The next meeting of the Society will be on Wednesday 30 May, in the Friends' Lounge of the National Library of Australia. Our guest speaker will be Gail MacCallum, senior editor at the entrepreneurial publishing firm of Duffy and Snellgrove. As she proved at the recent Word Festival in Canberra, Gail enjoys playing devil's advocate and will definitely have some shocking things to say about our esteemed profession during her talk.
The meeting will begin at 6.30 p.m. sharp, after delicious finger food and socialising from 6 p.m.
The next meeting of the Society will be on Sunday 22 April in the Friends’ Lounge at the National Library between 12.45 and 2.30 p.m., during the Partnerships in Knowledge conference.
Instead of our normal talk, this meeting will be an informal lunch given by our Society for the interstate editors who attend the Partnerships in Knowledge conference. All our members are invited as well, of course, to meet and welcome our visitors.
Lunch will be provided (at no charge). However, please send acceptances to Lee Kirwan by 17 April. Phone 6262 1551 or 6296 5210; email lkirwan@nla.gov.au.
Next meeting
The President's column
Intellectual integrity vs commercial imperative
New members
Word talk
Editing without vision
The Word Festival March 2001
Book review
News and Notes
Some fun
Dates for your diary
Copyright and deadline
If you were one of the many who attended the March general meeting, I'm sure you will join me in the belief that nobody slumbers during a sermon in the Anglican Diocese of Bungendore. Our speaker, the Reverend Dr Tom Frame, is a man of strong opinions, brisk wit and broad intellect who delighted us all at the meeting&endash;and afterwards at dinner. Be sure to read our editor's account of his speech elsewhere in the newsletter.
At this moment, the splendid program of our 'Partnerships in Knowledge' conference, is just over a fortnight away. If you receive this before the conference, don't forget to contact me if you would like to come to the Canberra Society of Editors' lunch for the interstate editors who attend. It's on Sunday 22 April in the Friends' Lounge at the National Library between 12.45 and 2.30 pm. Please note that this function will replace our usual monthly meeting. There is no charge to attend but I would like acceptances by 17 April please. Phone 6262 1551 or 6296 5210; email lkirwan@nla.gov.au
For those not at the March meeting, the National Editing Standards have been accepted by an overwhelming majority. Despite some dissent in New South Wales, the voting trends were similar in all state societies. Our final figures were 77 in the affirmative and two in the negative; a good response but it did mean that the society had to bear the cost of two lots of Australia Post fees for nearly half our members who did not vote.
The standards are now being printed and will be launched at the joint editors and indexers conference. Another first!
Before signing off, I would like to record a vote of thanks to the Conference Planning Committee&endash;Lynn Farkas, Shirley Campbell, Geraldine Triffitt, Edyth Binkowski, Penny Whitten and Laurelle Tunks from the Australian Society of Indexers ACT region branch; and my colleagues Louise Forster, Pamela Hewitt, Margaret Pender, and Maureen Wright from our own society. They have produced an unbelievable amount of excellent work, tempered by large helpings of creative thinking, tolerance, and humour. If there is anyone out there who is looking for experienced people to plan, organise, book, write, promote and stage a similar event without any of the usual attendant drama, misalliances and fracturing of egos … we will endeavour to offer you reasonable rates!
Lee Kirwan
Will readers want to read something that does not tell the whole truth about an issue, including the shameful parts? Rev’d Dr Tom Frame, our guest speaker on 28 March, does not think so.
In a vigorous talk that mentioned aspects of all of his 11 books, this author, who is also editor of St Mark’s Review, challenged us as editors on this matter and a number of others. ‘As an editor, consider talking the commissioning organisation out of vetting every paragraph [of a history],’ he warned. ‘Otherwise the book becomes a ‘‘snow job’’.’
His enthusiasm for telling the truth about historical events has made Tom aware of how easy it is to hurt the feelings or reputations of prominent people. When, as a young naval historian, he wrote about Don Chipp’s evidence to a Royal Commission on the 1964 sinking of HMAS Voyager after collision with HMAS Melbourne, Tom believed that Chipp had committed perjury, and said so. He quickly found that this was considered defamatory.
Defamation is defined as ‘words that cause a person to be thought the less of’. There are two defences against it: first, it must be shown that the information is true; second, the information must be in the public interest. The claimant aims to stop publication of the words, of course; and so court action can be avoided by adjusting the wording of offending paragraphs, which is what Tom did in this particular case. As he says, the text can still imply what the author wants to say, without actually being defamatory. It is important that the information be true, though, partly because if the matter comes to court a barrister can only hope to defend it successfully if it is the truth, even if the words are in the public interest as well.
From the commercial point of view, defamation is a two-edged sword. Scandal can attract readers, so a publisher may insist on an author including all the facts in a book … until there are complaints from the subject. ‘Then the publisher pulls back quickly,’ Tom said. Not only will the legal proceedings delay publication, perhaps by months, but also, if the author is on a contract, the publisher is sued with the author&endash;they go down together.
In terms of decency and fairness, does an author really want to make a person be thought the less of, in the interests of telling the truth about a wider matter? Probably not. Therefore Tom advised us to make sure our authors give their subjects a chance to respond to criticism by sending them the manuscript before it goes to the publisher. Then any offending words can be rephrased and much nastiness avoided without damaging the intellectual integrity of the whole.
Tom Frame’s third book, Where Fate Calls, was adapted from his PhD thesis and has a reference list. He no longer includes his lists of sources after one of his bibliographies appeared on someone else’s web site. Again, he took great trouble to research the name and rank of every man in HMAS Sydney for another book&endash;but found the list up on the web within a month. Tom knows the web site’s list was his because it was identical, even including an error he had made! Historical research is a long and sometimes expensive job, and not part of Tom’s work as the Anglican rector of Bungendore. He is grateful, therefore, that he earns enough dollars from sales of his books to pay for his researches. Although he has sold over 50,000 books during the last decade, like many authors he has not even tried to live on his regular royalty payments.
In his stimulating talk Tom threw us a number of challenges that he considers an editor should share with an author. For example, should a book have a foreword, and should it be by a famous person? If it does, should the cover announce the fact? Tom lost at least one sale of Pacific Partners when a potential purchaser saw that its cover said ‘Foreword by Paul Keating’. If readers doubt that the famous person actually wrote the foreword, it may not achieve extra sales anyway. Should it just be used on the back cover as a teaser?
When and how should a book be launched? Will it benefit from a launch, or will the event just impose on the author’s friends who feel obliged to buy a copy on the spot? Tom recommends treating a launch as a celebration of the end of a long road.
A launch needs publicity. Publicity needs an ‘angle’&endash;but usually only one. Which of the book’s messages will be chosen? Beware that the one message doesn’t take over the book entirely. For instance, in Pacific Partners, Tom wrote that on 9 May 1942 Australia as a nation was most under threat, but the nation’s territorial sovereignty was preserved by the United States’ and Australian navies together in joint action. In passing, he suggested this date was suitable for a National Day. Unfortunately, this comment alone became the thrust of all the book’s publicity.
One of Tom’s books is about finding his birth mother&endash;it deals with adoption and reunion. In a personal book of this nature, should you name real names or use pseudonyms? If the latter, how do the author and editor keep track of the personas through the text and avoid them being recognisable in other ways? Should you use photographs? Who owns the letters that are often the basis of such a book? Can they be quoted? What if the writer is dead?
Should the editor be involved in arguments over the book’s cover? Tom says ‘Yes, when the author and publisher disagree’. Which author has the final say in disagreements if the book has joint authors? Tom thinks the editor or the senior author should have the casting vote. Should a book have
illustrations? What if the photographs become evidence for later prosecutions, as they could in a book about mutiny, for example? Whose taste rules in the choice of writing style and the book’s agenda and the book’s published format? The format affects readers’ perceptions. The agenda and style reflect the book’s intellectual integrity.
Answering some of these challenges himself, Tom considers an editor should work in the interests of both the publisher and the author at all times. He recommends that the author be honest. He says, ‘Only use material that is known to be true because a published book has the potential to hurt so many people; and be selective&endash;avoid unnecessary pain. After all, how do you deal with your conscience if you damage people who have given you information and hospitality?’ In short, give the book intellectual integrity.
At the end of the meeting, many members of the Society bought the books Tom Frame had brought with him.
The Society warmly welcomes the following new full members:
Rose Chaffey works with GreenWords, specialising in science, education and sports-related publications. Melanie Cooper is a freelance editor, working especially with training publications. Anne Greiner is managing editor of two journals, including the PC Users Group’s Sixteen Bits. John Waugh is a publications consultant whose principal client is the Australian Government Solicitor. Therese Weber is Publications Manager with the Australian Defence Studies Centre. Tikka Wilson is a publications editor at the National Archives of Australia.
If you’ve been to the new museum you’ll have noticed the dots on the outside walls. These are braille, the writing system used by people who are vision-impaired. Obviously it’s no use to them up that high, so it’s really part of the visual design of the building and a puzzle to people who don’t know how to read it.
There are several ways of writing down language. When children who can see learn to read and write, their writing system uses black marks they can see. The marks for each letter are circles and straight lines (or when they move up to ‘running writing’, ellipses and sloping straight lines) arranged in various combinations to produce different letters. Thus ‘f’ is made up of part of a circle, a vertical straight line and a short horizontal straight line. The system of arranging the circles and lines is pretty haphazard&endash;there is no easy way to remember the combination that comes next as you work your way through the alphabet.
When children who can’t see learn to read and write, their writing system uses raised marks they can feel. The marks for each letter are raised dots arranged in various combinations to produce different letters. For each letter there is a matrix of two dots across by three dots down, giving six possible dots. Thus ‘f’ is made up of the first two dots down the left and the first dot down the right. As you’ll see from the alphabet below, the system is pretty orderly&endash;you can work out the pattern for yourself. But note that ‘w’ is out of order; this is because the system was invented by a Frenchman and was later adapted for English (and other languages).
Some of the commoner letter combinations, such as ‘wh’ and ‘ed’ use a single matrix instead of one for each letter, and common words like ‘the’ also use a single matrix. Advanced levels of braille make use of many contractions. Numbers, punctuation marks and music can also be written in braille.
Here is the braille alphabet. Have fun reading the walls at the museum. Hint: some of the panels are just decorative, especially the ones with white dots above the Garden of Australian Dreams. Another hint: there are at least two mistakes, one on the end facing the old hospice, and one up to the left near the entrance.
Pauline Bryant
Ann Milligan was fascinated when she met her blind neighbour recently and discovered that she writes and edits (and maps and ...).
Some 30 years ago I found that I was losing vision rapidly. By 1981 my chosen profession, paediatric physiotherapy, was no longer a viable option and I moved on to work as a policy officer with a national disability organisation. My schedule involved editing a newsletter, writing reports and letters and arranging conferences. With the aid of a large pen, ruled paper, a strong magnifier and an accommodating secretary, my small tunnel of vision allowed me to survive and prosper for a time.
As vision failed I began to look for ways in which I could read and write in a different manner. My organisation employed a reader to help me get through my weekly in-tray and I recorded essential elements of information on a mini tape recorder. Learning to touch type was an advantage but I was still unable to edit printed material.
By this time the computer age was upon us and, in 1988, I purchased one of the first portable computers, a modified Toshiba lap-top with speech using a program developed in New Zealand. This program could be set to read aloud single letters, words, sentences, paragraphs or could simply be turned off until it was time to edit the document. I was introduced to and still use single and combinations of key strokes to receive verbal prompts in synthetic speech rather than seeking information from the monitor using a mouse. In 1992 I purchased a desktop computer with a similar speech program, plus a scanner and special adaptive software. Six keys, marked with raised tape, help to orient me to the keyboard. With this technology I am free to edit my own material using a spellchecker, block commands to cut and paste, and other commands to ensure proper punctuation, spacing, size of font, setting out of a document and final print.
My DOS-based equipment does not allow me to access email and the Internet. However, I can scan, store and convert printed documents to speech, edit my own work, file, print or save to disk. I identify each disk using braille. I have been able to work effectively for a number of ACT and national organisations, keep in touch with friends, read necessary printed material and store and retrieve telephone numbers and addresses.
When Microsoft Windows® swept the world, many thousands of blind people lost their jobs or the opportunity for employment because there was no way to convert the icons or the keyboard shortcuts to speech. As most office systems were quickly converted to a Windows environment, people who were significantly vision impaired could not interrelate with others in the workplace. Providers, other than Microsoft, worked hard to develop a speech access program, with limited success until the advent of a program called JAWS. The latest version of JAWS can satisfactorily convert the icons used in Windows to speech and facilitates access to email and the Internet.
There is an endless variety of combinations of adapted technology that we can access including computers with braille output, braille keyboards, large print programs like ZOOM text, stand alone or interactive scanners and personal organisers with speech. A barrier that exists for people who are blind and who wish to use a computer or any other adapted technology is, in many cases, a matter of cost. As an example, I purchased a small note taker with speech at a cost of $3000 in 1997 and it is already out of date. Anti-discrimination and equal opportunity measures and government programs help to ensure that those who are working have access to the adapted technology they need. For persons not in work, the cost of equipment is prohibitive.
I am grateful to the dedicated scientists and computer experts who have devised ways in which I can continue to read and write but look forward to the time when current technology will be available for all blind people without the burden of additional cost.
June Ashmore
The theme for the 2001 Word Festival, Canberra, was: Who are we? Who says? Who cares? This rather abstruse theme, which the speakers gamely tackled more or less successfully, was another attempt to consider questions of national identity.
Because this was a celebration of the Centenary of Federation, only Australian writers were invited to this year’s festival and more than fifty poets, novelists and historians took part in a series of readings, panel discussions and lectures. There were a variety of sessions and speakers of the calibre of Henry Reynolds, Rodney Hall, Cassandra Pybus, Marion Halligan, and Carmel Bird.
The first day included sessions on Bringing them Home, treasures of the National Library, and tantalising extracts from the forthcoming book Story Keepers, to be published in November. Murray Waldren defied crashing computers and broken-down cars to get to the festival and closed the day with a perceptive talk on the contemporary problems of information overload.
The Manning Clark Centre at the ANU was the venue for Saturday and Sunday and Henry Reynolds and Rodney Hall, in one of the most stimulating sessions, addressed the question of the Festival, Who are we, who says? Both spoke about the written history of Australia and the significance of things left out, and both had misgivings over the tone of the official celebrations of the Centenary of Federation, which Rodney described as empty and vacuous. Henry also did not mince words as he spoke about the way Aboriginal people and the frontier hostilities have been misrepresented or denied in our past. This is the sort of debate we do not hear enough of: thoughtful, enlightening and informed.
Other sessions were just as interesting. One was Novels a Consolation for Life, with poet Alan Gould, and novelists Marion Halligan and Catherine Jinks. Marion spoke about her new novel The Fog Garden, and how writing it was a form of consolation in her grief on the death of her husband. Alan forcefully and wittily discussed how novels had been consolations to members of his family in difficult times. Catherine, adopting a form of ‘speed speech’ that should have been difficult to follow but instead was delightful, discussed her approach to writing with a wry and dry humour. Elizabeth Murphy found the discussion by Michael McGirr, Adib Khan and Bronwyn Bancroft, on the notion of ghettos, absorbing and provocative, suggesting that we can exist in ghettos of race, class and culture almost without knowing it.
Limiting speakers to Australian writers seemed to rob the Festival of some of the liveliness of the past. We cannot discover our identity by becoming isolationist and cutting ourselves off from the wider fields of ideas and creativity. Writing after all has universal problems, be it history, poetry or fiction, and questions of national identity in a colonial situation are not unique to Australia. We need to hear other voices, other concepts.
That said, there are good memories of thought-provoking discussions and distinctive speeches.
Sylvia Marchant
Published by Common Ground Publishing. xiv + 180 pages.
$33 incl. GST. ISBN 1 86335 040 3.
Like so many editors&endash;and others&endash;I have owned and used The Australian Editing Handbook since it first came out in 1994. It has been a valuable aid and to prove it my copy is now dog-eared, grubby and bristling with yellow post-it tags. Indispensable both as a reference and as a guide, together with its companion volume, the Style Manual, it provides sound advice on correct editing procedures and a wide range of editing problems.
Regrettably, this new book is not really a new or revised edition, but a reprint of the original. I must admit that I, for one, was hoping for an updated edition, with perhaps some chapters on on-screen editing, the use of email, an expanded discussion of Desk Top Publishing, and some guidance on the use of PDF files. However it is exactly the same in every respect as the first edition published in 1994 by AGPS. Only the obvious things have been updated, such as addresses in the ‘Where to go for help’ section, and the biographies of the authors.
That said, it remains an indispensable aid to the working editor. The book provides exhaustive information on all facets of editing, from publishing terms to a detailed description of the perfect copy-edit, with sections on grammar, style and questionnaires for authors. The information is comprehensive almost to the point of intimidation, especially for new editors, though the sequence of chapters is occasionally awkward and off-putting for the reader. Opening with an erudite and complex essay on the publishing process, which might deter even the experienced editor, it goes on to ‘Where to Start’, then ‘The Editor’s Role’. A better opening chapter might have been ‘The Editor’s Role’ but that would be something for a revised edition.
It does, of course, preach perfection. The procedures outlined are detailed and minute with painstaking explanations of such procedures as copy-editing and proof-reading, and the materials an editor should have to hand when beginning a task. The familiar old thorny problems are discussed with clear and lucid explanations: whether to use ‘that’ or ‘which’; the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun; ‘an historian’ as opposed to ‘a historian’; how to create a style sheet; what to do about sexist or racist language; and many more.
Sometimes the very volume of advice can be overwhelming. The answer to a simple query can be difficult to check if it is inundated by a sea of text. Footnotes, for instance, have a half-page of text and only one example. While the text is very informative, it needs to be in the background when examples are needed. Other sections are repetitious and confusing, especially the discussions on proof-reading and copy-editing, where the information overlaps and there are some contradictions. These two sections would have worked better if they were consecutive rather than widely separated.
But don’t be intimidated, or put off. Flann and Hill have done an immense service to Australian editing and seem to have left nothing out, at least from a 1994 point of view. The information is accurate and helpful, and an invaluable reference for all editors on techniques and approaches to the job of editing.
Sylvia Marchant
Biotechnology Australia is running inexpensive training courses on intellectual property (IP) management on 24 April at Rydges Lakeside Canberra, and on other dates in other capital cities. For topics and registration, see http://www.biotechnology.gov.au/Primary_Producers/IP_Management/IP_course/ip_course.asp
Publishingedge.com is a new web site that may be of use to editors and our colleagues. The site contains free resources such as articles, links and reviews relevant to professionals in the publishing industry and will publish freelancers' and job-hunters' profiles for a small fee. The editors' page is at http://www.publishingedge.com/editors.htm.
Try http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/citation/index.cfm for guidance on citing Internet and electronic information. The guide does not aim to be definitive, but gives examples of appropriate citations for a wide range of information sources.
A paper called ‘Text and tech: coupling in cyberspace’ has just been published in the online journal Text (the Association of Australian Writing Programs) at http://www.gu.edu.au/school/art/text/april01/weight.htm.
The paper summarises the proliferation of new forms of assistance editors can give to academic authors who are writing for the online environment. It suggests there is scope for a redefinition of the editorial role and the adoption of a ‘knowledge management’ approach by editors.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some recent winners.
Sarchasm: the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the reader who doesn't get it.Reintarnation: coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Giraffiti: vandalism spray-painted very high.
Inoculatte: to take coffee intravenously.
Glibido: all talk and no action.
Dopeler Effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Intaxication: euphoria at getting a refund from the Taxation Office, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Contributed by Ed Highley
20-23 April: Partnerships in Knowledge Conference
22 April: Society's April meeting
27-29 April: Style Council
30 May: Society's May meeting
The Canberra Editor is published by the Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603.
Copyright: Canberra Society of Editors 2001
ISSN 1039-3358
The deadline for the next regular issue is
30 April 2001.
Mail contributions on a 3.5 inch disk, using Word for Windows
(essential) or email (preferable) to:
Ann Milligan
Science Text Processors Canberra
PO Box 3161, Belconnen MDC, ACT 2617
phone/fax: (02) 6259 3080
email: scientex@actonline.com.au
If mailing, always provide a printout as well.
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