Category: Teaching Editing

Punctuation? It Can Be Fun. . . . Seriously!

lindaktaylor2 Comments

Did you see what I did there . . . in the title? Used lots of punctuation?

Trying to add a little humor to what appears to be an overwhelming next few months. One final semester where I play two main roles–I’m a student and I’m a teacher.

As a student, I am working to finish my master’s degree in December. I’m taking a class in research where I can finally officially learn how to navigate all of the electronic sources online. I learned a little along the way to get through some of my other courses, but I’m thrilled to get some real training (my last big research paper would have been written on an electric typewriter after doing research in the card catalog).

My second class is on Shakespeare, and here’s my reading pile for this class:

shakespeare

AND, I’m finishing my research paper where I’m working to prove the importance of Literary Citizenship in university creative writing programs.

Then, I’m also teaching my Editing class at Taylor U. This is the first time I’ve had the class twice a week, so that meant revamping my syllabus. There’s so much I want to teach . . . and I soon found myself frustrated trying to lay out all of the pieces in logical order to fill all the class periods. I kept crossing out and erasing on my notepad, and then I remembered that we had a whiteboard in our basement. I pulled it out from behind some boxes, located dry erase pens and an eraser, and set about writing up my syllabus. Here’s what it looked like:

White board 1

Green for class activities, red for papers that need to be prepped and photocopied, black for homework and notes to myself. Basically we’re doing content editing in September, copyediting in October, and proofreading in November.

So the middle of October we work on proofreader marks (which certainly come in handy in copyediting), and they get a chance to learn about the Chicago Manual of Style and house style guides (I know–this is beyond exciting for you).

white board 2

And I show them this clip of “phonetic punctuation” by the amazing Victor Borge, a pianist who was also a comedian. We lost him in 2000, but his brilliance lives on.

You see, punctuation can be fun! And that’s just what I hope I can teach my students!

(Now if only Victor had done something on library research . . . )

Teaching Editing–A Little Grammar Goes a Long Way

lindaktaylor7 Comments

I’ve still got my editing cap on this week. After my tiny proofreading tantrum a couple of weeks ago and completing those two jobs for the client–who now has books way more clean than they were before–I now turn to other editing endeavors.

Namely, revising my syllabus for my editing class over at Taylor U. This year the class will be twice a week instead of once a week, which has meant major revisions to the syllabus. And since this is the fourth time teaching this class, I’m getting a good feel for what works and what doesn’t.

Over the course of the semester, I want my students to try the three main forms of editing: content editing, copyediting, and proofreading–spending roughly a month on each. (Most of them come to class not understanding the differences between these roles, the different points in the book-making process when they happen, and the different skills required to do each job well. I describe the different roles in this blog post.)

I also try to give them “real world” experience. When we edit, I obtain a real manuscript from someone who willingly allows students to give feedback. When we proofread, I show them real pages that I’ve had to work on (“This really did almost go to print, guys, until I helped save it!”).

The one difficult part is helping them realize the tools they need to sharpen in their editing toolbox–namely, grammar. When I have mentioned that part of the syllabus in previous classes, there is an ever-so-slight collective groan. Then I assure them of two things: (1) we aren’t diagramming sentences, we’re just reviewing what they probably already know instinctively or helping them be sure of things they don’t know, and (2) I will give them candy. (It’s amazing what joy mini-candy bars bring when I toss them out for getting the correct answer. And the big bags are always available in October before Halloween when I usually hit this part of the syllabus. It’s a little Pavlovian, I admit. . . .)

The students are already pretty sharp, but I still need to at least show them the rules behind some general punctuation issues. I key in on:

  • quotations marks (single vs. double–and punctuation in and around)
  • parentheses and brackets (and punctuation in and around)
  • commas, colons, semi-colons
  • hyphens, en-dashes, em-dashes
  • capitalizations

Then, I give them copyediting practice on:

  • discerning active vs. passive voice
  • omitting needless words
  • making items parallel
  • using correct tenses
  • using correct modifiers
  • smoothing awkward sentences

I’m digging through some resources in order to create some good worksheet practice for each of these categories. While I train them to work on screen, I also teach them proofreading symbols and have them do some copyediting on hard copy as well.

So you copy editors and proofreaders out there–what are the most common errors you see? Pet peeves? What do I need to make sure my budding editors have in their toolboxes before they head out into the publishing world?