Copyediting: A Practical Guide

by Karen Judd

A Practical Guide confronts all the major problems most copyeditors face, together with such diverse aspects as word transposition, what to do with artwork, and how to handle permissions. It covers topics such as proofreading symbols, punctuation and grammar, style and word usage, typemarking and keying, specialization, and getting work. The book can be used as a learning tool, a supplement to a style manual, or as a reference for experienced copyeditors. In addition, authors can use it to edit their material, university students can use it to polish their theses, and all other with the urge to write can use it to improve their work.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Writing

317 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1988

About the author

Karen Judd has been editing manager at McGraw Hill, production manager at Random House, and managing editor at Harper & Row, in addition to teaching copyediting at the University of California at Berkeley Extension, the Stanford Publishing Course, and Bookbuilders West. She has nurtured from typescript to print manuscripts as diverse as mystery novels, articles on multiple regression analysis, and calculus textbooks.

Reviews

[Unraveling]

This had some really useful information about the editing and publishing processes, but the number of typos (particularly in the answers to the editing exercises) was disappointing. Just because it's written by an editor doesn't mean you don't have to edit it!

[Gwen]

Decent reference, though I have to question a book on copyediting that has TWO errors with the first 30 pages.

[Maren Larsen]

A very good reference

[Adrienne]

Old-school, out-of-date advice.

[Lisa Roney]

This book has some good, basic information about the processes of copyediting, but it is deadly dull. I chose it for a course on magazine editing because it was slim and seemed concise, but my students just didn't read it because the examples were so dull and there were few insights. Will choose something else next time, but books on professional editing are all too rare these days.

[Helena]

Recently switched from working in-house to freelance copyediting and proofreading. Picked this up from the library to see if it's worth adding to my reference shelf at home. After reading it, I'm still not sure...I may pick up a used copy at some point.

[Holly]

Dated, with no discussion of editing on screen. I had to ignore the blanket instructions regarding style guidelines (e.g., always use serial comma, always space ellipses, etc.), because house styles differ. But it's never wrong to be exposed to the voice of another respected copyeditor.