Julian Cribb, Director, National Awareness, CSIRO, who has been a journalist and newspaper editor since 1969, will speak to us at the society's meeting on 29 August. Come to the Friends' Lounge of the National Library at 6 for 6.30 pm. for a fascinating talk on the perils of the junk information age.
Julian has published, broadcast and spoken prolifically, on business, medical, environmental, rural and general science matters, and has received over 32 awards for journalism. He is president of the National Rural and Resources Press Club and is on the boards of advisory committees and several organisations including ACIAR, CSIRO Publishing and the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation.
Next meeting
An Electric Editor visits Canberra
The President's column
How to assess manuscripts and influence people
Time wasters
By the way
National notes
Survey results
A different AGM
Membership movements
Training news
Wardrobes?
Dates for your diary
Deadlines
Iain Brown is one of the group who initiated the Electric Editors web site and email discussion lists. Here he describes the concept and running of these virtual entities. Beforehand, Iain told us something of the moves to raise the standards of editing and publishing in Britain.
Some time within the next fortnight the Electric Editors' web site will achieve its 150 000th hit. Compared with some web sites' statistics, this is a quite modest number. Yet these 150 000 hits represent a significant achievement for a small international community.
The Electric Editors is a 'virtual organisation', coordinated by a group of seven editors, indexers and translators who are Australian, Scottish, German, Irish and English. We perceived a need for a means of enabling communication on an international scale within the publishing community.
The concept of the Electric Editors was announced on 31 March 1997 when we emailed a simple message to all the lists, groups and individuals we knew to be associated with editing, publishing, writing, translating, indexing and proofreading - we stretched the definition of 'editor'. This message announced the launch of a new, free Internet resource to foster communication within the international publishing community, leading to greater understanding and improved standards. We invited others to join with us in gathering together information, tips and advice on the printed word.
The initiators of the Electric Editors gave freely of their time and computing resources - and in some cases money - to create an Internet resource that everyone across the globe could use. We were unwavering in our belief that a combined community effort would overcome the barriers between in-house staff and isolated freelancers. We also decided that the pooled Electric Editors resources should be free to everyone, and that sharing would be a fundamental and guiding principle. As someone remarked at the start, 'The more that goes in, the more everyone can take out'.
The Electric Editors community is supported by our web site and three email discussion lists. The web site is the most immediately available public face of the community, and averages nearly 4500 hits a week. It contains some 13 Mb of data and its users represent 84 countries, ranging from big publishers to very small countries. The word is still spreading: a link to the Electric Editors site can be found on almost every book- or publishing-related web site.
The publishing industry is small; within the UK alone, official figures estimate that there are only 38 000 workers in this area; globally, the figure is unlikely to top 250 000. If you exclude those people whose jobs are not directly concerned with the production and dissemination of words, the figures become extremely small. Therefore, we need to ensure that the web site offers more than just the commonplace 'who we are', 'why we are here', 'what we hope to achieve'. We have worked hard to ensure that the site has added-value features, such as the indexes and archive of back issues in EDline, and about 20 pages of resources of one kind or another. There are also over 100 other web pages on the site.
However, it is the three email discussion lists that are the powerhouse behind the Electric Editors community. Through EDline, Grapevine and LANGline, people exchange knowledge, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, brainstorm and seek wisdom.
EDline provides a forum for online discussions of matters editorial and of editorial business, and for prompt answers to vexing questions. We run EDline in two forms: a very popular weekly moderated digest, and automated mailings. During any one week, all messages distributed via the automated list are collected, numbered and organised into one digest which allows readers to follow particular discussion threads at the one sitting. Its added-value features include useful links, extra news items and information, and the just for Fun section. All 226 digest issues have been archived onto the web site.
Our other major mailing list is Grapevine, concerned with computers and also available in both automated and digest forms. 189 digest issues have been published since its launch, but even more successful is the automated list. A typical day's messages might involve discussion on Windows versions, problems and crashes, macros, cloning disks, email headers and industry news.
Both these lists have reached the critical mass necessary for keeping a healthy and interesting discussion list alive. EDline has over 1000 subscribers world-wide. Grapevine is similarly international in flavour, with a similar number of subscribers.
The Electric Editors also publish the LANGline automated discussion list, which links people working with modern languages. This list has not been as successful as our other lists, partly because fewer people work in this area. Last year its moderator suspended the digest form.
For the future we have planned some interesting projects: a searchable database of topics, and posting of messages to the list via the web site, for example. We are open to suggestions. What do you, the users, want from the Electric Editors?
Contact Iain on iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk if you have ideas you would like to see on the Electric Editors site. He will be back at his desk in early September.
Before describing Electric Editors, Iain told us about editing in Britain. Standards of publishing have fallen there, causing concern and bad press about the quality of books and newspapers. Most publishers no longer train staff in-house or give staff access to outside training. Therefore, about 12 months ago, the Council of the Institute of Publishing formed. This body aims to foster the further development of people in publishing and related trades. As part of that it has drawn up a revised set of occupational standards for publishing.
The proposed set of standards has 27 units or headings and is very detailed and prescriptive. (Iain commented favourably on our broader standards devised by CASE.) The standards are being assessed by the qualifications authorities in Britain and Scotland, and if approved they will be used as a basis for accredited training courses, which it is hoped publishers will support.
Taking a different approach to standards, the Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders (SFEP) has devised an accreditation scheme that will divide its paid-up members and associates into Associate, Ordinary or Advanced categories. Registration, a higher qualification, will also be available to accredited members.
Accreditation is based on points awarded if the member has taken or takes training courses, completes a mentoring scheme, has current on-the-job experience, and has acceptable work references from publishers. The criteria are being tested on volunteers at present.
The SFEP thinks these qualifications will be a sufficient guide to competence and experience to assist publishers in their choice of in-house and contract staff. In fact, there are moves to change the name to the Society For Editors and Proofreaders, to retain the familiar initials but include nonfreelancers.
See www.sfep.org.uk for continuing details, or you could perhaps attend the conference and AGM at the end of September, in Scotland.
Ann Milligan
We are lucky indeed to have journalist and science communicator Julian Cribb speak to us this month. Julian is Director of the National Awareness Program at CSIRO, which was established in July 1996 to promote greater public awareness of CSIRO's research and its contribution to the nation. Who better to lead such a group than this man who has published more than 7000 newspaper and magazine articles and worn the hats of editor of the National Farmer and Sunday Independent newspapers, chief of the Australian Agricultural News Bureau, and science editor for the Australian, among many others? We can look forward to a fascinating encounter with Julian over the 'Perils of the junk information age'.
We're approaching that time of the year when, at the annual general meeting in September, we must choose the committee for the year ahead. Pete Martensz will be stepping down from his positions of database minder and newsletter designer and, fortunately, there are already candidates to fill his shoes. Marion Gilmour-Temu has also reached the two-year limit specified in the Constitution, so we are looking for a new Treasurer. Finally, I, too, will be standing down. Book culture and editorial excellence are supported enthusiastically by my employer, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to balance the demands of my work in the National Library's centenary year against the needs of the Canberra Society of Editors.
In a break with tradition, we have decided not to put a speaker through the longer-than-usual proceedings of an AGM and will instead amalgamate the meeting with a semi-formal dinner (details elsewhere in this issue) at Vivaldi's restaurant.
Still in the area of hospitality - this year the Canberra Society of Editors Committee and members of the Conference Committee will have dinner together to celebrate a year of hard but successful work for the profession and our society in particular. Should the practice continue, it might be an added incentive for members to donate their skills to the committee in future years.
One unpredicted result of the new national standards for editing is an instance of a downgrading in membership from full to associate. It is good to know that some members set such high standards for themselves but I would also like to point out that the standards are primarily a guide to the levels of competence practitioners should try to attain in certain areas. It would be quite unrealistic to expect every person to achieve a high level of competence in every field shown, especially given that most editors prefer to specialise in certain types of work.
A final task for the current committee is a reworking of the application form to include referees from the publishing industry and provide a better profile of current employment and experience.
Don't forget to visit our new web site at www.editorscanberra.org, to keep up-to-date with the activities of the society and read our Constitution.
Lee Kirwan
A manuscript assessment gives writers a professional, external rundown of the strengths and weaknesses of their work. It may also give them an idea about what needs to be done to make the manuscript more publishable. At the most basic level, the assessment makes sure that the work has achieved what it set out to. It can also demonstrate that the work has been actively, intelligently read, and this is a great pleasure for any writer.
It's a good idea and a common practice among assessors to ask writers to identify concerns about their own work. Often they have a shrewd idea about the weak spots and this can provide a focus for constructive suggestions in the assessment. Writers often ask about length, although this is rarely the most important problem. Other common queries concern plot development, setting, writing style, grammar and potential market.
Writing a full-length manuscript is a major effort. Whether it's a book of short stories, a novel, a work of non-fiction or a collection of poetry, it probably took many hundreds of hours to produce. The manuscript in the assessor's hands may well be the expression of the thoughts and emotions of a lifetime.
In manuscript assessment as in life, there is a fine line between honesty and propriety. Although the vast majority of manuscripts submitted for assessment will never be published, it is only fair to acknowledge the aspects that worked examples of effective characterisation, believable dialogue, original ideas or potential appeal to a particular set of readers. Strengths are also areas that the writer can build on.
Major and minor problems are usually the heart of the assessment. Even a very good manuscript will have weaknesses, and the worth of the assessment to the writer lies in identifying them and making suggestions about how to ameliorate or overcome them.
The concluding section of the assessment should give the writer a clear understanding of the options. It should be an honest, but not brutal, appraisal of the work as a whole. Does this manuscript need a total rewrite? Is it ready to submit to a publisher, with slight adjustments? Does it need structural work, a copy edit? Are there factual errors that need more research? The assessor might be able to advise the writer about further reading.
It can be difficult to strike the right balance between giving a writer false hope and failing to honour the effort and sincerity that go into most manuscripts. At a fundamental level, all writing is worthwhile because it answers a need for creative expression in the writer. The completion of the writing task may have been a useful experience in itself. It may have produced an autobiographical or biographical work of interest to a small but significant circle of friends and family.
The subjective element in assessment is inescapable. Publishers, manuscript assessors and readers can all get it wrong.
Ultimately, the writer is free to choose what is useful from an assessment and to reject other comments. The work continues to belong to its creator. With writing, more than with most endeavours, one needs to know when to take advice and when to have faith in oneself.
Most of my work is editing, writing and training, but manuscript assessment is an interesting sideline' for an editor with the appropriate skills and background. It's my view that manuscript assessment offers advantages that writers (and organisations) don't often realise. For a fraction of the cost of a full edit, a client can benefit from advice tailored to a particular work-structural suggestions, grammatical problems, presentational issues and more.
I've recommended assessment when clients ask me to edit work that clearly is not ready for the light of day, or when the structural or logical inconsistencies are so great that a total rewrite is needed. The traffic can move in the other direction, too. The manuscript you assessed can come back, redrafted, for editing.
It should be said that manuscript assessment is often underpaid. Agencies usually charge around $300-400 to assess a full-length (70 000 word) manuscript. This is far too little. It's up to us as a profession to improve this state of affairs. But that's another story.
Pamela Hewitt
A little time waster, just for fun: www.lifesmith.com/english.html. (if you have been a reader of Dr Seuss tongue-twisters, you may enjoy 'A grandchild's guide to using grandpa's computer'.)
The same site has another page to give a good workout for another part of the brain: www.lifesmith.com/mathfun.html.
Maureen Wright
'Winging it' has taken on a whole new meaning for me in the last couple of days. As I write, I'm on the start of a quick overseas holiday, but, in order to have the holiday at all, I have had to bring some editing work with me - no rest . . and all that!
So yesterday I found out just how wonderful modern computer technology can be. As I flew in a big jet over the top of India, Myanmar and Turkey, I edited a document for a Canberra client who doesn't even need to know that I'm out of Canberra, let alone winging it over foreign lands. As I travelled, I was also able to recharge the laptop battery by plugging a dinky little device into my armrest control panel and into the computer - this was thanks to a very obliging cabin attendant.
What was I editing? Well, amazingly, it was an article about early forms of transport in Australia and the role played by modern Aussie 'flyboys' in reviving some gentler forms of transport in their leisure hours.
'Winging it' used to mean merely 'doing it by intuition' or, to maintain the metaphor, 'flying by the seat of your pants'. How apt!
The editing part is not guesswork - that's totally professional, though always including a modicum of personal preference and intuition, based on an analysis of the needs of the target audience. However, I have proved to myself that I can work away from home anywhere in the world, including in the skies, just as easily as on the road between Canberra and other places in Australia.
Ours is one of the few professions that allows us the freedom to be anywhere and everywhere at once. We can schedule holidays (given goodwill from clients) and not miss a beat in our contracts. The ever-shrinking world is our oyster. These few days have changed my thinking about whether or not to commit to editing jobs. Provided the job is such that I can cope with it in small bites, I see no reason to let jobs get in the way of enjoyment of the world and what it has to offer. I shall be 'winging it' from the UK to the US and then a long haul from the US to Fiji in the next couple of weeks. The editing I take with me helps to fill in some of those otherwise tedious hours in the air.
See you all on my return - in time for the August CSE meeting.
Elizabeth M. Murphy
29 July 2001 (London)
To continue our series of notes introducing the other editors' societies, Gail Warman of the Society of Editors NT has sent us the outline and invitation below.
The Society of Editors NT (SOENT) is an informal group of editors and of others with an interest in editing, and we welcome professionals who work in related fields to our regular monthly meetings.
SOENT members work for themselves and for others, on the printed page, in desktop publishing and electronic publishing. Our aim is to support each other by networking, organising professional development, promoting editing standards, and developing a pool of expertise in the Northern Territory.
Membership is free. If you're in Darwin, we meet upstairs at the Roma Bar in Cavenagh Street at noon on the last Monday of every month except December and January. Our next meeting will be on 27 August 2001.
Thank you for your survey forms from the last issue of the newsletter. There are 23 responses, but some have not answered all questions, as reflected in the ratios following the percentages below. Please continue to send the forms in - the sooner the better.
Questions 1 and 2: According to the results at present, 78% (18/23) of us want a system of accreditation for all editors in Australia, and 87% (20/23) want such an accreditation system to apply to all States and Territories and to be administered by editors and publishing professionals. Two responses add that training personnel and tertiary institutions should also be involved.
Questions 3 and 4: 59% (13/22) of members want specific vocational training and professional development to be available. CASE should take the lead in devising accreditation (81% (17/21)), and 86% (18/21) want CASE to also work on a system of approval of training courses. There were several further comments on questions 1-4.
Questions 5, 6 and 7: 86% (18/21) of us agree that 'CASE needs members with long terms of office'. Should this 'memory' involve a paid central coordinator? 68% (15/22) of us think it should, while 32% (7/22) prefer CASE to have extra members from each society instead. As for the societies combining into a single national body, 65% (15/23) of members think that is a good idea.
Question 8: It seems that 78% (18/23) of members are willing to see membership subscriptions rise to cover costs associated with actions suggested above. Three of these respondents add 'but not by too much'. As one member says, there can be grades of membership with commensurate fees.
Question 9: The societies should prepare individual proposals concerning the ethics of thesis editing, and submit these to CASE, according to only 14% (3/21) of members. Most of us, 90% (19/21), prefer CASE to form a proposal, in or after consultation with the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee, and let the societies ratify it. (One person wants both.)
Question 10: Most members, 74% (17/23) think the Australian Standards for Editing Practice should be reviewed every five years; 22% (5/23) want it reviewed more often than that; and 4% (1/23) think a longer than five-year interval is fine. (The booklet itself says that the standards should be reviewed every two years.)
Finally, this survey is merely an attempt to encourage us all to 'speak' on these issues. Do have your say.
Ann Milligan
This year - a different sort of AGM (on 26 September), at Vivaldi's restaurant at ANU. We will have a chance to chat or discuss important matters during dinner after the meeting.
First, we socialise among ourselves from 6 pm. in a separated area of the restaurant, with free drinks and nibbles as usual; then we have the meeting; then we move into the main room for a two-course menu, costing $26 per head. Dessert can be bought if desired. Vivaldi's is fully licensed or you can BYO wine (there is corkage).
This dinner replaces our end-of-year-dinner - and we are planning a family barbecue for November. You can attend the AGM without staying for dinner if you wish.
Please send name, phone number and address (for the receipt) with your cheque, to Ann Parkinson by 19 September (PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603), or email her earlier (Ann.Parkinson@atrax.net.au) to say you can attend. We need 20 acceptances.
The society welcomes the following five new full members. Sally Berridge has a Diploma in Book Editing and Publishing from Macleay College and works freelance for a number of clients concerned with the natural environment. Stephen Murphy writes and edits the War Memorial Foundation's newsletter Despatches. Kerrie Griffin is Publication Officer for the Australian Council of Overseas Aid and was previously Production Manager at McGraw-Hill Book Company in Sydney. B. Ara Nalbandian is Research Editor and Publications Manager at the Land Warfare Studies Centre, Dept of Defence, and also works freelance. Helen Hookey is Editor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, involved in academic editing, research and book production.
Anne Reed, who edits at Green Words and Images and was formerly at the Dept of Defence, and Nigel Biginell, who has edited and proofread defence documents and reports and now works freelance, have transferred from associate to full membership.
The society sadly acknowledges the resignations of Marjorie Curtis, who is retiring this year, and C. P. Rajasingham who is leaving Canberra.
How do literary editors know when they are on the right track? What are the criteria used in literary editing?
Accomplished* editor Pamela Hewitt will take us through the basics of literary or creative editing in a workshop from 9.30 am. to 12.30 pm. on Saturday 8 September at the Canberra Business Centre, Bradfield Street, Downer.
Issues will include assessing the way a text speaks to the reader; tone and voice; characterisation; dialogue; and plot development. Pamela will also cover common problems such as overwriting, repetitive sentence openings, and the use of clichés and language that is sentimental, old-fashioned or overly formal.
The workshop will provide examples from editing of literary fiction and non-fiction. This is a great opportunity for anyone who missed Pamela's workshop at the conference earlier this year.
Cost: members $40, non-members $80. Please send your name, phone and email address with your cheque to Ms Cathy Nicoll (Training), Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603 by 1 September if interested. Make cheques payable to The Canberra Society of Editors.
* This blurb was not written by the modest presenter.
Brett Lockwood, of the Victorian Society of Editors, is giving us the rare opportunity to experience one of his highly acclaimed on-screen editing workshops here in Canberra on Saturday 29 September, starting at around 9 am.
The course aims to help participants speed up their on-screen editing by learning how to creatively exploit and extend editing-related procedures in Microsoft Word 97. Extensive familiarity with Word is not required. A 70-page course booklet, covering all course components and formatted as a quick reference guide, is also provided.
You can find more details about the workshop from the training page on the Victorian Society of Editors' web site www.socedvic.org/. Also watch our own web site at www.editorscanberra.org for updates on the workshop.
Depending on the venue, the daylong workshop is likely to cost between $120 and $180 for members. Attendance at this workshop will be strictly limited, so please contact Cathy at cathy.nicoll@atrax.net.au soon if you are at all interested.
In The Canberra Times on 11 August, in an estate agent's blurb:
... Upstairs there are four bedrooms all with built-in wardrobes that are large enough to have double beds in each.The main bedroom is of an extra large size with views and a large wardrobe area along one entire wall.
Thanks to Peter Judge for spotting this and sending it in.
29 August Society's August meeting
27-31 August Freelance register entries due
31 August Membership renewals due
8 September Literary editing workshop
26 September Annual general meeting
29 September On-screen editing workshop
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
3 September 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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