Journalist Jessica Haworth will be with us for the next few weeks to teach us copyediting. This was the job I originally wanted when I applied for the course so I was looking forward to these sessions. Our first session was an overview of what is involved in the job of a copyeditor.

At the start we were given nine true or false questions to answer at the start and then amend as we go through. I was happy that I seemed to understand the role of a copyeditor well at the start of class. This was helpful to track our own progression through the class. Even though I started well, I feel like my knowledge of copyediting has built during this class.

Our final task for the day was to, in pairs, go through two pieces of text. The first one was to carry out a medium edit and the second just a light edit. Working with a partner was beneficial as we both found different errors and we discuss the corrections and whether they are necessary. When going through the task with the whole class it was interesting to see everyone’s varying opinions on each correction. There was much debate about the Oxford comma, and personal preference around the use of commas or the N dash. It was also challenging to not complete a heavy edit, but as a copyeditor it would be important to just do the amount of work that you are being paid for.

I found this lesson to be challenging as I found that my grammar was not up to scratch and it may be something worth practicing for this area of publishing. Other students also brought up this insecurity and Jess recommended the ‘Copyedit this!’ quiz as extra practice. She mentioned that even a great copyeditor cannot spot all mistakes on the first run through which is reassuring!

It seems that there are many grey areas and in a real-life copyediting situation there will be a style guide to base decisions on. Jess suggested that when you are unsure about a change it may be worthwhile to query it with the author, especially with inconsistencies. It was tiresome looking at the same text repeatedly which I imagine is a drawback to the job, but I imagine as I become more familiar with copyediting it will become less confronting and more enjoyable.

Further reading:

Amy Einsohn (2011) The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, Third Edition, With Exercises and Answer Keys. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/16/insider/copy-edit-this-quiz-11.html