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| Reference Books | A Spelling Test | Web Links |
| A Copy Editor's Vocabulary | |||
By Mindy McAdams
In 1991 I was asked to develop a course in magazine copy editing for New York University's Management Institute. I taught the course for two semesters, spring 1992 and fall 1992 (I would have gone on teaching it, but I left New York). NYU had long offered courses in copy editing and proofreading, but they were focused on practices in the book publishing business.When I started teaching the course, I had been a copy editor at Time magazine for three years. In 1993 I left Time to become a copy editor at The Washington Post. I had also worked as a copy editor in the book business (two years as an in-house copy editor at Dell Publishing and free-lance work for Doubleday and Warner Books). So I knew how magazine and book editing requirements differ. (You can find out more if you look at my résumé.)
What follows is the syllabus for my course. I think it may be useful for anyone who wants to teach copy editing skills and also for people who are curious about jobs in publishing.
The class met for two hours, once a week, for twelve weeks.
PLEASE NOTE: I have never taught this class online, and I am not interested in doing so. If you would like to learn to edit, please read the books I have recommended; they will get you started. There is information about editing classes on some of the sites listed on my web links page.
In this document:
- Course Content
- Objectives
- Course Requirements & Grading Criteria
- Required Texts
- Week 1: Introduction to Copy Editing and Proofreading
- Week 2: Development of a Copy Editor's Sensibility: An Overview
- Week 3: Standard Reference Books
- Week 4: Headlines, Captions, and the Vocabulary of Printing
- Week 5: Electronic Copy Editing
- Weeks 6 & 7: Common Problems in Spelling and Punctuation
- Week 8: Grammar
- Week 9: Syntax and Structural Problems
- Week 10: House Style
- Week 11: Fact Checking and Queries / Consistency / Word Usage
- Week 12: Jobs in Magazine Copy Editing
Course Content
An introduction to the procedures of copy editing for consumer, trade, and specialty magazines.
- Skills in grammar and word usage, punctuation, spelling, style, fact checking, use of reference books, and writing headlines and captions will be taught and developed through assignments.
- The special conditions of an electronic editing environment will be explained.
- Students will learn the vocabulary of printing and page layout.
- An overview of the kinds of jobs available will be provided.
No prior knowledge of or experience in copy editing is required, but students are expected to have a thorough understanding of English grammar.
Objectives
By the end of this course, students will:
- Be acquainted with the most common errors that copy editors fix and have experience in finding those errors.
- Know what the copy editor's standard reference books are and what a copy editor is expected to look up.
- Understand the mind-set with which professional copy editors approach their work.
- Know the standard proofreader's marks and be able to use them.
- Be familiar with magazine-industry terms concerning page design, layout, and typography.
- Know the different requirements of working on electronic systems (computer) and on paper (manuscript).
- Understand the mechanics of writing headlines and captions.
- Know the function of a style book and the importance of consistency in style.
Course Requirements
Students will be expected to attend every class, to read two books and a collection of photocopied material, and to complete several homework assignments that will be graded. There will be no tests and no papers. Participation in class discussions is expected; students are encouraged to ask questions.
Grading Criteria:
Homework assignments - 50%
Attendance - 20%
Class participation - 20%
Improvement of skills - 10%
Required Texts
- William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, Third Edition. New York: Macmillan, 1979. (A classic.)
- Edward D. Johnson, The Handbook of Good English. New York: Pocket Books, 1991. (A remarkably readable guide to grammar, punctuation, and style -- the best I've found.)
I also prepared a huge collection of photocopied excerpts from thirty books on editing, writing, style, and publishing. Some books from that list (including the two required texts) are recommended on the reference books page. I am not including a list of the thirty because some are not especially good books; I took no more than a page or two from most of them.
Week 1: Introduction to Copy Editing and Proofreading
- The difference between copy editing and proofreading
- Distinctions among copy-editing work for newspapers, magazines, and books
- What is a style book?
- Copy-editing and proofreading symbols (with handouts)
Are you looking for a list of proofreaders' marks?
Look in your dictionary under "proofreader."
- Spelling
- Punctuation
- Grammar and syntax
- Word usage
- Consistency and "house style"
- When to check facts
- Queries to the author
Reading: McAdams, "Words About Words" (A Copy Editor's Vocabulary)
Strunk & White, Chapters I, III, and IV
"Copy Editing," Chicago Manual, pp. 40-47
"Workers on Copy and Proof," Words Into Type, pp. 57-61
- Abridged and unabridged dictionaries
- Words Into Type and Chicago Manual
- Webster's Biographical and Webster's Geographical
- Associated Press Stylebook
- Books on usage (Bernstein, Fowler, Follett)
- When and how to use a reference book
- Becoming familiar with your frequent references
Reading: McAdams, "Reference Books" (A Bibliography for Copy Editors)
Mona McCormick, The New York Times Guide to Reference Materials, Revised Edition. New York: Times Books, 1985.
- How to write headlines
- How to write captions
- Type fonts and styles, case, accents, and special typographical symbols
- Printing measurements (points, picas, and ems and ens)
- Widows, orphans, bad breaks, and white space
- Other terminology and definitions (e.g. gutters, rules, slugs, dropout type, pullout quotes)
Reading: Robert E. Garst and Theodore M. Bernstein, Headlines and Deadlines: A Manual for Copy Editors, Fourth Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
- Differences between editing on a computer screen and editing on paper
- Coding for typography and layout
- Special aspects of copy editing "live" on the screen
- Absence of proofreading in the electronic production process (and what it means to a copy editor)
- The "cold read" compared with reading against copy
- Cost and time differentials between in-house and outside typesetting
- Spelling test (commonly misspelled words)
- Strategies for improving one's spelling ability
- Common punctuation errors
- Rules of punctuation
- Debates about comma usage
- Unusual punctuation
Reading: Johnson, Handbook of Good English, "Punctuation," pp. 81-218
Handout: A Spelling Test
(See Week 6)
- Subject-verb agreement
- Sequence of tenses
- Modifier placement
- Grammar "watch list"
Reading: Johnson, Handbook of Good English, "Grammar," pp. 1-79
- Keeping an eye peeled for scrambled syntax
- Pitfalls of antecedents
- Sneaky danglers
- Mixed metaphors
- Recasting a murky sentence
- Fixing (or querying) a bad lede
- Fixing (or querying) a big structural problem
Reading: Johnson, Handbook of Good English, "Revision," pp. 278-91
- Learning house style
- Capitalization, numbers, abbreviations, hyphenation, foreign words, etc.
- Developing a house style where none exists
- Writing a style book
- Word lists
Reading: Johnson, Handbook of Good English, "How to Style Written English," pp. 219-59
Fact Checking and Queries
- How much should you check?
- Where should you look?
- Balancing time against quality
- When to check and when to query
- Queries to editors
- Etiquette and queries to writers (prima donnas)
Consistency
- Within an article: proper names, dates (chronology), etc.
- Within a graphics layout (abbreviations, capitalization, fonts, etc.)
- In a multipage layout (body text, headlines, captions, art elements)
- In a story package, i.e. multiple stories, sidebars
Word Usage
- Usage debates
- Sexist language and racism
- In-house positions
- Free-lance work
- Monthly vs. weekly publications
- Consumer, specialty, and trade magazines
- Moving up and managing your career
- Making contact
- Taking the test
- Your attitude on the job
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Copy Editing for Magazines, by Mindy McAdams Copyright © 1992, 1995, 1997 by Melinda J. McAdams. All Rights Reserved. Anyone may use this document as the basis for a course in copy editing, and anyone may create a link to this Web page, but no one may quote from it in an article or otherwise reproduce it, in part or whole, in any printed form without the explicit permission of the author. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Content last updated April 26, 1997 |
| Reference Books | A Spelling Test | Web Links |
| A Copy Editor's Vocabulary | ||
| Please visit Mindy's Home Page, where you will find links to journalism sites and online newspapers, tips on HTML and Web site design, and other interesting things. |
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