The Art and Science of Editing

“The Art and Science of Editing” is one of the courses in the Poynter ACES Certificate in Editing, an excellent and affordable introduction to editing. Here are some notes from when I took the course a few years ago.

Who are you editing for?

Know your readers, boss, self, publication, and writer.

What is editing?

Making things better.

• Who is the audience?
• What is the goal?
• What is the reader hearing? Can the reader hear what the writer is saying? If background information is missing, or the writer is using language that the reader can’t understand easily, the message won’t get through.

Hippocratic oath of editing

1. Don’t go looking for errors, because when you’re looking for errors, you’re not experiencing the writing in the way a reader does. Most readers are looking for information, not for errors to pounce on. Instead, pay attention to what happens when you read. Alertness and healthy skepticism are good, but suspicion is the wrong attitude.
2. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
3. A good doctor leaves few visible scars. Try to be invisible.

Changing versus editing

A change is something you want to do. An edit allows the copy to meet the needs of the reader. An edit focuses on the reader, but a change is done for convenience, or to conform with a rule. A habit of making changes is what can give editors a bad reputation sometimes.

Ask yourself:

1. What is it that bothers me? What’s the fix that does the minimum damage?
2. Does the rule I’m applying actually fit here? For example, a reporter whose style guide mandated using “to dismiss” instead of “to fire” changed a reference to “Last hired, first fired” policy to “Last hired, first dismissed,” applying a rule inappropriately.

Did you make it better?

• You don’t have to make changes to justify your existence.
• Compare the text before and after. This is one of the reasons you should use track changes.
• Look at it fresh. Make another pass, and consider changing the font, letter size, or format you help you see the text afresh.
• Look at the effect of the change. Did it introduce an error?
• Don’t congratulate yourself—you’ll miss the next problem.

Keeping a good relationship with the writer

• Don’t be aggressive or defensive.
• Start with a compliment.
• Don’t let it get personal: talk in terms of the copy and the reader. Avoid saying “you wrote” because another editor may have introduced that wording. Avoid saying “I fixed” because that means it was broken. Say, “The story says this.”
• Always have a suggestion ready. “Could we make it say X?”
• Use language that the writer understands. Avoid technical grammatical terms.

Negotiating changes with the writer

• It’s OK to make some concessions for the sake of preserving your relationship with the author, as long as it doesn’t hurt the reader.
• Start with the easy stuff, like clear-cut errors like typos and spelling mistakes.
• Once you’ve built some confidence, move on to less obvious errors. Be prepared to let some of these go. Maybe you’re wrong about them.
• Save the most difficult issues for last.
• In a tie, the writer always wins. The writer is the one whose name and reputation are on the line. Never be the editor who makes changes behind the writer’s back.

Empathy

Try to put yourself in the writer’s place: understand what they’re trying to do, and when you make edits, do them the way the writer would.

Editor’s role

Aim to be respected, not liked or feared. The editor is the writer’s safety net or spotter. The editor stands up for the reader.

Janet Mackenzie on running a freelance editing business

The Editor’s Companion, by Janet Mackenzie, has a great chapter on starting a freelance editing business. In eighteen pages, she deals with all the major points:

• Qualities that make a good freelancer
• Running your office and being productive: time management, dealing with clients, stress, professional development, choosing projects
• Business considerations: what a business plan can do for you, insurance, bookkeeping
• Contracts: what needs to go into a contract, and a nice half-page sample contract

What to charge

To calculate how much you need to charge to earn your target income, start with a list of business expenses, the biggest of which is your own labour. As part of the cost of labour, consider the time you will spend on administration, project management, and the cost of employment. Employment costs are vacation, sick time, and pension plan. The author suggests that the “loaded” salary that includes these expenses is 17 to 25 percent more than a person’s base salary. (When you take into account the cost of maintaining a work space, I’ve seen estimates of 40 percent or more as the markup that a contractor needs to charge above an equivalent in-house rate.)

Hourly rate

Mackenzie suggests that an editor who is competent according to the Australian Standards for Editing Practice is worth at least AUD 50 per hour (about CAN 53; this book was written in 2004). She suggests giving a price by the job rather than by the hour, and feels it’s quite appropriate not to reveal your target hourly rate to the client (“If he presses you, say primly that your accountant has advised you not to reveal it”). She mentions in passing that hourly rates are not a good predictor of project cost because working speed varies quite a lot.

Work flow

Mackenzie suggests a three-column table—see below—to track your schedule of projects to come, in progress, and due. I think I’m going to give this format a try. I’ve been marking dates to receive and send projects on Google Calendar, but I find that the display gets too cluttered when I try to show which projects are in progress.

Date May	Due in	Working on	Due out
1	Joe Bloggs copy edit, first round
2	Flash Magazine, July issue, editorial	Bloggs copy edit
3		Bloggs copy edit, Flash editorial	Flash editorial
4		Bloggs copy edit

Because many projects are delayed or sometimes cancelled altogether, Mackenzie recommends overbooking slightly. “Bite off a little more than you can chew, and occasionally chew like hell.”

Reviewed from a library copy of the book.

The basics of libel law in Canada and the new responsible communication defence

I recently attended a Tyee master class: Responsible Journalism in 2012: The Changing Legal Landscape for Journalists, taught by Leo McGrady of McGrady and Company, a firm whose specialties include libel law and intellectual property.

The biggest take-home message? Libel risk is manageable. Don’t be too afraid to write. In the last few years, courts have set precedents in libel law that have shifted the balance toward freedom to publish, and it’s important to use this new freedom from libel chill to build a new culture of freedom of expression.

Why does “libel chill” matter? Don’t people only get sued for libel if they lie?

Simon Singh: fair comment.
Photo by englishpen. Some rights reserved.

I saw this sentiment in a blog comment just now, and I think it’s an important misconception to address. No, you’re not only at risk if you lie. Consider the following situations:

You review a book. You say it’s terrible, that the author doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and that they can’t write for beans. You could get sued. See this case about negative book reviews on Amazon’s website, and this case about a negative academic review.

Or perhaps you find out that a Canadian company is doing business with a supplier in a developing country who treats its employees very badly. You know this because you have done interviews with reputable sources. But if you publish a statement like, “John Doe, who works for an NGO in the country, reports that workers don’t have access to basic safety equipment,” could you prove in a court of law that workers don’t have access to basic safety equipment? If not, you may not feel safe publishing that sentence.

That’s what they mean by “chill.”

What is libel?

Libel refers to defamation in written, printed, broadcasted, or other lasting form.

Defamation is an attack on a person’s character that attributes to the person some form of disgraceful conduct—dishonesty, cruelty, sexual misbehaviour, irresponsibility, and the like—in either personal or professional concerns.

—Editing Canadian English, 2nd Ed. 11.67

How to protect yourself when you publish

• Be right. If your statement is true and you can prove it (more about that later), you’re safe. In this case it doesn’t matter if your reporting is malicious, unfair, or unbalanced.
• Be able to show that you’re right: be diligent in your research, and save your documentation.
• If it turns out that you were wrong about something, you can mitigate the damages against you if you take the material down, publish a correction, and apologize. Make sure the apology is honest and sincere: don’t backtrack, don’t make an “attack” apology, and don’t say it was the plaintiff’s fault.

What are the consequences?

Landmark and Elle magazine.
Photo by lgattruth. Some rights reserved.

If you mitigate the damage as described above, by retracting and apologizing, the lawsuit may not happen at all. A typical award for damages is about $70,000, which isn’t really worth suing for. Although the loser may have to pay court fees (something like $120,000), they would typically end up paying only about a quarter of that unless an award for special costs was granted (unusual). If the defendant was very reasonable about mitigating the damage, they might not even have to pay the court costs.

Main legal defences against libel

1. Truth. If your facts are correct and your evidence satisfies the court, then you’re not liable. However, if your statements are difficult to prove, or if you made a mistake and published something that wasn’t true, read on.
2. Fair comment. Remember that a defamatory statement is more or less anything that damages a person’s reputation. Maybe you made statements of opinion that were highly uncomplimentary. For your writing to qualify as fair comment, you need to show that the statement was comment or opinion, that it is your honest opinion, that it’s based on true facts, and that it regards a matter of public interest. If you are proven to be malicious, that defeats this defence.
3. Privilege. In some situations when the communicator and the receiver have an interest and a duty to exchange certain information, that communication may be protected. For example, an employer giving a reference to a future employer is a situation of “qualified privilege.” This defence is lost if the person making the statements is malicious or if the information is communicated beyond the group of people who have an interest in receiving the information. Increasingly, it seems that the public may be the interested party.
4. Responsible publication. This is a relatively new defence that came out of the Grant v. Torstar case (see below). The defendant has to show two things:
   1. The matter is of public interest.
   2. The defendant acted in a responsible way.
   In deciding whether the defendant acted responsibly, a number of factors are considered:
   1. The seriousness of the allegation. More serious allegations require stronger evidence.
   2. The public importance of the matter.
   3. The urgency of the matter.
   4. The reliability of the source.
   5. Whether the plaintiff’s side of the story was sought and accurately reported. How important this is depends on the circumstances, but generally, consulting the person you’re writing about decreases your chances of getting your facts wrong.
   6. Whether the inclusion of the defamatory statement was justifiable.
   7. Whether the statement’s public interest lay in the fact that it was made rather than its truth. This can protect situations like reporting on a libel case, where it would be difficult to avoid repeating the defamatory statement.

Recent changes in Canadian libel law

Grant v. Torstar in 2009 was the case that resulted in the new guidelines for responsible journalism or responsible communication. The Court commented:

The existing common law rules mean, in effect, that the publisher must be certain before publication that it can prove the statement to be true in a court of law, should a suit be filed. Verification of the facts and reliability of the sources may lead a publisher to a reasonable certainty of their truth, but that is different from knowing that one will be able to prove their truth in a court of law, perhaps years later. This, in turn, may have a chilling effect on what is published. Information that is reliable and in the public’s interest to know may never see the light of day.

—paragraph 53

Elton John has received damages for libel twice.
Photo by Sarah_Ackerman. Some rights reserved.

Wikipedia summary of Grant v. Torstar

Supreme Court of Canada Grant v. Torstar

Other considerations

Malice

“Actual malice” in a libel case is not personal dislike or even a personal vendetta. It means that the person making the statement had an ulterior motive or a lack of honest belief in the statement.

Repeating a statement

Quoting someone else does not distance you from liability. The contentious statement in the Grant v. Torstar case was a quoted statement from a local resident. The resident made the statement, but the newspaper was sued for printing it.

Differences between Canadian and US law

Because libel law is different in the United States, previous publication in the United States does not mean that a statement is safe to publish in Canada. In particular, be aware that public figures are not given different treatment in Canadian libel law.

Libel on the internet

Linking to libellous content is generally safe, but if someone tells you the linked content is libellous and you refuse to take the link down, you may be considered to be endorsing the libellous content.

You are responsible for the comments on your blog. You should moderate your comment feeds. Even if a libellous comment slips through, having a moderation process in place will count in your favour.

Web pages are considered to be published globally. Yikes.

Resources and further reading about libel

The Tyee on the Furlong libel case (Update: decisions for Furlong v. Robinson and Robinson v. Furlong)

Damage Awards for Libel in Canada

CanLII: free Canadian law on the internet

Quicklaw is a pay research service

Advanced Proofreading workshop September 22

I can only imagine how the proofreader felt. Photo by Jeremy Keith (adactio) at Flickr. Some rights reserved.

The Editors’ Association of Canada, BC branch is offering a workshop on advanced proofreading taught by Ruth Wilson. The workshop will be on Saturday, September 22 from 9 to 4 at SFU Harbour Centre. Register by September 7 for early bird pricing (registration closes on September 14).

Author & Editor: A Working Guide

by Rick Archbold, Doug Gibson, Dennis Lee, John Pearce, and Jan Walter

“There are books, even great ones, that make their way into print without ever being touched by an editor’s pencil, just as there are babies born without midwife or doctor. But they are not the norm and the dangers involved—in both cases—are considerable.”

This booklet outlines what an author needs to know about the publishing process. It covers the basics of manuscript acquisition, the decision to publish, contracts, how a publisher decides on the format and selling price of a book, the publishing schedule, and finally, it provides insight into and advice on managing the working relationship of the author and editor. It presents all of this information into a short (only 35 pages) and very readable package.

Where to get it

Publisher: The Book and Periodical Development Council, Toronto, Canada
Date: 1983
ISBN: 0130539260
AbeBooks
Vancouver Library

Reviewed from a library copy of the book.

Standard rates for freelance editing jobs

How much can you expect to pay a freelance editor? How do you estimate a freelance editing job?

For freelance editors and their clients, estimating the cost and time for a project is an important skill. Here are some of the factors to consider when estimating a project, as well as some industry rates.

Factors that affect editing speed

Difficulty of the material

The level of specialization and complexity of the document are important factors.

• Is the material very specialized? Is there a lot of specialized terminology that the editor will have to look up or define a style for? Scientific, academic, and technical material (such as user manuals) takes longer to edit.
• Is the formatting complex? Are there many levels of headings, figure and table captions, footnotes and endnotes, and citations to format?
• Are there complex stylistic considerations such as mathematical formulas, other languages, units, currencies, etc.?
• Is there a defined style for the document, or does the editor have to try to infer the style from the document itself? A style sheet can make the work go more quickly. On the other hand, long, complex, and contradictory guidelines can slow it down.

Current state of the manuscript

The state of the manuscript before editing makes a huge difference. The more errors the manuscript contains, the more time it will take to edit, especially if there are places where the meaning is unclear, or if the style and formatting are very inconsistent.

Clarity of requirements

Has the editing task been clearly defined? Has all the information needed to complete the job been provided? For instance for a stylistic edit, has the level and style of language to be used been specified? For a copy edit or proofread, is there a style sheet, and is it complete and consistent? Does the client respond quickly to questions?

Freelance editing rates

Some suggested standard pay scales and productivity rates for editing:

1. What editors charge. Some guidelines on productivity rates and billing from the Editors’ Association of Canada.
2. Janet Mackenzie suggested in her book The Editor’s Companion, written in 2004, that an editor who is competent according to the Australian Standards for Editing Practice is worth at least AUD 50 per hour (about CAN 53).
3. Editorial Rates (updated April 2020) from the Editorial Freelancers Association in the US. A lot of people consider these rates to be low.

Freelance indexing rates

The Indexing Society of Canada has some notes on rates for indexing services. This is helpful both for indexers and their clients.

But that’s more than my hourly rate in my salaried job!

A freelancer’s hourly rate is higher than a salaried employee’s rate for a comparable job because it reflects the total cost of doing business. This includes expenses that are included in a salaried employee’s compensation:

• Medical insurance premiums and medical and dental treatment.
• Canada Pension Plan. Employees have half their CPP contributions covered by their employer. Self-employed people pay the whole thing. For the 2019 tax year, the deduction is 10.2% of taxable income to a maximum of $5,498.
• Vacation pay, which is minimum 4% in BC.
• Maintaining a workspace, computer, software, and reference materials.

A freelance business has some extra expenses as well:

• Non-billable time spent finding work and handling administration.
• Professional development: improving skills, staying up to date, and taking courses and certification exams.
• Many editors need disability insurance, commercial liability insurance, and errors and omissions insurance.

There are various rules of thumb for how much a contractor needs to add to their hourly rate to approximate the pay of a salaried in-house employee. I think I’ve heard everything from 25% to 150% on top of the employee’s rate. A simple rule of thumb for calculating a freelancer’s hourly rate is to take the target annual salary and divide by 1,000.

These numbers can give you something to work with when you’re comparing the cost of freelancers to in-house employees. And if you see that you’re paying an unsustainably low rate for freelance work, you’ll know that you can expect a high turnover as your freelancers leave you for higher-paying contracts.

How to cite a Wikipedia page

Citations

To cite a Wikipedia page, look for “Tools” on the left side of the page and click on “Cite this page.” You will get a list of citations in different citation formats. The article author is given as “Wikipedia contributors.” Example: citing their “Cat” entry.

Copyright and reproducing Wikipedia content

A quick note about reproducing Wikipedia content: Wikipedia content is under copyright, but most of it is licensed under terms that allow at least some reuse. The terms usually allow you to reproduce the text unchanged if you credit the authors, but make sure you check the terms of use for the specific page you’re interested in. You may also have the right to change the text, although you may or may not be required to allow your changed version to be reproduced in turn.