Copyediting, a practical guide

"Every item intended for reading should be copyedited," says Karen Judd: books and periodicals, of course, but also appliance instructions and menus. Strange, then, that Judd's Copyediting is one of the few resources on the subject, but no matter. It's a terrific guidebook. Judd takes on all aspects of copyediting with startling authority, from copyediting symbols to advice on getting work. Intervening chapters cover punctuation and grammar, spelling, style and word usage, numbers and abbreviations, specialized copyediting, proofreading, and more. "Copyeditors ... know that Massachusetts is a commonwealth, not a state," says Judd. "They would know exactly how to address the pope if they met him. They don't mind going back over 1,000 manuscript pages because they have just decided to spell out numbers up to 100 after all." While they need not be good spellers or trivia buffs, they need to know when to look up a word or fact. And, though copyeditors tend to be stringent about the uses and abuses of language, "Copyediting means doing what the publisher wants, whether you agree with it or not." --Jane Steinberg