At 6.00 for 6.30 pm sharp.
Dr Tom Frame will speak on 'Intellectual integrity versus commercial imperative: an author looks at book production and marketing'. See the Notice Board for details.
Next meeting
The president's column
Literary editing: then and now
New members
Our society's disclaimer
Word talk
Email the eds
From the editors
Promote your skills and business
News and notes
Training activities 2001
Book review
'Partnerships in Knowledge'
Copyright notice and deadline
Setting standards in the new millennium is an improving activity and one to which Australia's editors are contributing.
The Standards working group, coordinated by Kathie Stove of the South Australian Society of Editors and including our own Loma Snooks, has completed its work and produced a document for the consideration of members of all societies of Australian editors. If you don't already have a copy, you soon will.
We are asking you to cast a vote either accepting or rejecting the document. There has been ample opportunity to contribute to the process so at this stage it is a choice between acceptance or rejection. The standards will be revisited in several years time for appropriate expansion and revision.
I urge every one of you to vote. It is not only a courtesy to the extremely hard-working group that put it together but it acknowledges the importance of something which aspires to be a core professional guide for us all. The National Editing Standards, if accepted by a majority of those who vote, will be launched at the joint editors and indexers 'Partnerships in Knowledge' conference in April.
For the conference, the response so far from indexers and editors societies around the country has been very positive. We expect in excess of 250 local, interstate and international participants to this Australian first. Prices for the conference and the workshops on Day 4 have been kept at a very reasonable level so that the whole event will indeed offer value for money. Louise Forster is the contact person for more information or to secure a copy of the conference registration form. Contact her on 0419 635 838 or at www@interact.net.au.
On another matter, regrettably I was contacted recently by the Executive Officer of the ACT Writer's Centre with a complaint about the work of one of our members. She was seeking redress on behalf of one of her members. I explained that, as there were no formal accreditation procedures in place for Australian editors, our Society was not able to endorse (or bear responsibility for) the work of any of our members. I urge everyone to be as objective as possible when making personal recommendations (we all pass work on from time to time) and to uphold the reputation of our profession by seeking any training you might need to provide premium-quality service. For more on this, see the note about it and the Society's disclaimer below.
Finally, a reminder that the hospitality and socialising at our February meeting will begin promptly at 6 p.m. This will allow Dr Anna Gray to deliver what promises to be a fascinating talk before moving on to dinner (at the Zipp on Northbourne Avenue) at a reasonable hour.
Speaking of dinner, there has been a suggestion at the last committee meeting for 2000 that we might consider abandoning the practice and giving our guests a gift instead. There would still be the end-of-year dinner and perhaps one other night during the year (such as last year's quiz night) when a light supper was served. If you have any strong thoughts about this, I'd like to hear them.
Meanwhile, don't think of leaving town on 28 February!
Lee Kirwan
On 29 November 2000, an evening during which large arcs of the western horizon were continually whitened by lightning and the rain was like a waterfall, 50 members and friends of the Society met for the annual dinner, at the newly opened Kamberra Wine and Tourist Complex.
Our guest speaker was Susan Hampton, a literary editor who is a poet, short story writer, and teacher. She has been Writer in Residence at the three Canberra universities, teaching Professional Writing to students and members of the public alike, through workshops and one-to-one discussions.
In her talk, Susan sketched the differing approaches of the five editors who worked on Stravinsky's Lunch, a recent non-fiction book by Drusilla Modjeska. This is a double biography of the artists Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith. Only one of the five editors was paid for by the publisher. This editor was not given much time and so the job was rushed. One editor was the publisher, who again did not have a lot of time. The other three were friends of the author, who did the work as a favour because it is one of the flourishings of late capitalism that publishers no longer provide intensive creative editing.
Susan contrasted this situation to the editing of Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, in 1924. Editor Max Perkins at Scribners publishing house was known for his incisive mind, and he suggested major structural edits that tightened Gatsby into its final form. To make her comparisons, Susan drew on Trimalchio, an early version of Gatsby that has been published recently, edited by James West (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Perkins wrote to Fitzgerald and the letter shows his influence on the shaping of the narrative, as well as on the character of Gatsby himself. By the time Perkins finished his criticism, and Fitzgerald finished his rewrite, the character of Gatsby had been both psychologically deepened and stylised.
According to information from Trimalchio, Perkins 'was not an aggressive line editor... [he] rarely made revisions ''within the sentence'', for Fitzgerald or any of his other authors.' He would make only minor spelling and punctuation alterations to match house style. In fact, literary editing, while paying attention to the detail of copy editing, is working on another layer, where the editor is thinking about options, alterations, other possibilities.
Perkins suggested that Fitzgerald amplify Gatsby by adding verbal or physical characteristics, such as having him use 'Old Sport' in his speech. He wrote, 'Gatsby and his career ''must remain mysterious, of course'', ... ''somewhat vague''.' He pointed out that Fitzgerald could use mere touches here and there to hint at Gatsby's background instead of at first making the reader curious about it and then revealing it all at once.
Perkins also suggested radical shifts in the placement of passages of text. As a result of one of these moves, the scene changes suddenly from intimacy, between Gatsby and Daisy, at the end of chapter 5 to an interview with a young reporter at the start of chapter 6. Originally the part about the reporter came later in the book. These sorts of structural amendments are typical in editing literature, Susan said: the choice of a sequence of information that will achieve the best effect on the reader; the addition of layers of meaning; the skilful augmenting of a thinly portrayed character; the judicious deletions that soften a sharply described character so she (Daisy, for example) is hinted at instead.
Going on to Stravinsky's Lunch, Susan told us that Modjeska began the book as an account of a number of women painters between the wars. The first editor, Hilary McPhee, noticed the writing about Bowen and Cossington Smith was the strongest, and suggested the author concentrate on them. Once the manuscript was complete, Modjeska found that the publishers had decided to spend very little on editing because they consider that a big publicity budget will sell a book whether it has proper editing or not.
The author became distraught. There was no money for an editor attuned to the author's intentions and needs. Modjeska's partner began editing the manuscript, but difficulties ensued. The author's agent was called in and Susan Hampton was asked to take on the task, to do a style edit; here it was attention to voice and nuance that was most important. Later a mutual friend donated enough to pay both Susan and Drusilla, and eventually Stravinsky's Lunch was published.
This story is representative of publishing now. Most of Drusilla Modjeska's editors were friends of hers, but what other editing service could she tap? Scott Fitzgerald, by contrast, had the benefit of a thorough structural literary edit because editing was an accepted part of literary publishing in those days. Compared to the publishing environment that Fitzgerald and Perkins enjoyed, editing now is not really 'allowed', and publishers employ editorial staff who can copy edit but are too young to have built up a rich and deep experience of literature. From the modern author's point of view, they just can't help. An ideal literary editor has been reading literature for thirty years.
Ann Milligan
The Society welcomes four new full members. Tom Frame is author of 12 published books on aspects of Australian history, and editor of the Journal of the Anglican Historical Society and other publications. Ian Rae is an experienced editor in the Academic Skills Program at the University of Canberra. Suzette Searle is a freelance editor and communicator who has published extensively in forestry. Cinden Lester is a freelance communications consultant who has edited for some years with the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, and for the National Museum of Australia.
As Lee Kirwan mentions in her column (above) there has been a complaint about the work of one editor in our Society. The resolution of a problem such as this is a matter for the individuals involved; however, it reflects badly on the Society.
Our website, on the Freelance Ediors page, carries the following disclaimer, and a shorter version is in the Society's advertisement in the Writer's Services Directory:
The Society offers 'full membership' to members with appropriate qualifications and editing experience, and includes their names in this register of freelance editors at their request. However, at present there is no national certification of editors and hence no absolute standards of editorial competence, though these are being developed. The Society publishes the web and printed versions of the register in good faith and with due care, but it is obliged to say that in doing so it can give no guarantee that a particular editor will be suitable for a particular task.
As individual members of the Society, we should be careful not to convey the impression to clients that our own work is in any way endorsed by our membership of the Society. Also:
• when we recommend another member of the Society to a potential client, we should be sure of their competence for the potential work;
• we should be sure that the client realises that the recommendation is based only on personal knowledge;
• we should be very careful not to implicate the Society when making recommendations;
• and, of course, we should be trying to keep our customers satisfied.
Had you heard of chad before the November 2000 US Presidential election? Probably not, unless you had worked with teletype tape or old-fashioned computer tape or computer cards.
Chad are the bits punched out of the tape or the cards. Hardly anyone had heard of it till incompletely punched-out chad held up the result of the election. Now it is so much discussed that the American Dialect Society made it its Word of the Year for 2000.
Being linguists they weren't content with just noting a newly-prominent word&endash;they discussed its grammatical properties. The big question is: is chad a count noun or a mass noun?
Count nouns refer to things that can be counted individually, like handkerchiefs or computers. Mass nouns refer to things that occur in bulk and can't readily be counted, like sand or water. If you want to think of the individual bits that make up the mass, you can think of grains of sand or drops of water, but grains and drops are count nouns.
The two types have different grammatical properties.
• can have plurals (mountain/s, fence/s);
• use a or an in the singular (a wombat, an echidna);
• can't be used alone in the singular (*Table is rickety&endash;in linguistics an asterisk before a sentence means it isn't an acceptable construction);
• can be used with both the definite article (the thought) and the indefinite article (a thought);
• can be used with many but not much (many stars but *much stars);
• can be used with fewer but not less (fewer ants but *less ants&endash;though this seems to be a losing battle, with less used with count nouns becoming common).
• don't usually have plurals (*significances);
• use some but not a/an in the singular (some petrol but *a petrol);
• can be used alone in the singular (Gravel is crunchy);
• can be used with the definite article (the sago) but not the indefinite article (*a sago);
• can be used with much but not many (much dirt but *many dirt);
• can be used with less but not fewer (less honey but *fewer honey).
Some common nouns can be both count nouns and mass nouns; for example There were five cheeses on the cheese platter (count noun) and Cheese is a good source of calcium (mass noun).
Hence the American Dialect Society's discussion of whether chad is a count noun or a mass noun. Instances have appeared in print of its use as both: Seventy-eight chads were found at the back of a drawer (count noun), and Chad creates a mess on the floor (mass noun). Most people preferred it as a mass noun.
Pauline Bryant
Email the newsletter editors when you want to share a comment or a note: scientex@actonline.com.au; or alexa@pcug.org.au.
Maureen Wright emails:
'The Australia-wide email list Editorial-L is used only sparingly. Perhaps it is time our Society set up its own email addresses list. Subscribers could use it to share information just within our membership, and discuss tricky questions, etc. Probably none of us has access to list-server software, but that needn't stop us. The alternative is for participating members to contribute their email addresses to a central point, e.g. me. After waiting a month, to compile a fairly comprehensive list, I can send the list to all participants as a Word file that they add as a 'group' to their email address books. What do members think about this?'
Thanks to Ed Highley for two years of varied and interesting newsletters complete with dry humour, and to Sylvia Marchant for the October newsletter, and to Pete Martensz for the neat layout. We are lucky that Pete will be working with us too.
The new editors, Ann Milligan and Alexa McLaughlin, are both freelancers. Ann is mainly a science editor who wants to let the newsletter explore the extent of editors' work this year, and hopes to stimulate interaction between members of the Society. Alexa edits a wide variety of non-fiction works. She looks forward to supporting Ann's vision.
Support our conference 'Partnerships in Knowledge' and promote your business at the same time. Five opportunities are offered:
• exhibit your business, work, skills, products at the conference trade fair,
• sponsor an activity or aspect of the conference,
• advertise in the conference program,
• display your business card on the special pages set aside in the conference program,
• provide advertising or informative material for the conference satchel.
The trade fair will run on April 20, 21 and 22 only, with trade fair visits built into each day's program. Single unit stands (1 m 3 2 m) and multiple unit stands are available at a discount rate for members and professional bodies ($165 for three days), or a commercial rate ($265 per three days).
If you are interested in sponsoring part of the conference, please contact Louise Forster or Geraldine Triffitt (see below) to discuss your requirements.
Advertising in the conference program costs $110 per full page, $55 per half page or $27.50 per quarter page. To display a business card in the program costs $11 per card.
Satchel inserts (four items at most) cost $55 per organisation.
For further details contact: Louise Forster, phone (02) 6232 7511; fax (02) 6295 2289; www@wordsworth.com.au; Geraldine Triffitt, phone (02) 6231 4975, gtriffitt@interact.com.au.
There are only two months to go before the conference. Act now!
Job opportunity
Biotext (scientific consultancy, writing and editing business) requires a casual employee to manage its general office business. Good skills in Microsoft Office, Access, Outlook or other database management software in a PC environment are essential. Familiarity with the publishing process would be an advantage, as would knowledge of government tendering and contracting processes (possibly through previous employment in the public service). Hours negotiable (about one day per week). Contact Janet Salisbury, phone (02) 6282 2280; fax (02) 6282 2682; janet@biotext.com.au.
$15,000 prize for book, but be quick
The Independent Scholars Association of Australia, Inc., offers a prize of A$15,000 for a scholarly work in the form of a book first published between January 1999 and December 2000. Entries close on 28 February 2001.
The winning writer will be working in the broad fields of the sciences, humanities or social sciences. The judges will select a work that is scholarly, lucid, original and accessible to a general readership.
Enquiries: phone (02) 6249 3936; isaa@anu.edu.au. The entry form is available on http://www.independentscholars.asn.au/prize.htm .
The Australian Editing Handbook
An updated reprint of The Australian Editing Handbook by Elizabeth Flann and Beryl Hill is now available. The publishers, Common Ground Publishing, say: 'The Australian Editing Handbook is the only comprehensive Australian course book for professional editors'. Originally published by AGPS, the title has been out of print for a couple of years. This reprint is available from the publishers, phone (03) 9398 8000, fax (03) 9398 8088, admin@CommonGround.com.au, and will also be in university/TAFE and technical bookshops.
Retail price is $33.00 (incl. GST), but for members of our society it costs only $30.00 including postage and GST if your order is processed before 31 March. Order forms will be available at the February meeting.
The 2001&emdash;02 Register of Freelance Editors
Margaret Pender has volunteered to prepare the 2001&emdash;02 edition of the Freelance Register. The register provides a handy list of freelance editors and their capabilities, and is sent to a large number of potential clients of freelancers.
Members previously entered in the register are being contacted separately, but members seeking inclusion for the first time should contact Margaret for a sample entry as a guide to preparing their own entry.
Keep the information brief and simple (no more than 200 words) as it must fit into the limited space of one page per entry, but you may list 15&emdash;20 items you would like to have included in the index on your behalf.
Send completed entries in hard copy and on disc, or by email, to Margaret at 7 Urambi Village, Crozier Cct, Kambah ACT 2902, email mcpender@ozemail.com.au by Monday 12 March. Proofs of final entries will be sent back to you for checking.
Only full and financial members can be included in the register, and registration costs $40. Entries cannot be included until the registration fee is paid. Send your cheque to Marion Gilmour-Temu at the Society's PO Box 3222, Manuka, ACT 2603 by 12 March.
Writer's Centre tea
The ACT Writer's Centre holds informal monthly morning teas at the Cuisine Art Cafe, Gorman House. The next is on 7 March at 11.30 a.m. Craig Cormick, ACT Book of the Year Award winner, 1999, will be speaking. Inquiries: phone 6262 9191. Cost $6.
2001 Word Festival
Who Are We... Who Says? is the title of Canberra's biennial
literary festival this year. The festival will run from Friday 16
March to Sunday 18 March. Activities on the Friday will be at the
National Library of Australia (NLA); the remaining activities will be
at the ANU. Among the dozens of well known speakers will be Adrian
Caesar, Peter Cochrane, Anna Maria Dell'Oso, Morris Gleitzman and
Rosie Fitzgibbon.
Cost: $85; Friends of NLA, members of the ACT Writers' Centre $66;
concessions $50. Cost for one day only: $38; Friends of NLA, members
of ACT Writers' Centre $33; concessions $28.
For information and bookings: phone (02) 6249 7068; wordfest@cyberone.com.au.
Style Council 2001
This year the title of Style Council is 'From local to global English'. It is being held from 27 to 29 April at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Registration costs $247.50 before 16 March or $302.50 after that (inc. GST). For program details and registration form see the Council's website at
http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/style/program.html
or email: asmith@ling.mq.edu.au.
Claudia Marchesi and Cathy Nicoll will be organising training this year on some of the following, depending on demand: Project management; Grammar; Tables and references; Introduction to editing and proofreading; PDF formats; Presentation of documents for graphic designers; The role of the commissioning editor. The lunchtime discussions will also be starting again, at Gorman House. Further information will appear on the Society's website (noticeboard) and in future issues of the newsletter.
The Australian Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations, 5th edition, by David J. Jones. Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), 2000. ISBN 0 86804 557 8.
The latest edition of the Australian Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations (ADAA) contains more than 60 000 entries on more than 600 pages of fairly fine print, and still does not claim to be 'the last word'. As David Jones says in the Preface, 'The coining of new terms is an endless process'.
The ADAA lists and interprets not only acronyms and abbreviations but also initialisms. These are similar to acronyms but spelt out letter by letter in speech (e.g. BYO) whereas acronyms form a 'word' that can be pronounced (e.g. SOCOG). For each term the abbreviated form is given first, followed by the expansion.
Immediately, on page 1, one can see the danger of using an acronym or initialism in a piece of general writing without also stating its meaning at first occurrence. For instance, AAA can stand for 44 different terms(!), and the pattern continues throughout, with a couple of Z entries having two meanings each.
Among other additions to this edition are numerous terms generated by the GST and by the rise of the Internet since 1995: terms such as BAS (business activity statement) and AWGTHTGTATA (are we going to have to go through all this again?)&endash;an Internet chat term.
Older terms are here too, including 'wef' (with effect from) and 'nbg' (no bloody good). The ADAA also usefully provides abbreviations for the titles of Australian academic journals. Abbreviations for the names of most Australian university degrees are also listed.
I was disappointed that PDF is not given as portable document format and also that mL (millilitres) is listed as ml. David Jones explained these entries when I emailed him. (The Preface gives the address and invites comments and queries.)
This dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations is an attractively presented paperback and has been very carefully prepared&endash;I have not seen a single typo! On the whole it is a comprehensive and useful reference book that should enhance the libraries of many editors.
The ADAA is available only through ALIA, PO Box E441, Kingston, ACT 2604, phone (02)62851877, fax (02)62822249, enquiry@alia.org.au, or www.alia.org.au/publications/adaa. RRP $66 plus $16.50 handling.
Ann Milligan
20&emdash;23 April 2001, Rydges Lakeside Hotel
For details contact Louise Forster, 6232 7511 (w), 6295 2289 (w fax), 6260 8681 (h ph/fax)
0419 635 838 (mobile), www@wordsworth.com.au
or see the conference web site at:
The Canberra Editor is published by the Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603.
© Canberra Society of Editors
The deadline for the next regular issue is 25 February 2001.
Mail contributions on a 3.5 inch disk, using Word for Windows
essential, to:
Ann Milligan
Science Text Processors Canberra
PO Box 3161, Belconnen MDC, ACT 2617
phone/fax: (02) 6259 3080
email: scientex@actonline.com.au
Please specify the program used and always provide a printout as well.
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