| Back to Home > Bulletin Board > Media Issues > Topic: The role of a copyeditor |
Topic: The role of a copyeditor
| Author | Message |
| pentup | Posted – 7/10/2006 3:45:54 PM | show profile Hello all, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the role of a copyeditor. How much leeway do you think she should have to change copy? Is she simply a comma-splice catcher or should she also police bad transitions, awkward wording, illogical conclusions, incongruous voice, etc.? How does it work where you work? Thanks! |
| WritingEd | Posted – 7/10/2006 4:19:45 PM | show profile We have a freelance copy editor, who is responsible mainly for grammar catches and style guidelines adherences. She also does minor fact checking (i.e. URLs). Once in a while she has a content question, which I do appreciate, but don't expect. I would probably be insulted if she pointed out a bad transition (but then again, I consider myself pretty talented in transition-building!). I consider myself the expert in our content and the copy editor the expert in grammar. |
| mkelly | Posted – 7/10/2006 4:57:56 PM | show profile Excellent question. In my first job long ago, copy editors were *heavily* involved in content editing. They could make almost no change without the talking to the reporter, but they routinely would prod us for more detail about, say, damages caused by a fire or the next steps the city council would take after a contentious meeting. They also did lots of fact-checking on names, phone numbers, etc. (the latter, actually, was a policy spawned when yours truly gave the wrong phone number for a pizza parlor, and instead we printed one for a domestic abuse shelter). Is this an odd way to do copy editing? Yes, I think so. But it was still a fantastic way to teach young reporters the proper way to report a story in exhausting, minute, correct detail. We would file our stories, then wait for copy editors to call us back one story at a time and go through it-- sometimes line by line. On many occasions I wanted to kill them, but 12 years out I now thank my first editor for the bootcamp. |
| Astera | Posted – 7/10/2006 6:13:55 PM | show profile I think that if no one else is going to take responsibility for awkward wording and bad transitions, the copy editor should step up and do it. After all, bad writing reflects poorly on everyone on the staff. I've worked as a freelance copy editor for a number of clients, and the role really depends on what the client wants. Some clients just want a second set of eyes to catch typos and grammatical mistakes. Others get really defensive when I point out any mistakes (so why do they even bother with a copy editor?). Still others are grateful for any content editing I might do. In the past, I freelanced for a client where most of the staff had no journalism training at all. Essentially, the paper consisted of cut-and-pasted stories from press releases. Even the original writing was really bad. Since there was no one else who could take on those kinds of problems, I ended up doing a lot of content editing--for a higher fee, of course. |
| Hannah | Posted – 7/10/2006 7:45:48 PM | show profile At the magazine where I work, our copy chief doesn't tackle much "big picture" editing. He does read for all the trouble spots mentioned above: illogical statements, deviations in tone, and so on. But when he wants to change something, the copy chief generally has to have some hard and fast reason for doing so ("this quote contradicts an earlier assertion"), whereas a story editor can adjust a piece based on purely ephemeral criteria ("I'm not feeling this lede"). |
| commawonk | Posted – 7/11/2006 12:33:16 PM | show profile I absolutely think it's within a copy editor's purview to query problems of logic, tone, voice, word choice, etc., provided he or she is diplomatic about it and leaves the decision-making to the content editor. Of course, copy editors should not be making wholesale changes on their own, but it puzzles me when content editors take offense at merely having things questioned. If something doesn't make sense to the copy editor, it probably won't make sense to the reader. |
| MuseInk | Posted – 7/11/2006 12:57:55 PM | show profile Books When I copy edit, I check the usual suspects, plus fact checking (name spelling, group names, URLs, years), logic, and continuity. The last two usually fall under the domain of the line editor (in my house, the sr. editor does this task), but I usually keep an eye peeled. More often than not I catch something and am thanked. I guess it's different for mags and different again by house. Ah so much to learn... |
| ms.guided | Posted – 7/11/2006 3:51:22 PM | show profile A lot of it depends on the culture of the publication and/or person you're editing for. However, copyeditors are the last line of defense against things like libel, gross fact-checking errors and the like. Last year at my uni's paper someone plagiarized an article. I was working as the copy chief that night and I caught it. No one else had noticed how suspicious the column was, how unlike the rest of his writing it was. Had I not said something and caused a big kerfuffle that annoyed a lot of people, the paper would have been majorly embarrassed. |
| pentup | Posted – 7/11/2006 4:09:21 PM | show profile | email poster Thanks for all your responses. I'm trying to figure out my role as a copyeditor at a regional midwestern monthly, and unfortunately I'm not getting a lot of feedback from my editor. Because our staff is so small -- five -- I also assign and edit some service packages and features, so I do some "big picture" editing as well as copyediting and writing (features and small FOB articles). I took the job after working as a freelance writer in part because I was assured that I would be more than a comma splice checker, but when I do note things (and I do always try to note them diplomatically) that are more style-related, I sometimes feel like I'm stepping on people's toes. So I'm curious to know if there are any other copy editors out there in similarly hybrid positions and how they handle it. |
| overthehillwriter | Posted – 7/11/2006 8:20:36 PM | show profile | email poster I freelance, and I have a client company I surprised with my thoroughness the first time I worked with them. If they were expecting someone to catch typos and grammar, they had the wrong editor. After they got over their astonishment, I quickly became their go-to and get more and more business from other editors there because word got around. I don't mess much with big picture -- I could if they wanted me to -- but I'm plenty thorough as it is with everything from urls to the exact name of a law firm, down to the AND or ampersand, and comma or no before the LLC. I do catch awkward transitions, and have given them advice on their editors' and publishers' letters, which they've taken to heart. All the above I did online, but recently I started coming in by the day to proof final copy on site. |
| Newsy | Posted – 7/13/2006 4:31:02 PM | show profile A good copy editor is both a grammarian and also has a nose for news. They have to edit for the standard punctual errors but also have to edit for content. I used to work as a copy editor and found I did sometimes rewrite portions of stories...I don't CE should ever feel bad about doing that. |
| Suet | Posted – 7/13/2006 5:06:27 PM | show profile I sure wouldn't want to work for someone who was "insulted" by having a bad transition pointed out. If your feelings get in the way of what's best for the product, I think you need to look at your feelings and to become more of an "expert" as far as they are concerned. I'm proofreading a book right now with abundant errors in proper nouns (among other things) - I'm certainly pointing everything out - not worrying if something hurts anyone's feelings. Of course you have to be diplomatic, but as someone who has taken on many different editorial roles, I think generally there's too much deference to the authors' egos, and to senior editors who don't think they can make mistakes. Really, it's no better than calling your health insurance company to point out an error in a bill and being told, "Look, lady, I've been doing this job for 15 years, I think I know what I'm talking about!" |
| Suet | Posted – 7/13/2006 5:06:55 PM | show profile I sure wouldn't want to work for someone who was "insulted" by having a bad transition pointed out. If your feelings get in the way of what's best for the product, I think you need to look at your feelings and to become more of an "expert" as far as they are concerned. I'm proofreading a book right now with abundant errors in proper nouns (among other things) - I'm certainly pointing everything out - not worrying if something hurts anyone's feelings. Of course you have to be diplomatic, but as someone who has taken on many different editorial roles, I think generally there's too much deference to the authors' egos, and to senior editors who don't think they can make mistakes. Really, it's no better than calling your health insurance company to point out an error in a bill and being told, "Look, lady, I've been doing this job for 15 years, I think I know what I'm talking about!" |
| Suet | Posted – 7/13/2006 5:08:19 PM | show profile I'm sorry for the double post and won't be insulted if anyone points it out to me : ) |
