handle just about anything a client can throw at you.

In other words, you’ve got this editing thing down pretty well. But what about your wider business? What strategic and administrative documentation have you set up and how well is it working for you? Does it enable you to understand what’s going on in your business now, what happened in the past and how to achieve your future goals?

This post looks at some of the core non-editorial documentation you might want to consider setting up. The list is based on the lessons I’ve learned over 13 years as a full-time freelancer – simply put, this is a list of the documentation I wish I’d established and used from the get-go.

It’s important to note from the start that these ‘documents’ don’t necessarily have to be separate – it’s perfectly OK to address two, three or more of the functions below in a single document if that’s what works best for you.

1 Scheduling and workload

Let’s start with the absolute basics. You’ll need somewhere to write down all the work you have booked in, any prospective work beyond that, and all the key dates. You might also want to estimate how many hours each block of work will take you. From this basic information, you can then plan long term (so you know when you’re free for additional work) and short term (so you can see in detail how you’ll meet your immediate commitments).

There are endless options for scheduling, from a humble spreadsheet (such as Google Sheets) to project management software (such as Trello) to business management tools (such as 17hats). I record my schedules and key tasks in a database and then pull the information out into a spreadsheet that shows me week by week, in a highly visual way, how much work I have booked in over the next year (long-term planning). I also use this data to draw up a handwritten plan every two weeks showing exactly when I will complete what I’ve got coming up (short-term planning).

This is a simplified mock-up of one of my two-week plans. On the left is a list of all the projects that will have some sort of activity over the next two weeks. Brackets signal projects that are in the background and very unlikely to require active work; ticks mean I have inputted all work for the project into the grid on the right. In the grid, the circled numbers are days of the week and an exclamation mark means I have holiday or some other potentially disrupting commitment on that day. Non-paid work and general admin are not scheduled as my project scheduling deliberately leaves time free for those tasks over the course of the week. I do, however, note down specific events, such as the client calls and webinar. ‘X’ is an important one – it means ‘answer emails and do any other bits and pieces that need to be done today’. As I complete projects and work, I cross them off (the cross-outs in this mock-up are as if I were halfway through day 2 of week 1).

2 Word counts, fees and time

This is where you get into the nitty-gritty of your day-to-day work. How quickly can you edit? Does it vary by client, type of work or subject matter? Are you happy that the amount you’re being paid fairly compensates you for the amount of work you’re putting in? Can you make a reasonable estimate of how long a potential project might take?

Recording word counts, fees and the time you take will enable you to answer these questions and many more. The answers will feed into your reporting (see below) and also help you to control your workload (and hence take care of your mental wellbeing).

Whatever system you choose for your scheduling will likely have the ability to record these details, or you might want to set up a specific spreadsheet for this purpose (or, if you’re a CIEP member, you can use the Going Solo toolkit ‘work record’ spreadsheet). For time tracking, some people use tools such as Toggl, which can integrate with other software.

3 Finances

You’ll need some sort of way of tracking invoices raised, whether they’ve been paid and any expenses. Obviously this should be in a format that enables you to meet the tax reporting requirements in your region. Beyond that, the level of detail and the format are up to you. You might find specialist software helpful, but a spreadsheet (perhaps with some conditional formatting to flag when an invoice is overdue) can be more than enough. You might even just add a couple more columns to your scheduling spreadsheet to record when a project has been invoiced and paid. If you’re a CIEP member in the UK, you could try the Going Solo toolkit ‘accounts’ spreadsheet.

A hard-earned tip is to actively track your cashflow too. By this I mean forecasting when you expect future payments to arrive (for all upcoming projects – not just the ones you’ve already invoiced) and your anticipated expenses (including the ‘salary’ you pay yourself). Although this can take a bit of time, it can really help your mental wellbeing as it avoids surprises. Susie Jackson has a lot of great tips on clear financial thinking for freelancers.

4 Leads, enquiries and quotes

This is all about tracking who’s contacted you and why, the outcomes, the status of any ongoing discussions (eg if you’ve sent out a quote and are waiting for feedback) and the details of any organisations you’re interested in approaching in the future.

The scale and format of this document will vary hugely from freelancer to freelancer, depending on the nature of their business and what they’re trying to achieve. You might want a complex CRM-type system that enables easy day-to-day tracking and communication with clients, or a simple spreadsheet might equally serve you very well. Just make sure your chosen tool has the capacity to record everything you’ll want to report on (see ‘Strategy and reporting’ below).

5 Marketing

I’m very much not a marketing expert, so I like to keep this as simple as possible. However, if this is an activity that you enjoy or that is particularly important to you at the moment (eg if you’re pivoting your business in a new direction), you might want to give this more space within your business. Louise Harnby’s posts are a perennial favourite in the editing community on the topic of marketing.

My major marketing activities are my website, my blog and my CIEP directory entry. For my website and directory entry, I keep an ongoing list of tweaks plus, if I’m building up to a major update, a more substantial document where I rewrite my content. For my blog, I used to have a separate spreadsheet but I now track my posts in WordPress’s native interface, which I’ve found has saved a huge amount of time.

All of my marketing activities are heavily influenced by my strategy document (see below).

6 Log of positive feedback and lessons learned

As advocated by Erin Brenner and many others, the ‘win jar’ is a hugely important morale booster, especially for freelancers who spend much of their time working in isolation. Whether you choose an actual jar, yet another spreadsheet or an A1-size poster of your greatest hits to hang on the wall, it’s wise to remind yourself of all the positive comments you’ve received. After all, if you don’t keep in mind what your clients appreciate, it’s harder to deliver on their needs.

At the same time, though, a modest log of lessons learned can be a really valuable tool. I always make sure to briefly write down when something doesn’t go to plan – for example, if I take on a project with red flags and then regret it, or if it turns out partway through a process that a client wasn’t fully clear on some aspect of my service. I then make sure to plug the gaps by taking action to avoid the same thing happening in the future – for example, by updating my checklist of ‘things to consider’ when evaluating a potential new project or by updating my quote package so future clients hopefully won’t experience the same misunderstanding in the future.

7 CPD log and planning

It can be helpful to keep a list of the continuing professional development (CPD) activities you’d like to do. Otherwise it can be easy for months or even years to slip by in which you’ve completed an awful lot of projects but not furthered (or even maintained) your skillset at all. It can be particularly helpful to use this document to plan the time and financing needed for any ‘big’ courses, such as learning a brand new skill. But it’s also good to jot down books, podcasts, websites and the like that you can use to help you keep up to date with whatever developments are relevant to your field. Again, CIEP members could use the Going Solo toolkit ‘training and CPD’ spreadsheet for this.

8 Terms and conditions

If you’re working with non-publisher clients then you’ll probably want a document you can share with them that lets them know the legal and practical implications of doing business with you. I think of my T&Cs as a document that evolves with my business and I update it at least annually.

9 Strategy and reporting

Not everyone starts their business with a fancy formal business plan. But at some point you’ll probably find it helpful to write down all those ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybe I coulds’ and ‘I think I’d like tos’ in a single place to keep track of them. The purpose of this document is to set out what you want your business to do for you and how you plan to achieve that.

Your goals can be as grand or as simple as you like. For example, you might want to write a detailed financial and marketing plan to help you completely change your client base over the next three years. Or you might prefer to keep things roughly as they are but achieve a modest hourly rate increase each year.

Where this becomes really powerful is when you pair it with reporting on how your business has performed in the past. I’ve written about how and why I write an annual report for my business here and here. Once you understand your past performance, you’re better able to set realistic future goals and make wiser decisions about what you want your business to achieve for you.

I do my strategy and reporting in Google Docs and use this information to populate to-do lists in Trello with the actions I’ve chosen to keep me on track. Your reporting data will come from all the sources above – you’ll just be viewing it in the rear-view mirror.

In choosing how to address each of the areas above, keep in mind that your documentation should be flexible, manageable and focused on outcomes rather than tracking for its own sake. It should also be capable of evolving – after all, who knows what you will want your business to be doing in five, ten or even twenty years’ time?

Resources

The Going Solo toolkit, which is free to all CIEP members, includes a collection of Excel spreadsheets that are set up to record most of the information covered in this post.

The Editor’s Affairs (TEA) is another series of Excel spreadsheets designed specifically for editors to keep track of their business data.

The short book The Paper It’s Written On: Defining your relationship with an editing client, by Karin Cather and Dick Margulis, is helpful for crafting your own T&Cs.

About Hazel Bird

Hazel Bird is a freelance editor and editorial project manager who works with businesses, charities, public sector organisations, publishers and authors around the world to deliver some of their most prestigious publications. She tries to see the detail and the big picture all at once – the wood and the trees – and has learned over the years how important good documentation is in achieving that!

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Photo credits: notebook by Jessica Lewis Creative on Pexels, two-week plan by Hazel Bird, laptop and notebook by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Why listening to audiobooks has made me a better editor

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Audiobooks have seen a steep rise in popularity over recent years, particularly since the pandemic. In this post, Clare Black discusses why she is passionate about audiobooks and explains why her love of listening has created an opportunity for CPD.

A lifelong love of books

Like most editors, I have an enormous love of books, and I am proud to say I am a lifelong bookworm. My fondest childhood memories relate to books and visits to the local library with my mum and sister for the weekly storytime session. I vividly recall sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor, captivated by the austere librarian and the story they were reading.

Audiobooks are accessible and convenient

Ten years ago I had major eye surgery. Before surgery I usually read a novel a week, and one of my big worries was how I could read while convalescing. The obvious answer was to listen to books instead. I can honestly say that listening to audiobooks got me through those first few tough weeks following surgery. Audiobooks helped to fill the long days and transported me to other worlds when the prospect of being able to read ‘normally’ again seemed a lifetime away. I discovered that listening to a story really brought it alive and gave a deep connection to the characters.

Once I had recovered and was able to resume normal life, I wanted to get back to reading print books again, so my love of audiobooks was put on hold.

Making time for reading can be difficult

After I became self-employed as an editor, I started to read less for pleasure. This happened unconsciously at first, with realisation dawning when I couldn’t recall the last fiction book I had read. At that time, I think reading for enjoyment seemed like a chore rather than a pleasurable activity. This was due mainly to the amount of screen time editing requires, which is inevitably very tiring on the eyes. And I was also guilty of thinking that spending time on business-related activities like admin and marketing was more important. I became aware that the book-shaped hole in my life was making itself more obvious.

I am lucky to have a wonderful little library ten minutes’ walk from my home, so I made an effort to visit more regularly. Borrowing books from the library helped me to get reading again. But I still didn’t make enough time for reading for pleasure as I ended up renewing books several times.

Listening with Borrowbox

On one of my visits to the library, I saw a poster advertising Borrowbox. Borrowbox is an app that allows library members to borrow ebooks and audiobooks through a smartphone or tablet. Books are automatically returned after the loan period, and users can also reserve and renew, just as with conventional library books.

My passion for reading for fun has been rekindled by borrowing audiobooks through Borrowbox. Although the range of audiobooks is not as wide as with ebooks or print books, there is still a broad selection to choose from. This has provided the opportunity to listen to books from genres and authors that I would not have discovered otherwise. One to mention is Gone Fishing by Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer. I love the television series of the same name for its tranquillity and the companionship of this hilarious duo. But I am not a fishing buff, and probably would never have read the printed version of this book. The audiobook appeared as a recommendation on my Borrowbox account, and I am glad that I decided to listen to it. The book is narrated by Bob and Paul, which makes it very entertaining and deeply enjoyable. Reading the print version would not have given me so much laughter.

Audiobooks improve mental and physical health

I would go as far as to say that audiobooks have revolutionised my life, and I take every opportunity when I’m not at my desk to grab a few audio moments. The big win for me with audiobooks is that I can combine listening with other activities. Daily fresh air and exercise are very important to me, and I usually go out for an hour each day. Not only does this help my mental and physical health, but it also means I get to listen to my latest book. And sessions on my cross-trainer are now that bit more bearable.

I still appreciate conventional books and usually have an ebook from Borrowbox or a Kindle book in progress as well. But I tend to get through several audiobooks to one ebook.

Audiobooks can improve editorial skills

Although I have been an audiobook fan for quite some time, thinking of them as a form of CPD occurred to me only recently.

When reading solely for pleasure, I tend to be quite a quick reader, but when listening to an audiobook, I listen at normal talking speed. There is always an option to speed up the recording. but I never choose to do that. As with listening to someone else speak, you need to focus completely on what is being said. For me, hearing the words spoken allows me to immerse myself more deeply in the book.

Listening to audiobooks is a positive learning experience that has developed my critical listening and line-editing skills. I am presently studying a developmental editing for fiction course, and listening to published books is proving an excellent way to apply the theory.

A book I recently enjoyed is Platform Seven by Louise Doughty. I’d describe it as atmospheric, beautifully sad and tinged with joy, and it moved me to tears several times. Reading the print version would not have had the same poignancy. The book uses omniscient point of view, which I didn’t realise before listening. Being able to listen to an omniscient narrator has helped me to understand more about how this point of view is used.

All audiobooks offer opportunities for learning or reinforcing editorial knowledge. I regularly notice elements that I think are handled well. Good pacing and rhythm and flow of sentences are particularly obvious in the narrator’s change of tone and tempo. I also think about how I might have handled some aspects differently if I were the editor. As most editors know, many aspects of editing are subjective and not all editors will handle issues in the same way. Occasionally, I note things that I think are wrong. I would notice some of these issues if I were reading purely for pleasure, but listening means I can enjoy a story and learn at the same time. And, of course, when listening, there are no distracting spelling or punctuation issues.

Many editors, including myself, read aloud when they are editing. We all generally read aloud more slowly than we do when we read silently. I find that reading aloud is effective as it gives a better feel for the text and makes any problems or issues more obvious. It makes sense that this applies when listening to audiobooks.

Another reason I love audiobooks is the way that narrators vary accents and speech patterns for the different characters. Bringing the characters alive in this way makes me feel like I really get to know them. And listening provides an excellent way to note how authors handle characterisation.

Audiobooks are proper books

Some people believe that listening to audiobooks is cheating or not proper reading, but I don’t understand that. By listening to a book, I am still consuming and enjoying its content. As I have mentioned throughout this article, listening to a story really brings it alive for me.

Audiobooks are an ideal solution for anyone who is unable or struggles to read print books. Audiobooks are convenient, allow multitasking, can make a story more poignant and provide an immersive way to enhance editing skills. They are growing in popularity and are here to stay!

About Clare Black

Clare Black is a Professional Member of the CIEP. She is an aspiring developmental editor, line editor, copy-editor and proofreader specialising in crime, thriller and contemporary fiction. Clare had a varied career before becoming an editor, including working as a solicitor and running a dog-washing business. When not editing, she is usually listening to an audiobook!

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Photo credits: red headphones by Yarenci Hdz, headphones and phone by Jukka Aalho, both on Unsplash, woman with phone by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Curriculum focus: References

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In a new regular feature for The Edit, former training director Jane Moody shines a light on an area of the CIEP’s Curriculum for professional development.

Knowledge of referencing comes into Domain 2, Editorial knowledge and practice, subdomain 2.2, Editorial knowledge. The competencies that a copyeditor/proofreader would be expected to have are shown in the middle column. A basic understanding of each of the referencing systems is essential, even if you rarely come across them in your day-to-day work.

Knowledge criteria	Editorial competencies, professional skills and attitudes	Resources to support learning/CPD
2.2.4 Citations, references and bibliographies	• Has ability to recognise and edit Harvard, Vancouver and short-title systems • Is aware of typical styles and variations (data required, ordering/punctuation of data, elision, capitalisation, use of italic and bold) • Knows the difference between citation (details of a source or authority) and quotation (wording taken from a source or authority) • Understands how to treat quotations • Has ability to order bibliographies, cite academic publications, online sources and manuscripts, deal with/create multiple bibliographies • Understands need to cross-check for consistency • Understands and can handle footnotes and endnotes	• CIEP suite of courses Copyediting • CIEP suite of courses Proofreading • CIEP course References • Guides to different referencing styles (New Hart’s Rules, Chicago, APA, MLA etc.)

So where do you go to gain this knowledge? As the introductory note indicates, there are more resources than can be listed in the curriculum itself, which lists some obvious resources in the third column, in addition to the general ones given in the introduction. The CIEP online course References goes into great detail about the topic and includes several pages of links to useful resources. If you need to deal with citations, references and bibliographies on a regular basis, this course will help you to master them. The CIEP’s new ‘References’ fact sheet also provides an introduction and brief overview of this subject.

Judith Butcher’s Copy-Editing (4th edition) covers the basics of bibliographical references in chapter 10. The Chicago Manual is now in its 17th edition. Part III covers ‘Source citations and indexes’ – a full third of the book. The manual is available online and some helpful resources are freely available there. One page you might find useful if you work with author–date referencing systems is the Chicago style citation quick guide. This page gives examples of different reference-list entries accompanied by an example of a corresponding in-text citation. If you need more detail, there is a link to the full contents page but, frustratingly, that’s the end of your free access and you need a subscription to get to the text of the manual itself. On the CIEP blog (25 November 2020), the ‘wise owls’ talked about references, too.

Many institutional libraries provide excellent guidance on referencing and citations. For example, the De Chastelain Library of the Dundalk Institute of Technology has a useful page analysing Harvard referencing. The Open University library has a publicly available page (Quick guide to Harvard referencing) that is very useful. The University of Sheffield library includes video tutorials on referencing, among other useful topics such as detailed referencing style guides that you can either consult online or download as PDFs. Some services are generally available; some are only fully available to alumni. If you are associated with an education institution, you may be able to access Cite Them Right, from Bloomsbury, for example. Cite Them Right demonstrates the principles of referencing and how to avoid plagiarism, and you can create an accurate reference in a variety of styles.

There is a wealth of information available to help authors to create accurate references in the correct style for their publisher. It’s a shame that they rarely consult these resources – although the time spent correcting authors’ idiosyncrasies is the bread and butter of many a CIEP member, so perhaps it’s just as well that they don’t!

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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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

The many benefits of being a member of the CIEP

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Once again it’s that time of year when we’re asking CIEP members to renew their membership. If you’re a CIEP member who can’t quite decide whether to renew or not, perhaps the five editors below can persuade you it’s worth it …

Laurie Duboucheix-Saunders

I have been a member of the CIEP – back then it was the SfEP – since I started freelancing in 2008 and I have never considered not renewing. With no professional editorial experience, I found out about the Institute when looking for a training course. Being a member allowed me to gain the skills I needed to become a good proofreader and editor, but remaining a member has allowed me to stay at the top of my game. Even though I am an Advanced Professional Member, I still benefit from doing courses with the CIEP, to refresh what I know or to keep up with an industry that keeps changing.

That’s not even what’s best about the CIEP. Being a member is not just about having the CIEP’s ‘seal of approval’ (read ‘logo’), it’s about belonging to a community that supports you and challenges you. The forums are a great place to go when you’re stuck and need the hive mind’s input. There’s always someone who can help you find the answer you need or point you in the right direction. The CIEP’s knowledge pool is vast, and chances are someone will be able to answer your questions about martial arts or architecture or nuclear fusion, as well as help you locate an obscure rule in a style guide so large you wonder what sort of mind it takes to come up with so many different rules about commas and full stops.

The CIEP is part of my daily life. Thanks to it, I have met people, online or in real life, who have become colleagues and friends I interact with every day. Being a freelancer can be a lonely business and the CIEP’s support (legal helpline, suggested minimum rates) is invaluable, but its members are what makes it indispensable.

Pedro Martin (Sanderling Editorial)

Renewing my CIEP membership is a no-brainer. I ended up getting my biggest client so far – both in terms of repeat work and total billable hours – from the ‘marketplace’ forum, so my membership definitely paid for itself.

I really appreciate how useful it is for people who are new to freelancing. I joined as a Professional Member with in-house experience, so I felt confident on the editorial side of things, but I was so clueless about transitioning to freelancing! Navigating your first few months as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader is especially tricky, so it’s great having access to so many knowledgeable and experienced editors who are happy to help with your questions.

And that’s on top of all the other membership benefits (like free guides for members, discounts on editing software and subscriptions, and the forums in general). I look forward to another year of advice, training, CPD, discounts, collegiality, resources and support for copyeditors and proofreaders with the CIEP!

Janet MacMillan

There are so many reasons why I’m renewing my CIEP membership: the vibrant forums where you can get an answer to what’s on your mind day or night, the highly respected training and continuing professional development, the enquiry- and work-producing directory, the helpful guides and fact sheets, the mentoring and the standards, among other things.

But the fundamental reason for me is the community. The CIEP community has helped me through thick and thin, especially in the last couple of years when we’ve all been struggling through plagues, war/political conflicts, earthquakes, blizzards, fires and even loo roll shortages.

The fact that I have so many lovely colleagues all over the world is a true joy, and that I can see and chat to at least 20+ of them every week is an incomparable pleasure. I see community members boosting each other up, both professionally and personally, taking pleasure and pride in each other’s successes, supporting one another in all that the world throws at us, and doing gentle kindnesses for each other.

The gorgeous card someone sent me earlier this year, the gratuitous offers of help with work and CIEP commitments when I faced trying caring responsibilities recently, the unexpected, but touching, comment on my first haircut in over two years, the entertaining GIFs someone likes to send, the ridiculous jokes and banter among members on social media, members travelling long, long distances to meet up, so many members working so hard for the common good, are all part of the CIEP community. To paraphrase a mid-2021 comment by a colleague in an international Cloud Club West Zoom meeting: the fact that I retain any semblance of sanity is, to a huge extent, thanks to the CIEP community. I wouldn’t be without it!

Caroline Petherick

I’ve subscribed to CIEP since the early nineties, and right from the start – even before I managed to access the infant internet – I found the sub worthwhile, because by being a paid-up member I got relevant training, hence confidence in what I was doing, combined with the expertise of some experienced editors one to one. That helped me start my business, even though for the first few years it was slow. Then, since around 2000, with the developing range of resources and support that the CIEP has provided, membership has been intrinsic to the success of my business and (particularly with the forums) to my enjoyment of life at the laptop. I can’t imagine being without the CIEP.

Alex Mackenzie

In a face-to-face conversation recently I found myself describing why our virtual CIEP network is so valuable to me. No, we’ve never met in person, but we are in weekly (some of us daily) contact. Our online video meetups – Cloud Club West (CCW) – is where (mostly) international members meet for professional support and online company.

Working from home is isolating anyway, and in this profession things can get pressurised and tense, with moments of complete loss and mind-boggling confusion. (The usual culprits: misbehaving tables, testy authors, a slow month, quirky layout, low motivation, time management, technology bugs, scope creep, grammar, ethics and copyright, to name a few). We need to reach out to like-minded people sometimes.

Two years ago, CCW spawned another smaller accountability group comprising seven members who spur each other on to market ourselves and get more clients. Both groups share personal and professional stories (even displaying our pets, children, artwork and knitting) – the CIEP membership makes this possible. (Read more in our blog post.)

What I value is the breadth of experience in editing and proofreading, from newbies to Advanced Professional Members. Being reflective about language is what many of us have always enjoyed (we speak close to 20 languages, from Afrikaans to Luxembourgish). But we come at it from all angles (history; environmental and social sciences; role-playing games; politics; law; economics; education; maths and statistics; chemistry, as well as English literature and linguistics). And we are spread across the globe – in diverse personal contexts – with fascinating stories to tell.

This means there’s always someone to offer advice, answer a query or point towards an alternative approach. This is an excellent professional resource and I always have a running list of queries for the next meeting. As we all value investing in high-quality CIEP training, we recommend courses to each other, and sometimes buddy up to work through them together too. And it’s nice to put faces to names when they pop up in the forums.

I know I speak for many in the CIEP when I say, the professional network is a major pull for continuing our membership.

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Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

The CIEP’s proofreading exercises: a preview

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Annie Deakins leapt at the opportunity to review and proofread the exercises in the CIEP’s new Exercise Bank. In this post, she explains what she reviewed and how she did it.

I was asked by Jane Moody, the CIEP’s training director, if I was interested in reviewing a bank of resources being drafted for CIEP members to practise proofreading. I absolutely was interested! I would act as a guinea pig by reviewing the proofreading exercises in the Exercise Bank, and then proofreading the material as part of the job. So, what did the review involve, and what’s in the bank?

In this article, I’ll cover:

My role in the review
An overview of the exercise bank
How to proofread an exercise
Tips and support
Benefits

My role in the review

This was the sequence of the tasks I carried out:

Do an exercise (as a practice proofread).
Compare my answer to the model answer and note any differences.
Read the commentary explaining the model answer.
Compare the model answer with the final published version (if appropriate).
Record how long it took to do the exercise.
Repeat steps 1–5.
Proofread all the materials – instruction/brief, exercise, model answer, and commentary – by finding typos and inconsistencies. Note down any queries for the training director to review.
Provide feedback on each exercise: suitability, appropriateness of level, how easy/hard I found them, time taken and suggest changes for improvements.

An overview of the exercise bank

There are nine proofreading exercises in the bank. Permission was obtained from the authors and/or publishers to introduce errors for the purpose of proofreading practice. The exercises vary in difficulty from level 1 (reasonably straightforward, no complex elements) increasing to level 3 (complex, detailed exercises; may include complex figures/graphs/illustrations and/or references or other elements). The exercises are a variety of lengths, so I could pick and choose to fit them around my schedule.

The Exercise Bank covers a variety of topics including fiction and non-fiction, published through traditional channels, or by businesses and self-publishers. Examples include: a chapter from a business book that was traditionally published; an extract from a self-published novel by a first-time author; the programme for a conference by a medical organisation; a story from a traditionally published children’s magazine; and a market report for a technical industry (print finishing).

Each exercise includes background information and a brief which explains the task. Sometimes a house style is provided. If a house style is not provided, you are asked to compile a style sheet.

How to proofread an exercise

Open the file and check all the components are present. In the case of this bank of exercises there will be a brief or cover letter, exercise, model answer (or two), commentary, and final clean copy (if applicable).

Brief

Read what the brief requires. There might be a particular emphasis on layout, or a need for amendments to be kept to a minimum because of a tight publishing schedule. There may be a need to respect the author’s voice, particularly in fiction.

Errors

Examples of errors to be found range from a missing full stop at the end of a paragraph to erroneous capitalisation or the wrong word or term. Others include layout issues and tables that are incorrectly formatted, or wrongly entered numbers.

When something amiss jumps out at you, it’s okay to brag inwardly about the error caught (oh yes, that was sneaky). Add any errors missed (oh no, that was sneaky!) to your personal list of areas for improvement.

Queries

The model answers include examples of author queries to indicate where confusion is present in the text. Indeed, tips accompany the exercises on how to differentiate mark-up between instructions to the typesetter and queries to the client. So valuable. Model queries show how to be fair, polite and respectful.

Explanations

Checking the exercise against the model answer was the best part for me – I managed to resist the temptation to peek before finishing the task … When reading the explanations in the commentary, there were always learning points for the reasons behind the mark-up in the model answer.

Tips and support

If the text is too distracting with, say, small font or too much colour in a leaflet, enlarging content by zooming in on the PDF can help identify errors.
Prior knowledge of BSI symbols is useful. Guidance is given if you have not used proofreading stamps before. I recommend doing the CIEP’s Proofreading 1: Introduction course before proceeding with the level 1 bank of exercises.
A range of model answers are given to show the variety of mark-up methods used and how the marks should appear.
Support is given with resources, e.g. links are provided for the Adobe Acrobat DC video tutorials and help pages for assistance with marking up PDFs, whether that’s using commenting tools, sticky notes, or BSI symbols.

Benefits

The exercises are self-paced with no need for a tutor. They work in the same way as Margaret Aherne’s Proofreading Practice book which can be bought through the CIEP (with a discount for members).

Proofreading speed and accuracy increase with practice and confidence. Once you can calculate how many words you can proofread in an hour, it makes it easier to quote for work from prospective clients.

I had already completed CIEP’s suite of proofreading courses, but reviewing these exercises helped me further improve my proofreading skills and gave me confidence in my ability to spot errors and catch inconsistencies. Tackling the proofreading exercises also gave me the confidence to book my place on the CIEP proofreading mentoring scheme. I highly recommend them.

In addition to the proofreading exercises described here, there are seven copyediting exercises and three on grammar.

Visit the Exercise Bank

If you would like to add an exercise to the bank, please get in touch with the training director: training@ciep.uk.

About Annie Deakins

Annie Deakins taught in Essex (via Paisley) for 30 years. She started CIEP proofreading training in 2016 and is an Intermediate Member. She proofreads non-fiction, education, and children’s books. She is a Partner Member of ALLi. Her job portfolio includes tutoring, and she blogs as #TallTartanTalks.

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Photo credits: colourful shelves by Maarten van den Heuvel; Practice/Practise by Brett Jordan, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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