Tag Archives: Editorial Excellence

Manuscript critiques: piecing together the puzzle

Developmental editing vs manuscript critiquing

A manuscript critique is a kind of developmental edit. With both services, the editor analyses the manuscript as a whole and suggests how it can be improved. All the big-picture storytelling elements and techniques that go into a novel are considered.

Things like:

story
plot/structure
character
tension
theme
point of view

… and so on. These elements are usually considered in tandem with the novel’s suitability for its target readership and genre, and how publishable and marketable the manuscript is.

A manuscript critique is essentially a developmental edit lite. With a developmental edit, you analyse every scene, every character arc and every plot point in a novel. With a critique, you provide more general analysis that focuses on the main ways an author can improve their book. And instead of showing the author every instance of every problem (as you would with a full developmental edit), the author will comb through their manuscript and find the places they can apply your feedback.

Of course, take my descriptions with a pinch of salt because every editor will work slightly differently.

How the client benefits from a manuscript critique

With fiction, it’s usually the author who hires an editor for a manuscript critique. Fiction publishers look for compelling, effective novels – and competition is high. Because of this, authors need to be able to submit their best work. It’s a similar story for independent (self-publishing) authors. They also need to publish their best work in order to attract readers and good reviews.

A critique provides an author with a professional, objective perspective on their novel – and is more affordable than a full developmental edit. They can use the feedback to strengthen their novel’s foundations, increasing their chances of being published or minimising the risk of poor sales or bad reviews.

The critiquing process

A critique should come before any sentence-level editing. Not every author needs (or wants) a professional critique, but I’m yet to read a manuscript that wasn’t sent to me by a publishing house that wouldn’t have benefited from some larger revisions.

My critiquing process is very straightforward:

I read the manuscript.
I set the manuscript aside for a few days to let my thoughts percolate.
I write up my thoughts and suggestions.

The author can email me with any points they need me to clarify, but then I leave them to make their revisions.

Skills required to offer manuscript critiquing

The skills you need to be able to offer manuscript critiques are the same skills you need to become a developmental editor (of fiction). These include:

Knowledge of writing-craft theory – You need to know what makes a good story, how different writing techniques work, and what makes a novel publishable and compelling. Otherwise, you’ll have no concrete way to back up your suggestions.
Ability to read fast but carefully – To earn a competitive fee, you need to be able to read a manuscript as quickly as possible while still absorbing enough detail to be able to provide your critique.
Objectivity and detachment – You need to be able to keep your preferences out of the equation. You aren’t telling an author how you would have preferred the book to be written, but how changes to the book can best help the author achieve their creative and publishing goals.
Ability to organise and structure your thoughts – A novel is a huge, complex piece of work made up of many overlapping elements. You’ll need to create processes that help you untangle your thoughts and shape them into clear feedback.
Creativity – Even though you need to be objective, you still need to be creative enough to provide the author with suggestions. Suggestions help authors understand your criticisms and demonstrate how the problems with their manuscript can be resolved.

Summing up

It’s really satisfying to be able to help authors improve their novels on a deeper level.

I just love being able to take a novel-in-progress and turn it into a puzzle – seeing which pieces are missing, which bits can be discarded, and which shapes need to be changed in order for the bigger picture to become crystal clear.

Critiquing is both an analytical and a creative challenge – and one that I relish. It’s both my pleasure and my privilege to be able to offer this service to my clients.

Sophie Playle is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP. She’s a specialist fiction editor who provides editorial services to authors (and publishers) – and trains other editors through her online courses, too.

In the CIEP directory of Professional and Advanced Professional members, 25 listings include ‘manuscript critique‘.

Photo credits: puzzle – Kieran Wood; open book – Kiwihug, both on Unsplash

Proofread by Lynne Baybut, Entry-Level Member.
Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Plain English Campaign: from Thatcher to Johnson

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By Lee Monks

‘Wit is the alliance of levity and seriousness (by which the seriousness is intensified)’ – TS Eliot

Although officially established in 1979, the Plain English Campaign really started life much earlier. Our roots lie in making life fairer for everyone; the Tuebrook Bugle, founded by Chrissie Maher in early 1960s Liverpudlian slums, was created to bring news to people whose education meant that general news items largely or partially passed them by. They were inadvertently excluded from their community through a combination of poor reading skills and shame. The paper’s language was simple and clear, and meant that many hundreds of locals now felt connected. News items that directly affected them were no longer baffling. Local citizens could claim more knowledge that would not only inform them but empower them too.

Democratising information

The Bugle was a highly popular and unprecedented success. There’d been nothing like it before in the UK. Working-class mums like Chrissie were predominantly responsible for its content, production and delivery (available at a nominal cost; no more than enough to get the paper printed). It was the seed from which the Plain English Campaign would later flourish; it was born out of anger that masses of people were unnecessarily marginalised. It led to revamped local conditions – no more keeping people in the dark about their rights to save money – and the appreciation that the ‘rank and file’ could enforce change, as long as they had access to all necessary facts.

Chrissie eventually moved on to other endeavours, such as the Liverpool News and the Salford Forms Market (enabling poorly educated men and women to claim what they were entitled to by helping them understand horribly written government forms), but the scope for helping people and democratising information ultimately led in one direction: towards the transformation of language and information at the national level.

Enduring change

To think of the Plain English Campaign now – as a force for the democratic good, a bulwark against jargon, legalese, obfuscation and spin – is to forget just how rampantly confusing much of the public domain information was in 1979. The event that heralded the official beginning of the campaign – Chrissie shredding impenetrable government documentation in front of the Houses of Parliament – was a watershed moment. At that point, there had been no real speaking truth to power on the matter. Those on the bottom rung simply accepted their plight. But Chrissie had nearly two decades of fighting their corner under her belt and knew how to bring about enduring change. That symbolic initiation was no gimmick – it was a call to arms. And it brought attention to a campaign that would grow rapidly in the following years.

The first few of those years were about driving home the point that pompous use of language was no longer acceptable. Walls had to be knocked down; an entire philosophy, established over centuries, needed to be replaced. There were two key elements in play, both of which were vitally important to the continued success of the campaign. One was the need to reinforce the idea that polysyllabic words were not only not impressive when it came to public information, but that the use of them was a political matter. Language was a means of shutting out vast numbers of a potential audience; if you couldn’t understand something, the onus was on the reader to parse often labyrinthine tranches of information. Long sentences, Latinate references: this habit of employing words that only a portion of a readership could appreciate needed to become less prevalent.

The second measure, without which the campaign might have taken much longer to become as established, was mockery. It was all right suggesting that people needed to know about local and national government matters and that to deny them was inherently wrong but, as has been shown since, those in power will more often than not wilfully confuse an audience rather than inform it and risk economic loss. The morality of providing clear information – which Margaret Thatcher would support – was one thing; doing the right thing, encouraged by the prime minister, was certainly effective, and the requirement that civil servants communicate clearly got things moving in the right direction. Job centre forms were already much clearer thanks to campaign pressure; medicine labels would soon follow suit.

But once it became not only regrettable but also a matter of ridicule to use poor, pointlessly complex language, things really began to take off.

So plain English became not only the right way to communicate – arguments against it only strengthened its hand in opposing a needlessly stubborn elite – but also the only respectable way. Beyond a certain point in the 1980s there were no longer convincing reasons for doing otherwise. Jargon was no longer confusing; it was laughable, easy to caricature (have a look at our Gobbledygook Generator for proof!). Those employing gobbledygook instead of plain English were not only becoming more and more unfashionable, they were figures of fun.

The game is up for poor communication

As our Foot in Mouth Award best attests: talk nonsense and you’re asking for trouble. To read a jargon-heavy sentence these days is not only to wince with discomfort but also to implicitly understand that the misuse of language is deserving of ridicule. The government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis is deplorably woolly in terms of language, and it has deservedly spawned countless mocking articles, memes and tweets. The odious ‘Stay alert’ rebranding is surely designed to put the onus on a stressed and ambivalent public to make up their own minds about just what it could possibly mean. But as the withering responses – from newspapers to those suffering harrowing loss – show, poor use of language is now not only ‘not on’, it will get the drubbing it deserves. Plain English is the benchmark; the rank and file know full well when they’re being had. For those unwilling to speak and communicate clearly the game is very quickly up.

Lee Monks is the Media and Communications Officer for PEC but has fulfilled many roles for the Campaign over the years.

Photo credits: Blah blah blah by Nick Fewings, and Daffodils at Westminster by Ming Jun Tan, both on Unsplash.

Proofread by Joanne Heath, Entry-Level Member.
Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Stay alert: the importance of plain English in these confusing times

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By Claire Beveridge

Presenting scientific data or science-based guidelines can be like walking a tightrope. Lean too far to one side and you risk falling into the trap of using too much jargon and alienating your readers. Shift too much the other way and your message becomes vague and confusing. You need look no further than the messaging from the UK Government for an example of this delicate balancing act. Their initial message ‘Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives’ was simple, direct and clearly conveyed what everyone was supposed to do. Contrast this with its successor ‘Stay alert. Control the virus. Save lives’, which was almost immediately met with confusion and parodies on social media such as ‘Be vague. Cover our backs. Shirk responsibility’. What exactly did ‘stay alert’ mean, and what could and couldn’t we do? If only they had used plainer English.

Communication of scientific and medical information is most effective when things are written clearly and simply. Scientific literacy among the general population has been reported to be decreasing, and bad writing that is too complicated makes it increasingly difficult for non-scientists to engage. Add in the pandemic of ‘fake news’ that constantly seems to swirl online and you have a dangerous mix. A BBC team recently reported that the human cost of coronavirus misinformation has included assaults, arson and death, with hundreds dying in Iran as a result of alcohol poisoning following rumours of its curative effects, and others ingesting disinfectant and even fish tank cleaner following some of the daily pronouncements by Donald Trump. The stakes could not be higher. If important information isn’t communicated in a way that people understand, the result can be the unnecessary loss of life.

The ‘dihydrogen monoxide parody’ is a classic example of how using unnecessarily complicated scientific terms and selectively reporting data can lead people to reach misplaced conclusions. It has been deployed several times, and involves water being called by an unfamiliar chemical name and members of the public being presented with a list of its well-known effects that make it sound dangerous (such as that it is used as an additive in junk foods, it is found in tumours of terminal cancer patients and it is the major component of acid rain), followed by people being urged to ‘sign here to join the campaign for it to be banned’.

Science, by its very nature, is full of questions that cannot be answered without an element of doubt. Even if someone can get the same result when they repeat an experiment, it doesn’t ‘prove’ that something is or isn’t true. Results are simply pieces of evidence that support (or refute) a theory; ‘all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final’ (Kanazawa, 2008). Understandably, this can be a hard concept to grasp, and frustration and mistrust can arise if people feel that they are not being given a ‘proper’ answer. When will we have a vaccine against COVID-19? When will our lives go back to the way they were before the pandemic? No mathematical model can accurately predict the answers to these questions because we have never experienced this situation before. Even if we had, there would be no guarantee that the situation would play out in exactly the same way again; there are simply too many factors involved. When presenting data, writers need to consider people’s expectations and be honest about what is and isn’t known, and why.

The use of plain English is also important when scientists write for other scientists. It is a golden rule of scientific writing that methods must be described so that someone else can repeat experiments, and it is best practice to aim the abstract of a research paper at a level suitable for a non-specialist graduate student. More importantly, English is the global language of science and writers must always remember that many of their readers will not be native English speakers. Reading research papers that are crammed full of acronyms and complicated terminology can feel like wading through treacle, even when the writer works in the same field as you. Imagine how this must feel if English is not your first language. When results and guidelines are published, they are shared globally to spread ideas and new findings as widely as possible, and hopefully stimulate new ideas and collaborations across different disciplines that will advance our understanding. This cannot happen if only experts in a specific field can decode what is being said. Writing in plain English both speeds up the process of sharing new knowledge and increases the chances of new and exciting discoveries being made, something that is particularly useful when confronting a global pandemic caused by a virus that has never been seen before.

Clear communication in these confusing times may also yield another benefit; increasing engagement with science and medicine holds the key to inspiring the next generation of researchers, which will hopefully increase the numbers entering the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. Data from STEM Women show that the split between men and women in terms of studying STEM subjects at university and then going on to pursue a career in STEM is still far from equal. We have a golden opportunity to readjust this balance if we can clearly communicate just how fascinating and rewarding scientific and medical research can be.

I have seen a lot of posts online musing over whether COVID-19 will change the way we live and work forever. If we can increase our use of plain English when communicating scientific data and guidelines, one positive change may be increased engagement.

Claire Beveridge is a CIEP Advanced Professional Member specialising in medicine and the biological sciences. Based near Oxford, she has over 13 years’ experience working with publishers and individual researchers. She has recently developed a worrying fascination with personal finance. Find her on Twitter.

If you’re looking for an experienced editor skilled in plain English editing, search for ‘plain English’ in the CIEP Directory.

Photo credits: tightrope by Loic Leray; clear water by Rots Marie-Hélène, both on Unsplash.

Proofread by Alice McBrearty, Entry-Level Member.
Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Proofreading as a digital nomad

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By Christina Petrides

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved travelling. I don’t know if it’s the actual journey, the destination, the excitement of exploring, or a combination of all three but I know that I’m happiest in an airport, on a plane, arriving in a new country, and taking those first, tentative steps to discovering the culture of a new place.

That desire to travel has followed me my entire life. All through university and into my first job. Onto my second job. And my third. And on it went. My itchy feet syndrome came up regularly in conversation: Have I booked another trip yet? When am I next flying off? What fun stories can I regale them with from my last trip? I would take notes on my travels and dream of writing a book of short stories one day.

I put my wanderlust to the back of my mind as best I could and proceeded to build a career for myself in the environmental industry. That was my second love – the environment. When I graduated with an environmental degree, I got my first lucky break and found a job with the then Department for Environment working in the policy team. The job was interesting, but policy work bored me to tears. Things moved at a glacial speed whereas I thrived on the excitement and fast pace of project work.

Soon enough, I got lucky again. An internal move saw me land a job that allowed me to combine the two: promoting the environmental sector and travelling to Asia to do it. I got the excitement and the travels!

But cutbacks meant it couldn’t last forever, so after a couple of years I moved into environmental exhibitions marketing. That was my first experience of copyediting. In fact, it was probably the first time I’d ever heard the term. I wrote and edited advert copy, worked with designers on banners and flyers, and cut deals with trade magazines on placement and promotion. When the time came to proofread the show catalogue before it went to the printer I relished the detailed work and the opportunity to set things straight. This was other people’s businesses we were dealing with; we had to get it right.

I loved it, but not enough. Exhibitions were fun, but not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The environment sector pulled me back in and I settled into consultancy for the next decade. It had everything that I loved: I worked on all sorts of projects, large and small; I managed teams of specialists, juggling information and acting as the liaison between them and clients; I compiled reports from multiple authors, copyediting and proofreading before they went into the public domain; I even got to do a little travelling from time to time to unusual and exciting places.

By now I had hit my forties. Life has a funny way of reminding you what’s important when you get there. Call it a mid-life crisis, call it reality hitting, but a little seed planted itself in my mind and this time it wouldn’t go away – travel. Just get on a plane and go! Before long, that niggling thought became a screaming siren that I could no longer ignore.

I quit my job and booked a one-way ticket to Colombia. I was going to spend four months travelling around South America to get this out of my system and then get back to work. Even if it was only to save enough money for the next adventure. I blogged my way around six countries, documenting the stories that could one day make their way into that book, assuming I ever get around to writing it.

I remember it being a bright afternoon in Cusco, Peru, and I was walking up a cobblestone street filled with tourist shops when I made the decision. I realised that I couldn’t face another job and another decade of living in London, so I had to find a way of working while I travelled. I had met all sorts of people on my journey and one of them was a proofreader. It got me thinking … Don’t I already do that – at least in some form?

On my return, I made a call to the then SfEP (now the CIEP): What did I need to do to become a proofreader? They recommended the Publishing Training Centre, so I enrolled onto their Basic Proofreading course and studied before and after work. I gave myself a year to complete it, save up enough money and make a start on finding some clients.

It took 18 months. By the time my bags were packed I had a new career as a proofreader and copywriter and had four regular clients: a website designer who needed a proofreader and writer for the sites he built for tradespeople, retail and service providers; an agency that matched proofreaders with dyslexic and disabled students who required proofreading services; a financial services provider who needed a little extra help with their corporate communications; and an existing environmental client who wanted to retain my services as a freelance.

I also had a one-way ticket to Cambodia and a plan to spend the next few months travelling around Asia. After that, who knew?

This month marks two years since I packed up my flat and my bags and I haven’t looked back. Along the way I have spent time in 12 different countries and continued to add new clients to my books.

None of my clients are in the traditional publishing sector; it’s an area I know nothing about and trying to break into it seemed like an exercise in futility. Instead, I focused on what and who I knew. I spread the word about my new career and lifestyle and those that heard it spread it further. I leveraged the work experience I had from my previous careers and used it to demonstrate what I could do.

I still work in the environmental consultancy sector, albeit in a more strategic and reviewing role, and the various parts of my life have begun to overlap. One environmental client recently asked me to proofread a bid they had going out, and the travel blogger I proofread for loves the extra edits and suggestions he gets from me from places I’ve been to that he’s writing about.

I have done some very interesting work and I have done some mind-numbingly boring work. I have written website copy and blogs for accountants, plumbers, personal trainers, and wedding gown retailers – most of which I know nothing about so have had to learn, and fast. I have proofread theses and essays from subjects as varied as ecology, law and socioeconomics, newsletters on financial planning, and website content for restaurants, dentists, and market traders.

But I get to work at my own pace, in a location of my choosing, and without having to sweat my way to work on the tube. I learn something new from each proofreading and writing job that I do, and with each one I realise how much more there is still to learn. And I’ve already got the next exciting venture on the go, bringing it all together: a website for those who want to travel but are afraid to go it alone. If I can do it, you can do it too, whether you want to take your work with you or not.

Not that long ago Christina Petrides packed up her high heels and gave up her London Oyster card to work as a freelance. Having worked in the environmental and marketing sectors for nearly two decades, she now runs her own copywriting, proofreading and environmental consulting business. She is a life-long traveller; and just one of an increasing number of digital nomads making the most of good WiFi and flexible working.

CIEP’s Cloud Club is made up of a number of CIEP members located in countries around the world, together with members who are in far-flung parts of the UK and find it almost impossible to get to local group meetings – perfect for digital nomads!

Proofread by Joanne Heath, Entry-Level Member.
Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

Photo credits: Bogota, Colombia – Jorge Gardner on Unsplash; Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia – Kevin Tomsett on Unsplash.

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

Inclusion and diversity

Editing technical materials: what you need … and what you don’t

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By Liz Jones

I’ve been editing highly technical material for two and a half years, mostly for a local content agency. When the company first approached me, I had little knowledge of the areas they work in, mainly electronics and artificial intelligence. They knew this, but were happy to try me out, and I’ve been editing for them regularly ever since, working on press releases, blogs, white papers and user guides, as well as various other short documents and web content.

Editing technical content is in some ways just like editing anything else … and in a few other ways, it isn’t. Here’s a quick overview of what you need to tackle this kind of work – and also what you don’t.

Willingness to engage beyond your expertise

My degree is in architecture, and my entire subsequent career has been in educational publishing and general non-fiction. But in the past couple of years I’ve come to love the language of electronics and computing, and find in it a certain solace and even – on occasion – poetry. The materials I spend a considerable portion of my working week on bear no relation to any other aspect of my life, but it doesn’t matter. Work is work, and the problems to be grappled with remain the same. Does it make sense? Is it consistent? Will the person reading it be able to understand?

An eye for detail

This is, of course, essential for any editor, whatever field we work in. The difference is that when you’re editing technical content, small inconsistencies in product serial numbers or units of measurement are crucial to the sense of an article. You might not know yourself if a measurement is wrong, but you need to be able to spot if something doesn’t look right and flag it up for someone with the expertise to verify it. 50 mA is very different, for example, from 50 MA.

The ability to live with inelegant language and prioritise clarity

For the client I work with, much of the work I do has been written by people for whom writing is not a vocation, and often English is not their first language. I try to smooth out the expression as far as I can, but at the end of the day what the client cares about is conveying the important information about a product or innovation. Often there is limited time available to work on a document, and in that case it’s more important to focus on accuracy and clarity than on beautiful prose. That said, even small changes can make a big difference to the readability and accessibility of a text, and I do what I can in the time available.

Restraint

Resisting change, unless there is a solid reason for it, is a good approach for any editor, but it’s especially helpful with technical content. Often things are worded in a very particular way for a reason, and even transposing words might completely alter the meaning of a sentence. This always matters, but it matters double when a misunderstanding could cause a short-circuit, for example.

Embracing of camel case

Technical texts reference many brand and product names, platforms and protocols. In these cases, capitalisation matters, and often there will be strange use of cases to contend with and get right. Nobody’s going to die as a result of a brand name being presented inaccurately, but mistakes in this area will reduce credibility and trust, and make a document appear half-finished and messy.

Ability to work with a number of style guides

Working for an agency can entail editing material for a number of end clients. They will all have their style preferences, and text may be destined for audiences in particular geographic regions. For example, I am frequently called on to anglicise or Americanise text, and to switch between clients who prefer spaces before their SI units and ones who don’t, or clients who favour abbreviations where others might spell out a term (such as Internet of Things) in full. Documents are frequently very short, so I might need to switch between several different style guides in the course of an hour.

Responsiveness

When you’re editing press releases, they often need to be turned around on the same day. This is likely to be the case for a range of business content. It’s not like books, where manuscripts can marinate for weeks or months (even years!). To do this kind of work it therefore helps to keep to fairly regular business hours, and to be able to move work around and handle small requests at very short notice.

In-depth subject knowledge – not needed!

To my surprise, I found it didn’t matter too much that I started out with little to no knowledge of electronics or computing terminology, beyond a rusty grasp of GCSE-level Physics. However, after two years of near-daily exposure, I can now say with some confidence that I know my amperes from my ohms. I’ll never be an expert, but I’ve really enjoyed learning more about a field I’d never otherwise have encountered. My continued education benefits me as well as the client – I’m sure I do a better job now than I did at the beginning, but my position as a reasonably well-informed layperson still grants me a degree of valuable objectivity. All in all, it’s been a joy, and I’m so glad I said yes to editing in a field outside my comfort zone.

Liz Jones has worked as an editor in the publishing industry since 1998, and has been freelance since 2008. She edits for a range of publishing and non-publishing clients, specialising in art, architecture, cookery, vocational education, general non-fiction and technical proofreading.

SfEP members have a broad range of knowledge and expertise – visit the CIEP directory to discover Professional and Advanced Professional Members’ niches and the services they offer.

Proofread by Joanne Heath, Entry-Level Member.
Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Six ways an editor can improve your business content

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By Mary McCauley

What do you think of when you read the words ‘editor’ or ‘proofreader’? Perhaps if you haven’t used our services before, you might think of us as people who look for spelling and grammar errors? People who check that commas are in the right places? And, yes, you’d be right – we do check these things. But we can also do much more to help you produce content that delivers on its business objective.

Business editors work on a wide range of business content including reports, strategies, policies, newsletters, blog posts, websites, brochures, marketing material, catalogues, manuals, presentations, directories and survey results. Here are six ways an editor can add value to these documents.

1. An editor can make sure your content is clearly written and complete

Often when we are so familiar with or knowledgeable about a topic, we have difficulty explaining it in a way that a non-expert reader can understand. So whether it’s a guide about your services, a marketing material promoting a new product, or a report on a technical examination, an editor can make sure that your intended readers will understand it and take action as you want them to.

An editor can edit and, if necessary, rewrite your content to ensure that:

The wording, style and tone are suitable for the target reader.
The content flows in a logical order the reader can follow.
There is no confusing or misleading content.
No important information is missing.
No unnecessary information is included.
The layout helps guide the reader, eg paragraphs, headings, lists, graphics.
The language, spelling and style are consistent.

2. An editor can check that the basic facts in your content are correct

While businesses are responsible for the content they create, editors can help make sure that this content is accurate. We can save you from publishing an embarrassing mistake and the potential customer mistrust that might follow. If, for example, you are writing a business-to-business report, you might include details of your client’s or another company’s name and products. You might refer to relevant legislation or to specific dates. It’s important that these details are correct and that your client can rely on you to get them right.

An editor can check that names are spelled correctly, that you’ve referred to the correct section and year in the legislation and that Thursday 16 November 2018 actually was a Thursday.

3. An editor can rewrite your content into plain English

Writing in plain English is not about ‘dumbing down’ language, nor is it only for target audiences that include people with reading difficulties. Customers are busy and probably prefer not to have to wade through dense, long-winded text to get to the basic information they’re looking for. Writing in plain, simple language can help you deliver your message more successfully. And if your customers understand it, you’ll have fewer queries to deal with.

A plain English editor can help ensure that your content contains:

language your target audience will understand
positive and active language
everyday vocabulary.

And that it avoids:

long, meandering sentences
problematic jargon and bureaucratic phrasing
unnecessary words and phrases
unnecessary capital letters.

4. An editor can create a style guide for your organisation’s written content

Does your organisation create a lot of written content? Is it written by two or more people? Is the work subcontracted to copywriters, design companies, printers, etc? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then consider developing your own organisation-specific style guide. Using one means it’s more likely your documents will be consistent in language and style. This in turn helps increase your customers’ confidence in your business.

An editor can create and develop a style guide specifically for your organisation. This will guide the people writing your content on things such as:

Capitalisation – chief executive officer or Chief Executive Officer?
Numbers and symbols – 20% or 20 per cent?
Currency – euros or euro?
Lists – full stops, commas or nothing at the end of bullet points?
Dates and time – 13 May 2019 or May 13, 2019?
Spelling preferences – recognise or recognize?
Quotations – double quote marks or single?

An editor can also include an A–Z list of words, terms and abbreviations used regularly in your business and give guidance on the spelling, capitalisation, etc of these.

5. An editor can deliver editing and proofreading training to your staff

If you would like to develop your organisation’s in-house writing and editing expertise, an editor can design and deliver workshops for your staff based on your organisation’s particular needs. This will help your staff to write better business content.

An editor can provide training on:

editing and rewriting content
writing in plain English
using your organisation’s style guide
proofreading.

6. An editor can proofread your final designed content before it goes to the printer

Along with all this added value an editor can bring to your business content, we can still help you with that final proofread of your designed and laid-out content. However, this proofread includes so much more than just a check for spelling and grammar errors! Business clients are often amazed by how detailed a final proofread can be and the range of problems it can highlight.

An editor can proofread your final document to check that:

A table of contents page matches the actual contents.
Headers, footers and page numbers are correct and consistent.
The content is laid out correctly and in the right order.
Headings and subheadings are correctly and consistently styled.
Lists are consistently styled and punctuated.
Images and graphics are clear and placed correctly.
Tables and figures are numbered, captioned, referenced and styled correctly.
Hyperlinks work and are styled consistently.

The above is just a sample list and by no means exhaustive – there are lots of other things we also check for in a final proofread.

Your business content is important, and getting it wrong can be costly and time consuming. An editor can do so much more than just check it for spelling mistakes, so consider contracting a trained professional editor to help you create the best content for your business.

Note: For the record, 16 November 2018 was a Friday and not a Thursday!

Mary McCauley is an editor and proofreader specialising in helping business, government and public sector bodies in Ireland and the UK. She has 15 years’ business research and administration experience, mostly in the public sector, and started her editorial business Mary McCauley Proofreading in 2012. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and a Full Member of the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland (AFEPI Ireland). Connect with Mary on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

The CIEP offers bespoke training courses, led by experienced and skilled editorial professionals, suitable for any organisation that wants to produce high quality content.

Proofread by Emma Easy, Entry-Level Member.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Editing across time zones

5 Replies

By Janet MacMillan

There’s no doubt now that editing is a global profession. Not only are there a significant number of international members of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), an even greater number of us have clients all over the world.

Editing in a variety of Englishes – for example, British, Canadian, American, Australian, New Zealand – doesn’t faze many of us these days. Our love of language and communication, to say nothing of the ability to travel widely, be it virtually in online groups (which include the SfEP’s active forums) or in real life, has led a large number of us to embrace the world as global editors.

Getting to grips with time zones

Time zones are often the international editor’s best friend, once the editor does the mental gymnastics to figure out what time 9am in Singapore (or anywhere else around the world) is when they are in Toronto (which is my hometown and where I spend a good deal of my time). Can the editor in Toronto, who receives a 3,000-word document for an international organisation at 5pm local time, meet the deadline of 9am the next morning in Singapore? Can the editor in Hampshire, who gets a request at 9pm to edit a 6,000-word document with a deadline of 9pm Pacific Time that day, meet the deadline? And can the editor in Shanghai who wakes up to a request to edit a 10,000-word document by 10am Eastern Time that day take on the job?

The answer for all three editors is yes. A resounding yes. The editor in Toronto will work out that 9am the next day in Singapore is actually 9pm that day for them, so with four hours in hand, the job can be done, delivered to the client, leaving time for dinner and a glass of wine once the job is done.

As to the editor in Shanghai, they’re laughing. They have so much time in hand – at least 14 hours, depending on when they check their emails in the morning – they can join their friend for coffee that morning, then do the edit, returning it to their client so it’s there hours in advance.

At first glance, the editor in Hampshire seems to have a problem. They know that the eight-hour time difference means they’d have to get the job done by 5am GMT, which would mean more than burning the midnight oil. And they’ve already enjoyed dinner and a drink. But that editor’s reality is that all is far from lost. They belong to an international collective of editors who are, in effect, able to provide a seamless service pretty well around the clock; and the request has come from a very regular client that all of their colleagues – wherever they are located – can and do undertake work for. So, they check that one of their colleagues in Toronto can fit in the work; and as the Toronto editor has eight hours to do the job, all is well. Happy client, happy editorial professionals. What’s not to like?!

The reader doesn’t need to be Einstein to work out that in this tale, I’m the editor in Toronto (though it could just as easily be either of the other two collective members who are in Toronto). With collective members in various time zones, we’re able to take on work with short timelines, and often that work is a largish document that arrives late in the day, wherever the editor is.

Global colleagues and opportunities

Sometimes people think time zones make working for global organisations difficult. While I suppose for some it might, for those who are up for a challenge, and who like a huge variety of work from an equally huge array of clients, time zones are wonderful. And clients can often take advantage of time zones to have urgent, time-sensitive documents efficiently edited (or proofread), especially when editorial professionals work in a team.

Not all that long ago, my colleagues and I were asked to proof-edit a 35,000-word document for a global professional services firm. The request came in at 5pm Toronto time (Eastern Time), with a deadline of 8am Eastern Time the next day. A daunting prospect, but we knew it could be done. One of us set to a couple of hours later, doing certain tasks on the document, then downed tools before their head was drooping, and a colleague in Aberdeen took over, finished the document and returned it with a bit of time to spare. Again, happy client, happy editorial professionals. And time zones were our friend, enabling us to work efficiently and effectively.

However, I do need to admit that working across all the time zones in the world is not for the faint of heart, but it is hugely interesting and equally invigorating. Getting to know clients and cultures and different ways of doing things around the world is a joy. It does require very efficient methods of working, a high degree of flexibility and, preferably, a team of trusted colleagues, be those colleagues a more formal grouping, as my colleagues and I are, or a more informal, ad hoc arrangement.

Janet MacMillan is an Advanced Professional Member of the SfEP specialising in law, international development, politics and all the social sciences, who, along with her Editing Globally colleagues, provides editorial services to everyone, everywhere. Following a successful career as a lawyer, mostly in the UK and Europe, Janet’s main base is now in Toronto with her Best Dog in the World, but she spends periods of time each year in rural Suffolk. Janet is the coordinator of the SfEP Cloud Club (a monthly in-real-time ‘local’ group for international members, and others), a co-coordinator of the lively and expanding Toronto SfEP group, and attends both the Norfolk and Cambridge SfEP groups when she can. She likes time zones, and this article was written while she crossed five of them.

Proofread by Joanne Heath, Entry-Level Member.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, SfEP blog coordinator.

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

Excellence

Editing translated English

7 Replies

By Allison Turner

I like to think of editing as bridging the gap between what the writer wants to communicate and what the reader actually understands. If the writing has been translated or written in a language other than the writer’s strongest one, that gap is typically wider. That’s why an editor of such writing has a few extra points – technical and stylistic – to look out for.

Points to watch out for when editing translated English

The first aspects to be aware of are the technical ones arising from the differences between the source language of the translation or the writer’s best language, as the case may be, and English. An obvious example is false friends – words that look very similar in the two languages but have different meanings. For example, several European languages have a word similar to ‘eventually’ that, instead of meaning ‘at some point in the distant future’, means ‘possibly’.

At the next level up, the sentence level, it helps to know how the grammar of the writer’s language differs from English grammar. For example, Italian rarely uses subject pronouns and Russian has no articles, so writers from those language backgrounds may have trouble with these issues. I have an Italian client whose English is great, but she occasionally misses the ‘there’ in a sentence like ‘There are many reasons.’ Not surprising, since its purpose is purely grammatical rather than meaningful – but it can be confusing if you don’t expect it (especially when the sentence is more complicated than that).

Editing as a word puzzle

I see this type of editing as a kind of word puzzle, especially if I know the writer’s first language at least a little. ‘What word could they have mistranslated into this one?’ or ‘How would this sentence likely have been written?’ German – which I can confidently say I know at least a little – is particularly fun for this, as it has some word order rules entirely different from English ones.

A professional translator will know how to avoid these technical traps, but there are stylistic issues to be aware of that apply to translations as well as writing in a second (or third or fourth…) language. One of these is words that are not so much false friends as fair-weather friends. These have quite similar denotations but a different connotation or tone. For example, a Portuguese speaker might use ‘foment’ to describe creating something positive, but that would sound odd to English ears. Or a French speaker may use a word that is more recherché than the tone of the text calls for, because the French cognate is much less obscure.

Connotations, style, and voice

It’s a good idea to clarify the connotations are correct. For example, I might say ‘This sounds harsh (or flippant, or negative) – is it meant to?’ Of course this is true of all editing, but I think it’s more likely that multilingual writers do not realise how they are coming across.

On a more general level, different languages have different ideas of style. My grammar teacher put it this way: ‘English likes verbs, French likes nouns.’ So a sentence that sounds good in French could sound quite stuffy in English, simply because it has too many abstract nouns that could easily have been verbs. Or a writer who speaks Arabic, which tends to be more flowery than English, might in English come across as excessively wordy.

The last thing to think about – and arguably the most important – is the author’s voice. If the author’s English isn’t great or is non-existent, what we want is not quite their own voice, but more like an idealised version of it. I speak French and German regularly, but I know I’m not as smart in French or as funny in German as I am in English. I don’t edit fiction, and I’m sure there are additional considerations for those who do, but every piece of writing expresses something about the writer – whether they want to show themselves to be knowledgeable, or approachable, or empathic, or witty, or all of the above. A good editor can help with this.

I need to conclude by admitting that sometimes I really don’t know what the writer means. In such a case, I still almost always offer one or more suggestions. Even if I’m way off, in most cases the user can tell from my guess what went wrong, and eventually (in the English sense!) together we come to the best way of expressing it. One of my favourite clients said it best: ‘You think with and for me.’

Allison Turner is a textual healer and a Professional Member of the CIEP. A Canadian who lives in Switzerland and a former ESL teacher, she edits mainly for academics and entrepreneurs.

Proofread by Joanne Heath, Entry-Level Member.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

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

Post originally published March 2019; updated June 2021.