Copyediting: A Practical Guide (Crish Trade Book)

Rating:
Summary: Copyediting: A Practical Guide
Review: A standard work in the field of editing originally designed for writers, editors, proofreaders, and copy editors by now widely used as a basic guide for treatment of written content. Its concern is with consistency, style, good usage, grammar and all the other elements of works longer than a memo.

Rating:
Summary: Most Dictionairies Don't Have the Word "Copyediting"...
Review: As the back cover of the book explains, the word "copyediting" doesn't appear in most dictionaries. And it is both an art and science to be able to capably copyedit writing. So why is it almost unknown, both literally and figuratively?

Well, as a friend of the author says, "...I see my job as making my work invisible." Copyediting is the art and science of preparing written work for publication. The copyeditor will check for any and all types of errors that might be found in text, including making sure the facts stated are correct. If the copyeditor has done his or her job correctly, you'll never realize they were there.

It's a tough discipline and it requires exactly that-discipline. This book does an excellent job of covering the ins-and-outs of copyediting, making it a valuable tool for writers and editors alike. Anyone who writes for a living or hopes to do so wuold do well to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Most Dictionairies Don't Have the Word "Copyediting"...
Review: As the back cover of the book explains, the word "copyediting" doesn't appear in most dictionaries. And it is both an art and science to be able to capably copyedit writing. So why is it almost unknown, both literally and figuratively?

Well, as a friend of the author says, "...I see my job as making my work invisible." Copyediting is the art and science of preparing written work for publication. The copyeditor will check for any and all types of errors that might be found in text, including making sure the facts stated are correct. If the copyeditor has done his or her job correctly, you'll never realize they were there.

It's a tough discipline and it requires exactly that-discipline. This book does an excellent job of covering the ins-and-outs of copyediting, making it a valuable tool for writers and editors alike. Anyone who writes for a living or hopes to do so wuold do well to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful, despite errors
Review: I'm just beginning to consider a career in copyediting; this book is one of several that I ordered so that I might gain an understanding of the discipline. Perhaps it's just the edition I have (after all, no one else has mentioned this), but there are several errors (copyediting errors or compositing errors) throughout the book. I'm not talking about stylistic errors--the writing is just fine. For example, in a few of the exercises, the text in the answers differs from the text in the exercise (the text should be identical in both, since the exercise only involves using copyediting symbols, etc.) I can imagine that it would be difficult keeping straight the 'example' edits and the actual edits, but I just found it a little ironic. Most of the errors were small (e.g., the first word of a title is missing an underline), but they stood out more than they would in a novel, due to the nature of the text.

Rating:
Summary: Detailed, hands-on, in a manageable size
Review: This is, indeed, a practical, information-packed guide, with lots of exercises, answer keys, and checklists. It doesn't go over every point of grammar--you can get that from your other reference books--but it does tell you most of what there is to know about pen-and-paper copyediting.

The book shows its age whenever computers are mentioned; Judd's comments on these magical machines are amusing and entertaining, but not very useful. I found it worthwhile, but if you edit online or on disk, this may not be the best book for you.