We've had editors speak to us at our meetings before. And we've had authors too. We may even have had authors and editors at the same time. But we've never before had the author, the editor and the subject of a book at the same time.
So our next meeting will be a first, bringing together three very interesting people:
So come along and join us at 6.00 for 6.30 pm in the Friends Lounge of the National Library, to be entertained by Marya, Susan and Coralie speaking about their experiences in writing and publishing the book. You never know, you might even be in it!
And don't forget, you're also invited to join us and our speakers for a meal after the meeting at a nearby eatery.
- Next meeting: Floating in Foyers
- Accreditation workshop
- IPEd notes
- CredAbility 1
- My grab bag … of confusions
- Track changers with Peter Judge
- Literati - review by Helen Topor
- Copyright and deadlines
By the end of the financial year, all state and territory editing societies will have run workshops to bring their members up to date on professional accreditation.
The Canberra society held its workshop in March. The aim was to explain the scheme and to respond to members' questions and concerns about the process.
Robyn Bennett, chair of the Accreditation Board, was the society's guest speaker. The Canberra society's three inaugural assessors, Loma Snooks, Chris Pirie and Elizabeth Murphy, also attended the meeting, along with about 45 members. The discussion was lively and the questions were pertinent, reflecting our members' interest in accreditation and in how the process will work.
The Australian accreditation model differs from the English and Canadian models, in that it is evidence based. Editors will need to provide evidence of their experience and skills by submitting a portfolio of material. Examples of suitable documents and other evidence include:
The preparation of a portfolio is not intended to be excessively time-consuming or onerous. However, we should start to prepare our portfolios now, so we have enough material to draw on.
There will be only one level of assessment for accreditation: basic editing competencies. Accreditation is meant to be within the reach of any competent working editor.
Accreditation is closely bound up with the formal establishment of the new national body, the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd), and the work of other IPEd working groups; for example, the Standards Revision Working Group, and the Education, Training and Mentoring Working Group.
The revised standards will be the basis on which editors are assessed, so members seeking accreditation will need take the standards into account when preparing their portfolios.
It's important to remember that there is no single model for a portfolio and there is no single 'correct' way to edit. Each application will be assessed on its merits. Candidates will be expected to meet at least one criterion from each section of the standards.
The first round of applicants for accreditation will be assessed by the inaugural accreditors - the distinguished editors nominated by each society. Subsequently, any accredited editor will be eligible to be an accreditor.
Each applicant will be assessed by an assessor from another state or territory. The Accreditation Board will review the assessors' recommendations. Only the Accreditation Board will be able to grant accreditation. Assessors and applicants will be anonymous, and there will be no contact between them.
At the March meeting, our members raised some interesting questions, not all of which we were able to resolve at the meeting. Questions that we discussed included:
• Can editors submit work that was edited as long ago as
20 years?
We'll take this question back to the Accreditation Board for
discussion. Certainly, editors will need to demonstrate that they
have current skills and knowledge.
• How can we deal with the issue of confidentiality?
One suggestion is that editors affected by confidentiality
requirements seek to do some other editing work. Remember: brevity is
a virtue, and a relatively small amount of 'evidence' may be needed
for accreditation.
• Will editors be accredited for life?
No. The proposal is that editors will need to be reaccredited
every five years. This will not require a full reapplication for
accreditation.
• How will a project manager or commissioning editor be
accredited?
Accreditation is for editors, not project managers.
• Will there be different levels of accreditation?
No.
As we move closer to accreditation, state and territory editing societies will hold further workshops and information sessions.
Accreditation is a major focus of IPEd. It will need continuing input from our members and constant review by the Accreditation Board.
Louise Forster
Member, Accred. Board
Some members may have wondered about the expense of forming and operating a national body, or be unclear about the process by which it is going ahead. There's still a lot to be done before any decisions are made.
The IPEd Interim Council is extremely sensitive to costing issues, as well as the need to protect the societies' revenue deriving from membership and activities. As foreshadowed at the national conference last October, we have re-formed the National Organisation Working Group (NOWG), an ad hoc group of interested volunteers, to examine the methodology for forming a national organisation. The group isbeing careful to ensure NOWG involves contributors from all states and territories so that all viewpoints and society structures can be considered
NOWG's task is to research and make a recommendation on the most effective and lowest-cost option for the establishment of a national entity. It will first make recommendations on its own terms of reference, consultative methodologies, ratifi-cation guidelines and so on, to make sure all interested parties are heard. Only after that will it set to work on exploring possible structures, considering existing realities as well as what might be accomplished into the future. In due course a detailed, costed proposal will be put before the members, who will decide whether to create the national body.
IPEd is also alert to industrial issues. On its behalf, the Victorian society's committee is holding preliminary talks with the trade union that covers editors - the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance - about the implications of accredit-ation for union membership, the book editors' award, and the new industrial relations legislation.
We are making progress with the new, improved national website: have a look at <www.iped-editors.org>.
Janet Mackenzie, Liaison Officer, IPEd
This is the first of the Accreditation Board's regular columns in our quest to reach the grail of accreditation for editors. Any quest is a challenge, and any challenge becomes easier if we all know as much as possible about what it entails. The aim of this column is to involve you by telling you what the Accreditation Board is seeking to do, how it is trying to do it, and by asking for your input. Our initial topic covers what has become a FAQ: how were the first assessors chosen?
As set out in page 4 of the Accreditation Working Group's Final Report (2004), the Accreditation Board was charged, '…in consultation with each state and territory…to set up an interim pool of assessors comprising distinguished editors acceptable to their peers'. Once accreditation is granted, any accredited editor will be eligible to be appointed as an assessor. 'The aim is to ensure that the profession as a whole regulates itself, and that accreditation is not controlled by a small and possibly unrepresentative group.'
Each member of the Board went back to their respective committees and asked them to nominate individuals who met the criteria of 'a distinguished editor'. It was clear that we needed career editors who were endorsed by their societies, who were accomplished and respected by their peers, who were ethical, professional and active supporters of editing standards.
The obvious choices were the honorary life members of each society. However, as some societies had fewer such people to draw on than others, the various committees nominated appropriate people from among their peers. Those people, now deemed to be distinguished editors, were then invited to be among the first assessors, and the list of acceptances was provided to the Board.
As you can see from the list below, we have a formidable group of people who have agreed to take on the task of being the first assessors. Details about the assessors and their areas of expertise will soon be available on our various state and territory websites, as well as the IPEd website <www.iped-editors.org>. This inaugural pool of editors has effectively been accredited by virtue of having been identified by their societies as 'distinguished' and nominated as assessors.
Please use CredAbility as a forum to raise your comments and queries. Contact Louise Forster at <louise@wordsworth.com.au> with your feedback. The Board wants to know what your concerns are, to address them, and to discuss them via CredAbility.
- ACT: Elizabeth Murphy, Chris Pirie, Loma Snooks
- NSW: Heather Jamieson, Sybil Kesteven, Pam Peters, Meryl Potter, Julie Stanton
- SA: Karen Disney, Celia Jellett, Susan Rintoul, Kathie Stove
- Qld: Susan Addison, Paul Bennett, Rosanne Fitzgibbon, Barbara Ker Wilson, Jill Morris, Ruth Ridgway, Jan Whelan
- Tas: Janice Bird
- Vic: Elizabeth Flann, Beryl Hill, Susan Keogh, Janet Mackenzie, Renée Otmar
- WA: Janet Blagg, Anne Surma
Helen Bethune Moore, Victorian Soc. Eds
Peter, for the benefit of people who don't know you, can I start by asking you about your background and how you came to editing?
Goodness, that goes back a long way - but then so do I. My initial interest was in the life sciences, with a degree in zoology from Cambridge. I started a postgraduate degree but I soon found that the life in a laboratory with a lot of insects for company and not much contact with people wasn't really what I wanted, so I opted out.
I taught biology at a London school for a couple of years to give myself a little breathing space. Then I worked for five years in operational research in the steel industry in the UK. After that I was looking around for fresh experience and applied for a job in Paris with the Secretariat of the OECD, who wanted 'scientists with an interest in economics or economists with an interest in science'. I convinced them that I fitted the bill and eventually stayed with them for almost 12 years, running a program aimed at harmonising government policies for the management of scientific and technical information. But in 1974 the CSIRO made me a tempting offer to head up their central library, information and publishing services, so I moved to Australia.
In the way these things happen, 14 years later CSIRO decided to stop providing information services to scientists and concentrate on PR. So I left to become a consultant, initially looking at the organisation and administration of library and information services, but finding myself drawn more and more to editing.
I was extremely lucky in that I had always had an interest in language and languages. My school started me in Latin at the age of eight and in French two years after that. A part of my military service just after World War II was spent in Berlin, during the Russian blockade, where I learnt some German and a little basic Russian.
So I went into editing in, let's say, the very early nineties with a fairly solid background in three languages, an interest in language as well as languages, and a feeling for clarity in speech. This last had been nurtured in the OECD where everything I wrote was phrased with an eye to its immediate translation into French and for a readership that was predominantly not of English mother tongue. Very plain English needed in both cases. So there were the beginnings.
You've piqued my curiosity, Peter. What was Berlin like during the Cold War?
Rubble, an awful lot of rubble. Even in 1948, three years after the war's end, many of the streets were still blocked by rubble. During the blockade, of course, all food and fuel had to be flown in and the situation for the German population was very difficult. The fuel situation was the worst. Anything that could burn was precious; every tree had long since been cut down. It was a cold winter. The coal ration was three kilograms of coal per fortnight, but only if you had three or more children.
I personally found Berlin delightful. I was only 19 at the time. Having an interest in languages, I arranged two tutoring sessions a week with a delightful old man, a member of the pre-Hitler diplomatic corps, who spoke just about every known European and Asian language. We had an hour's German, an hour's Russian - just in case the Red Army closed in and I finished up in a Gulag! - and an hour's Latin, which I needed to take up my scholarship at Cambridge.
Your next time overseas was with the OECD in Paris?
I went over to France at the end of '62 and lived there with my family for almost twelve years, leading the life of an international public servant and taking every opportunity to travel.
One rather unusual experience was the student riots in 1968. The shops emptied - there was soon no food and no electricity. It looked as though the frontiers would close down because the other countries round about weren't keen on being infected by French student politics. I had some OECD business in both Germany and Finland at the time, so I just piled the family with our camping gear into the car, and drove to Heidelberg where they camped for a couple of weeks while I worked. By the time we returned to Paris it was all quiet again.
Can you tell us about your association with the Canberra Society of Editors?
I attended its first public meeting in 1992, found myself whisked onto the committee and I've been on or close to the committee ever since. I thought we could do with a register of freelance editors - a bit of self-interest there. So I produced the first print edition in 1993 with just 34 entries, then again in '94 and '95. I was president 1996-98. I also designed and set up the website in 1998 and still manage it. The freelance register was soon up on the web and it now has 70 entries.
I also produce and distribute this newsletter, maintain the master file of members and serve as the society's Public Officer. And in 2000 the society very kindly made me an honorary life member, an honour I share with Loma Snooks, our founder.
What are your thoughts on the editing profession?
In the dozen or so years since I've been involved, editing has made remarkable progress as a profession. The moves now towards accreditation are enormously important. I believe that it's vital a) to become a little tougher about the way in which we admit people as full members of the society and b) to introduce formal criteria for accreditation as soon as possible. Whatever disclaimers we make, the world outside sees full membership of the society as an endorsement of technical competence. We have to be confident that we can justify that de facto endorsement.
You worked for a time for the French Embassy here in Canberra?
Yes, from 1993 to 2004 I had an office in the Embassy, producing a publication called French Science and Technology. One of my duties there was to be secretary of a body called the Australian-French Association for Science and Technology, AFAS. I'm now its treasurer, so I still keep up my contacts with the French.
I believe you have been recognised by the French for your service?
Yes, because of the AFAS activity they were generous enough to make me a Chevalier de l'Ordre national du mérite in 2002, 'for services to Australian-French scientific cooperation'.
And what now?
I've just had another birthday. I'm trying to slow down a little - I'm not going out looking for work, although I'm happy to say that it still occasionally comes to me. So I haven't entirely lost touch with hands-on editing.
But now that I have a little more time, I've volunteered to run a couple of courses for the University of the Third Age; one, predictably, on beginners' French and the other on beginners' German - the latter will be a bit of a challenge both for the group and for me! And as of last month I've begun the training course for voluntary guides at the War Memorial.
I'm exhausted! What else?
I'm president-elect of my Rotary club. I recently discovered the gym and I go three or four times a week to do my cardio workouts and weight training. I enjoy riding my mountain bike. I enjoy life. I reckon I'm a happy man!
Louise Forster and Peter Judge
Over the years, I've kept lists of words commonly confused. I've found them in documents I've edited, in published books, in speech, and in all levels of English usage, from novels to academic treatises. Here are a few of them, with examples of how I've encountered some of them and of how they ought to be used. There are many, many more, and I'll discuss some more of them later in the year.
Both come from the verb adhere, but are used in rather different contexts. Adherence means clinging to when referring to a principle, while adhesion means sticking together physically. If you want to be in the team, I insist on adherence to the rules of the game. Old sticking plaster gives poor adhesion to the skin.
How often do you hear 'Stop aggravating me!'? You cannot be aggravated without first being irritated. Irritate is more like annoy. A mosquito bite irritates the skin. Scratching aggravates the sore - that is, makes it worse.
The confusion between these two adjectives doesn't seem to lessen with time. They are quite different in meaning. If you see a sign on the road: 'Road closed: take alternate route', you need to take a different route - no choice. If you have choices about what do to with Saturday afternoon, you have several alternatives - the cinema, a walk, visiting friends and so on.
These two have come closer in meaning in recent times. Purists would have it that among can only be used when more than two things are involved, while between can only be used when precisely two are involved. Among all the countries at the Games, Australia stood out as winning the most medals. Between you and me, I think she's telling fibs about her age. However, it is becoming more acceptable to use between in both contexts - Let's share the chocolates between all of us.
Here's another pair of words that have come closer in meaning. Strictly, cheap means not worth much, while inexpensive means not costing a great deal. This dress is not very smart - it looks cheap. The other dress has some style although it's inexpensive. The term good value sometimes gets mixed in with these. People often say This restaurant is good value when they really mean that it's inexpensive. A restaurant can be good value even when it's expensive to dine there - the cost of the food and the quantity you can eat for a certain amount of money, are not the only factors in one's estimation of value.
These are constantly used incorrectly. They mean much the same thing, but consist is always followed by of. The retirement village comprises forty villas. The retirement village consists of forty villas.
Have you noticed the road-cleaning trucks that have 'continual stopping' printed on their rears? Quite correct. They move, then stop, then move, then stop and so on - the stopping continually recurs. Continuous, on the other hand, means uninterrupted - We had to stay indoors all day because the rain was continuous.
There's no confusion between these when they are spoken in a sentence, but many people misspell them. My mnemonic for this is 'there's more to eat in a dessert than a desert, so put an extra s in dessert' - Desert is dry land while dessert is the sweet course of a meal.
The clue to the difference in meaning between these lies in the prefixes dis- and un-. Dis- is more like away from, as in distant, while un- is the equivalent of not. So a disinterested passer-by may have witnessed a street accident but would not have been personally interested or involved in it. On the other hand, an uninterested person takes no interest at all - couldn't care less.
I have recently seen these used interchangeably, but they are quite different. Equable means not easily disturbed, or, of climate, not varying much from a pleasant norm. The coastal town enjoys an equable climate all year round. Equitable means fair. The distribution of assets was equitable for all claimants.
The distinction between these two is becoming blurred. Nowadays, less is being used to cover both meanings, but they are really quite different. We really should use fewer for number and less for quantity. So fewer should be used with a plural subject: There are fewer members present tonight than there were at last month's meeting. Less should be used with a singular subject: There is less water in the dam this summer than there was last summer.
The difference between these two has all but disappeared in colloquial speech. However, it is useful to remember the difference for use in formal writing. If really means on condition that - If it rains, the tennis match will be cancelled. Whether implies choice - Please let me know whether I have been accepted for the course. (Some say that whether should be accompanied by or not - '. . . whether or not I have been accepted' - my view is that it should be used if the meaning is not entirely clear without it - otherwise it can be omitted.)
I can't finish this selection without this bugbear of many writers and editors:
Confusion between these two verbs shows no sign of abating. The problem is that lay is the present tense of the transitive verb lay meaning place down - My hens lay six eggs among them every day - and it is the past tense of the intransitive verb lie meaning recline - He lay flat on the floor to rest his sore back. The best way to see the difference in usage is to look at the table*:
Here are sentences using each of these:
- I do not lie in the sun because I burn easily.
- I lay on my bed for a rest.
- I have lain here for several hours.
- Hens lay eggs. We lay the table for dinner (implying 'lay X down').
- He laid the documents on his supervisor's desk.
- She has laid her head on the pillow already.
Another confusion seems to be the reluctance of some people to use lie (recline) because lie also means tell an untruth - these people prefer lay for the present tense: Do you mind if I lay down for a while? (incorrect). They also tend to use laid for the past tense: I laid down for a while (also incorrect). (There is another meaning of lay with a past tense layed, but this is not discussed here.)
All clear now? Or 'confusion worse confounded' as Milton might conclude! (Paradise Lost, Bk II).
© Elizabeth Manning Murphy, 2006
* After a chart in Snodgrass G, 1984, English at work, Pitman Publishing, Melbourne, p. 156.
The title raises expectations which are likely to be disappointed. Phelan interviews 17 Australian 'literary' figures and four book industry doyens. The literati are restricted to Robert Drewe, Carmel Bird, and Sonya Hartnett; they are outnumbered by commercially successful writers such as Matthew Reilly, Di Morrissey, John Marsden, John Birmingham and Tara Moss. Sharing their experiences of the book industry are Selwa Anthony, agent and champion of Australian popular fiction, Peter Craven, literary critic, Garth Nix, writer and former part-time literary agent, and Jane Palfreyman, executive publisher.
Phelan explains his purpose thus:
I tried to ask the kinds of questions we as readers, and as prospective writers, would most want answers to - about their earliest writing efforts and their journey to publication; about what drives and inspires them; about the anguish of rejection and dealing with writer's block; about their working methods, and how they develop plot, character, narrative, pace; in short, about what it takes to make it as a published writer and then to sustain that creative process.
Each discussion is preceded by a specially commissioned black and white photograph of the interviewee at work. Belinda Alexandra's journey apparently occurs on her bed, while Birmingham seems to work at an outdoor table with two children around him. The rest, predictably enough, are captured in their variously adorned studies/offices.
The writers all loved reading as children, admit their passion for writing is isolating, and that keeping a notebook and never giving up were keys to their success - no surprises here. Although the insights into their early writing practices are interesting, the claim of some that they write mainly for themselves is disingenuous. So fame and riches are mere bagatelles?
Not, it seems, to 'tech savvy' entertainer Matthew Reilly who coaxes readers intimidated by bookshops to stride boldly into them after experiencing his books on the Internet. 'Every book is me standing on stage and doing a tap dance and trying to hold people's attention for a day or two.'
Despite the alluring subtitle, the writers do not seem particularly fearful or frustrated. This is not surprising given the fame they enjoy. Even writer's block seems to hold no terror - they brush it off as they would a blowfly. And the 'secrets' revealed vary in the amount of useful detail.
While the interview format allows for a personal touch and sense of immediacy, the sameness of the questions and general flatness of the conversational style - the few quotable quotes are printed on the back cover - and a degree of repetition in the answers makes the differences in experience or opinion stand out by default. One gets a sense of reading straight transcriptions which makes for desultory reading - some editing would have been useful
Mark Rubbo, independent book seller and Miles Franklin Award judge, laments that everything is 'down to cost' in the publishing industry which is more sophisticated, competitive and cut-throat, and 'perhaps more superficial', thus threatening the viability of independent booksellers. Discounting is widespread, forcing publishers to artificially raise prices so that the chains can offer discounts on the works of literati like Tim Winton and Peter Carey - who previously would only sell in independent bookshops - thereby moving thousands of copies of their books.
People like Hilary McPhee complain that books aren't being edited properly any more. However, Jane Palreyman doubts that an editing course can teach the kind of artistic sensibility that an editor needs to fully engage with a writer's work but believes that university-based editing courses are a good way to start honing skills and sensitivities. The power of critics and reviews has diminished but a good agent is indispensable. Publishing success is achieved largely through word of mouth. Effective publicity campaigns are important to build up excitement so that a critical mass of people will buy. The enormous popularity of The Da Vinci Code is an example. But word of mouth can also kill a campaign.
Unfortunately, the strong commercial imperative has meant that publishers are not investing in younger writers, experimental writing, or unpublished authors - so the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts is very small, if non-existent. Publishing has become a 'copy cat' industry and loyalty to one publisher is, of necessity, weakening. More diverse and demanding reading audiences now strongly influence what sells and, therefore, what gets published. Shlock sells.
The choice of title and writers for Literati reflects the dire current outlook for Australian literary fiction. Most readers, I suspect, would prefer the more honest title, Writers. After all, it was good enough for Ramona Koval who, in the 26 detailed and revealing interviews in her recently published Tasting Life Twice: Conversations with Remarkable Writers succeeds admirably in engaging with them.
Literati is not a 'how to' book, but essentially a celebrity-focused coffee table reference book put together 'at very short notice!' - probably with an eye to sales at last year's Melbourne Writers' Festival. Unless one is interested in the career of particular writers, the most satisfying method of reading this book is to dip into it with the aid of the effective index.
Helen Topor
is published by Canberra Society of Editors,
PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603.
© Canberra Society of Editors 2005. ISSN 1039-3358
- The next newsletter will appear in May 2006 and the copy deadline for this issue is 3 May.
- The editor welcomes contributions by email to <peter.judge@alianet.alia.org.au>, using Word for Windows, for PC or Mac.
- If by snail mail, then please send it on a floppy disk with accompanying hard copy to Peter Judge at:
- 10 Glyde Place, Kambah ACT 2902.
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